SAVAC launches film program in GTA schools

The South Asian Visual Arts Centre has launched a pilot project to place short films from its annual MONITOR film screening into schools across Greater Toronto. Students from the Toronto and Toronto Catholic district school boards from grades 7 through 12 will be taught these short films throughout 2010-11. A more detailed announcement will be made by SAVAC and the TDSB later this fall.

Allan teaches Tapestry at the TDSB's Asian Heritage Month Symposium at OISE last May (photos: Allan)

SAVAC's Education Officer, Allan Tong, spent the better part of 2010 contacting individual schools in the school boards and wrote the teacher's lesson plans for all 12 short films, which include Rex vs. Singh directed by Ali Kazimi, Richard Fung and John Greyson. Many of the films are documentaries though some are animated and experimental. The themes touch on human rights, immigration, Canadian history, racism and gender roles.

TDSB's Asian Heritage Month Symposium

One of the films, Tapestry directed by Sharlene Bamboat, was already taught at symposiums during Asian Heritage Month last May. Allan taught those workshops himself and wishes to thank Karlo Cabrera at the TDSB for co-writing the Tapestry lesson plan with him and for organizing the TDSB event which take place at OISE in downtown Toronto.

Allan also thanks Christine Jackson, the Program Coordinator of The Arts at TDSB, and his colleagues at SAVAC, Srimoyee Mitra, Koko Kurunathan and executive director Haema Sivanesan. This is merely the beginning of the Films Program at SAVAC.