IRC Film series offers a snapshot of life around the globe

The International Relations Commission’s annual Reel Time Film Series continues with the “Life in a Day 2020” on Jan. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre at 86 E 8th St. in downtown Holland. Admission is free. 

This year’s film series is a partnership of the IRC and Hope College. 

Life in a Day 220 is described as an ethnographic record of Earth in a moment of time. On July 25, 2020, people around the world picked up their cameras and filmed their day. They captured the ordinary and the extraordinary, the personal and the profound. 

They submitted their videos to producer Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald. The 324,705  videos were in 65 languages from 192 different countries. 

Some of the footage that became part of this film is about love, death, heartbreak, and hope that looks beyond geography and circumstance to explore what connects humans.

"We're living through this time of great political upheaval, and that's maybe at the forefront of our thoughts,” says filmmaker Kevin Macdonald. “But for a lot of people, the lived day-to-day experience, which is what I'm hoping we'll capture in the film, is not going to be about those big issues, at least not directly… I always say to people, 'What's boring to you, what's normal to you, is gonna be fascinating to other people.'" 

“Life in a Day 2020” made its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and is available on YouTube

‘View as a community’

“It was selected for the IRC’s Reel Time Film Series because it offers a  personal, intimate view of life around the world,” says IRC Chairperson Alissa Wilson. “What better way to connect to others across the globe than by coming together to view the film as a community.”  
“Life in a Day 2020” made its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
The final film in the 2021-22 Reel Time Film Series will be “Mayor,” a look at the life of Musa  Hadid, the charismatic mayor of the Palestinian city Ramallah, who aspires to lead the city into the future. 

Mayor will be shown on Jan. 18, 2022, at 7 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre in downtown Holland. 

The goal of the International Relations Commission is to build and maintain meaningful relationships between the people of Holland and the wider world through cultural, educational and professional contact. 

Programs include Great Decisions, American’s largest discussion program on world affairs; Reel Time film series; collaboration with our sister city Santiago de  Queretaro, Mexico; and the International Festival of Holland (Oct. 1, 2022). For more information visit Internationalrelations.cityofholland.com.

 
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Read more articles by Shandra Martinez.