Pangea Day, Pune
Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film. The concept behind pangea day is in a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film. The event took place at 18:00 GMT on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro all linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers.
Thoughtwoks, Pune did a public hosting for the event, the maximum entires were limited to 100. He is our take about the whole event.
Since, we attended the event in India it was a night event starting at 11:30 pm till about 4:00am. We reached before time and were happy to see enthusiastic people already gathered up for the event. The arrangements were really great, they managed to assemble a very big screen at their main hall along with great speakers. We were quite unclear with what was going to happen at the event but the volunteers really gave us indepth information of how the event would actually take place. So, the basic idea was that 24 short films were to be featured they had been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person’s eyes.
The idea was straight and simple so we just thought we should just wait patiently until the event starts. Thoughtworks had arranged some snacks so we headed straight to the cafeteria and got refreshed, we felt like a new energy within ourselves, we headed straight back to the main hall quickly because the event was about to start. By now a lot of people had gathered at the event and everyone was really keen and excited to watch the upcoming program.
So, the event started sharp at 11:30 pm IST and we had the first talk by Jehane Noujaim, she shared thoughts about how she won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference where she was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish. It was really an inspiring talk and a different viewpoint that she placed. Later the program featured a number of exceptional speakers and musical performers. Queen Noor of Jordan, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, musician/activist Bob Geldof, and Iranian rock phenom Hypernova are among those who took part.
The shortfilms that were featured were really touching and really gave a different perspective to life. The event also had brought close people from Israel & Palestine to bring out and emphasize on world peace.
All in all it was an amazing event, at the end we realized “it’s just not about me and you, it’s about us!”