“The Shining Lights of Opuwo,” the first film in a documentary series about the problem of AIDS in the African nation of Namibia, has been chosen for screening at two film festivals this summer.
The film, which was produced by students, faculty and staff in the Project Pericles program at Elon, will be shown at the Boston International Film Festival June 24-27 and at the Da Vinci Film and Video Festival in Corvallis, Ore., July 16-18.
Tom Arcaro, professor of sociology and director of Project Pericles at Elon, traveled to Namibia in 2003 with Jay McMerty, senior video producer, to gather initial footage for the film.
In January, Arcaro and McMerty were joined by Bryan Baker, senior audio producer, and students Katrina Taylor, Rachel Copeland and Samantha White on a second trip to Namibia to gather more footage. Taylor is a communications major, while Copeland and White are Periclean Scholars, a select group of students who are focusing on the problem of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
“The Shining Lights of Opuwo” is a 30-minute film featuring children from Opuwo, Namibia. The Elon group cut an audio CD of songs performed by the AIDS Awareness Club in Opuwo, and plans call for the CD to be sold together with the documentary DVD, to be titled “Maturisa Ehinga: We Are Fighting AIDS.”