2021 Freedom Crossing Institute Workshops
All workshops are hosted virtually on Zoom and free and open to the public.
Thursday, Nov 11th at 7-8:30p Eastern
Crossing Love and Nature: In Dialogue with Clive Wynne, author of Dog is Love
Summary
Join us on Thursday, Nov 11th at 7pm Eastern for a workshop with Dr. Clive Wynne, Professor of psychology and director of the Canine Science Collaboratory (Arizona State University Tempe) and author of Dog is Love. Dr. Wynne will share his insights into the world of dogs and wolves as we frame the screening of Twelve Nights 2 and Formosan Black Bear is Coming, two films that explore the societal and ecological impacts of our relationship with animals. Themes will include our relationship with dogs and their unique capacity for love, animal welfare across different nations, and building compassion for other species and wilderness.
Clyve WYNNE
Clyve Wynne a behavioral scientist with a fascination for dogs and their wild relatives, a psychology professor who directs the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University in Tempe, the Director of Research at Wolf Park in Battle Ground, IN, and the author of Dog Is Love.
Lee VANDIVIER (Moderator)
Lee Vandivier is a co-Founder of Freedom Crossing Institute. He works as a computational biologist at Arrakis Therapeutics (a Boston-area biotech), in dialogue with nature and hoping to uncover the secrets of RNA structure.
Saturday, Nov 20th at 7:30p-9:00p Eastern
Crossing Truth and Freedom: Dialogue with Taiwan Documentaries
Mandarin with live English translation
Summary
Freedom Crossing Film Festival (FCFF) is a stage for storytelling and that nourishes free dialogue across all kinds of boundaries. Over the past two years, we have celebrated a diversity of voices from East Asia. Last year, we included 16 films and documentaries representing 8 languages, 8 countries, and 16 forms of religious expression to explore how religious freedom is practiced in Asia. This year, we explore the natural world and our place in it through Crossing Love and Nature, a series of 5 documentaries touching on themes including human perseverance and our love for animals and wilderness. In this workshop, FCFF curator Minghua Hsiao will share how these films were selected and put into dialogue with one another.
To help frame the mission of FCFF, we are also honored to host Hao Jian ( professor at the Beijing Film Academy, film critic, screenwriter) and Wang Shi (Chief Marketing Officer of Activator Co., Ltd and film producer). We welcome these two distinguished speakers to discuss how the Taiwanese film industry aligns with FCFF’s mission to support freedom of expression through independent films and documentaries, and to share authentic voices and experiences from a range of different faiths, cultures, and histories.
HAO Jian
Jian Hao is a Professor at the Beijing Film Academy, as well as a film critic and screenwriter. His publications address Chinese independent and genre films in Hong Kong and Hollywood. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times Chinese edition and BBC Chinese News, and a regular participant at New York University’s “Reel China @NYU Film Biennial,” which screens independent films from China that cannot be screened on the Mainland.
WANG Shi
Wang Shi is the Chief Marketing Officer of Activator Co., Ltd, and was involved in marketing many major Taiwan films such as ‘Detention’ and ‘Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above’. He is also producer of the film ‘‘Chen Uen’, which was shortlisted for the best documentary at the 57th Golden Horse Awards.
Minghua HSIAO (Moderator & Speaker)
Minghua Hsiao is the Founder of Freedom Crossing Institute and Curator of the 2021 Freedom Crossing Film Festival. She is a former Visiting Scholar in the Center for East Asian Studies at University of Pennsylvania, and is Chief Editor of Freedom Publisher of Taiwan. Freedom Publisher was founded in 1953 and focuses on religious freedom through historical preservation of Daoist and Buddhist manuscripts and making these texts accessible to contemporary society.
