BRIDGE (Movie Values Forum)

• Becoming Critical, Appreciative & Discriminative Movie Consumers

Why Bridge Forums?

Movie watching, and the experience of cinema, is an integral part of our lives. Due to the wide availability of VCDs & DVDs, movie watching has increasingly become a home activity. Viewers do not always select 'good' movies - they often watch any movie that is available. Though movies are packaged as entertainment, they contain pertinent themes and important values. Are these values consistent with our beliefs and culture, or do they subtly  promote attitudes and behaviour that are detrimental to the community? Bridge is a monthly moderated forum that examines themes, topics, issues and values as they are portrayed and presented in movies. Through the Forum, participants better understand their movie-watching experience.

Objectives

• To enable participants to look beyond "entertainment" in order to understand the values and issues that are presented in the movie

• To encourage participants to choose movies with 'good' values, and not just any "entertaining" movie
• To orientate participants to become critical, appreciative and discriminative movie consumers
• To create an awareness of movies as powerful storytellers
• To motivate participants to use movies and movie clips as a method of discussing issues in the parish, community & BEC
• To provide the basic skills of audio-visual literacy to 'read' the language of movies
• To equip participants with basic skills to conduct movie discussions in their own BECs, communities and groups

Methodology

By means of large-screen projection and comfortable auditorium facilities, the Bridge Movie Values Forum provides viewers with a sense of the 'real' cinema experience. The Forum facilitator initiates the discussion and opens it into an interactive, participative environment to maximize the viewer's engagement and understanding of the movie. In this way, viewers are able to relate to the movie from their own experiences, and share this experience with fellow viewers. Through this process of sharing, discussing and interacting, the Bridge Movie Values Forum enables participants to have an enriching movie experience.

Who Should Attend

• Parish Leaders
• BEC Leaders & Coordinators
• Formators, Facilitators & Trainers
• Youth Leaders & Youth Groups
• Church & Parish Workers
• Communication Ministries
• Catechism & School Teachers
• Religious, Seminarians and Aspirants
• College & University Students
• Forms 5 & 6 students
• School Leavers
• Parishioners
• Social Workers & NGO Staff
• Those who want to communicate effective through movies
• Anyone interested in learning from movies

Forum Duration

The Bridge Forum is 3 hours. The movie screening takes about 2 hours, and the discussion starts after that. Movies in 4 languages are usually screened as follows:

English - fourth Tuesdays at 7.30pm
Bahasa Malaysia - third Sundays at 2.30pm
Tamil - first Tuesdays at 7.30pm

Mandarin - third and fourth Saturdays at 4.00pm

• Intro to Bridge Forum
• Intro to Movie
• Intro of Facilitator
• Facilitator's Comments
• Screening of Movie
• Movie Summary & Highlights
• Questions & Answers
• Open Discussion
• Bridge Round-Up

What You Will Benefit

• Become aware that movies are more than just entertainment; they also contain themes, issues and values
• Identify how to choose movies with wholesome values
• Acquire skills to become a critical, appreciative and discriminative movie consumer
• Realise that movies are persuasive storytellers
• Understand how to use movies to promote discussion in communities and BECs
• Discover the basic skills of 'reading' a movie
• Learn the basic skills of conducting a movie discussion