The musician-teachers of Rise and Dream had just a week in November 2007 to light a fuse that could turn sound and fury into a new life for 13 Filipino teenagers.
They gave it their all, and so did the young musicians - in spite of the innumerable odds brought about by abject poverty and hardscrabble, random violence that are their companions from birth.
The Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, a lay Catholic organization that teams up with citizens who live in extreme poverty both through direct mission work and through donor sponsorship, decided to extend its work with the Filipino youths and, over the following years, create a film about the concert that grew out of that weeklong workshop.
Denton's Thin Line Film Fest will screen the world premiere of the documentary next month on the second day of the 10-day festival in downtown Denton.
Director Judy-Anne Goldman said the film began as a foundation project several years ago.
"Anywhere we go to do project work, we take John [Nosack, foundation cinematographer]," Goldman said. "We went to Zamboanga [a city in the southern Philippines]. We were there with our composer, Barclay Martin, to do a one-week workshop to teach Filipino youth to play traditional Filipino music. In all, there ended up being 50 kids from Zamboanga who came. Some of them really engaged, and some not so much. There ended up being 13 kids who agreed to work with us to do a concert."
Goldman said that most of the story on film took place after the one-week workshop. The 13 young men and women volunteered to help the foundation put on a concert for their community. Rehearsals and preparation for the concert took place after the workshop and lasted about two months from November '07 to January 2008. Accomplished Filipino musicians joined Martin and Paul Pearce, the film's producer and a reliable guitarist, in rehearsals. The film builds to the concert, but the breakout stars of the documentary are the plucky young Filipinos who surprise themselves with their potential and ability, and who surprise the viewer with their indomitable hope, a spirit that wiggles from under the thumb of the twin oppressions of terrorism and poverty.
Goldman said it wasn't difficult to grow fond of the children, a sentiment Pearce confirms in his biography posted on the film's website. Smiles are mostly big and ready - save one young man who said he "didn't know how to smile" before joining the little ensemble.
The group learns to play kulintangan, a set of bowl-like gongs lined along a rack and hit with bamboo beating sticks; a split bamboo drum called the agong; the kubing, a bamboo reed that hums when the musician blows through it; and the bandurria, a stringed instrument that sounds much like the mandolin. The concert drew 10,000 people, and the young musicians also performed the tinikling, a Filipino dance in which two performers rap two large bamboo poles together and on the ground as dancers step over and between them.
The music is one of the rare activities the youths do for themselves. In Zamboanga, impoverished children often pick through heaps of trash for useful or valuable materials and objects. They sell snacks and trinkets on street corners to help their families keep the electricity running in their oft-ramshackle homes.
"It's not just children who've gone through puberty who work," Goldman said. "It's children younger than that. These children live in homes where the father might go out and ride a pedicab, and he'll bring home maybe $5 a day. And the mother might take in laundry or stay at home to take care of the children. These families are sometimes living on less than $10 a day."
In one vignette, a young Filipino man in the ensemble takes the film crew on a tour through his small, clean house.
"This is where we all sleep, all five of us," the boy says, motioning at a spotless floor that looks about the size of a horse stall. What look like woven mats are strung together to make screens - or walls.
"Big, isn't it?" he says.
Goldman said the music is traditional, but the musicians are living in multicultural region where residents are Muslim, Catholic and indigenous in terms of religious identity.
"They are really at a crossroads of culture," Goldman said. "A lot of cultures have contributed to life in the Philippines. There are some great Filipino musicians who love this program, and some of them took on teaching these traditional instruments and music, and actually became the opening act at the concert."
The documentary also reflects a more contemporary form of Catholic mission work. Historically, Catholicism has been criticized for forced conversions of the people colonized by missionaries - and for forcing cultural practices and art into obsolescence. The foundation seeks neither conformity nor conversion when volunteers travel to do projects or bring aid after disasters.
"We believe that we've been called to serve the poor," Goldman said. "We have nothing but respect for the people we serve, and we feel blessed by their abilities and their unique knowledge - which they a lot of times share very freely with us. We never seek to oppress or convert. We only work to serve the poor."
The documentary has been submitted to a number of film festivals, and Goldman said the foundation expects to hear from festival organizers in the coming weeks.
"We're proud to have our world premiere with Thin Line, and we're excited to share the film with audiences," she said.
Members of the film crew and the foundation will attend the Feb. 11 screening.
LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com . RISE AND DREAM
• What: world premiere documentary
• When: 1 p.m. Feb. 11 during Thin Line Film Fest. The festival runs Feb. 10-20.
• Where: the Campus Theatre, 214 W. Hickory St.
• Details: For passes and single show tickets, visit www.thinlinefilmfest.com .
• On the Web: www.cfcausa.org
ABOUT THE NONPROFIT BEHIND THE MOVIE
The Christian Foundation for Children and Aging is a lay Catholic organization that has been fighting poverty in 22 countries over the last 30 years. The organization helps children and teens in impoverished regions enter and stay in school through donated financial sponsorships. The organization helps the elderly in impoverished regions maintain their health and independence through sponsorships, too. The group sends volunteers to areas for specific projects that help children, teens and the elderly develop and keep skills that ease or erase the most devastating effects of poverty and violence. The projects are about personal and economic growth, rather than distributing goods.
