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Beyond Empathy | Press and Articles | Firelight Media

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“The premise for empathy has to be equal humanity; it is an injustice to demand that the maligned identify with those who question their humanity.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Over the last 15 years I have read an inordinate amount of documentary film proposals for my work. So much so that I’ve come to expect to come across the line when the filmmaker is asked, ‘why does this story need to be told?’, and the filmmaker inevitably responds, “to put a human face on (insert marginalized group here)”. And in one line, the wheels of the empathy machine begin to turn. The notion that film holds unique power to build understanding, connection, and indeed, empathy, for others is not a new one. In fact an entire industry has been built over the last decade on the premise that documentary films are particularly useful tools at sparking change in beliefs and actions. But there is something implicit in the desire to build empathy that is based on the assumption that subjects of documentary films are

Beyond Empathy | Press and Articles | Firelight Media DONATE Back to Articles From Sonya Childress, Director of Partnerships and Engagement, Firelight Media March 21, 2017 Beyond Empathy “ The premise for empathy has to be equal humanity; it is an injustice to demand that the maligned identify with those who question their humanity .” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Over the last 15 years I have read an inordinate amount of documentary film proposals for my work. So much so that I’ve come to expect to come across the line when the filmmaker is asked, ‘ why does this story need to be told? ’, and the

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