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Issue date: 9/22/06 Section: News

Media Credit: Casey Flynn Documentarist Sarah Feinbloom speaks with Senior Joe Tognetti, president of the Catholic Student Association, Junior Dina Sayeed, president of the Muslim Students Association and Senior Cindy Ha, president of the Viatnamese Students organization prior to a panel of responses to her film. [Click to enlarge]

As a part of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative, filmmaker Sarah Feinbloom spent time on campus last week with students and faculty for a viewing and discussion of her award-winning documentary, "What Do You Believe?"

According to Feinbloom, she made the film to contribute to an open dialogue about the various religious views held by American teenagers.

"I never expected that people would agree with everything in the film, but it has never failed to spark interesting dialogue," Feinbloom said.

The film focuses on the religious views of high-school-age youth. According to Feinbloom, she chose this age group because the spiritual struggle of children is fresh and dominant in their minds at this particular stage of life.

Feinbloom said it was not difficult to get close enough to these students to make a film about their personal spiritual lives.

"I used to be a high school teacher, and I am used to these types of inter-generational relationships," Feinbloom said.

Feinbloom attributes the film's success to its exploration of lesser-known religious foundations in American culture. Included in the film is a teen who worships as a Pagan and a young man affiliated with the Native American Church, in Pine Ridge, S.D. At times, both young people in the film question the existence of a Judeo-Christian God entirely.

Feinbloom said that she acknowledges that there were ethical concerns with the way she chose to produce the film and who she decided to include in the final cut.

"I was constantly battling with questions of whether I was just looking at these people's faith or whether I was giving them a platform for preaching," Feinbloom said.

Continued...

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