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Uncommon Ground is the most moving, lesson-filled documentary about youth intercultural experiences I have seen. The film documents the individual and collective adventures of five teenagers from Los Angeles and filmmaker Amie S. Williams as they travelled to South Africa to see with their own eyes the moods, effects, and systems of Apartheid. The group flew to Grahamstown, South Africa, where each stayed with a host family, toting their own home movie cameras to capture the essences of their own experiences.

Uncommon Ground is amazingly timely. Their trip came shortly after Nelson Mandela's release, and shortly before the L.A. riots. This sets a suitable context, as the film finds a complicated but delicate balance between the process of learning about "the other" and learning about "the self." According to Williams, "The film chronicles their journey, both geographical and personal, into a world of separatism, contradiction, violence, and unexpected beauty."

Williams begins the film by revealing her own set of thoughts and questions about today's youth, their activism, and how they differ from the previous - or her own - generation. She observes an anti-Apartheid rally attended by, among others, the five teenagers chosen for the trip, and wonders if they really have any understanding about what they're rallying against. Her self-reflective, introspective approach along with her clear efforts to avoid being blatantly political result in an accessible, humble, and personal account.

One might guess that they would learn a lot about the people of South Africa by watching Uncommon Ground. That certainly seems, as one hits the "play" button, to be the point of the film. But Uncommon Ground has deeper value than a surface exploration of the hosts of this group of American travelers. It is actually less about the people of South Africa than it is about the journeys of the filmmaker and the five youths. And to take it a step further, the film's value is less in its documentation of the youths' journey to South Africa than in its glimpses into the self-reflective, personal growth processes of the participants. It overflows with crucial lessons about studying and understanding culture and social justice including:

1. (as mentioned above) the importance of understanding "other" within the context of "self" - the participants continually modeled a process of reflecting what they learned in South Africa back on their own lives and experiences;
2. the global nature of intercultural issues - broadening the too-often-too-narrow America-centric approaches to understanding "diversity";
3. the fact that everybody brings unique experiences and lenses through which they filter information and interactions - it was clear that the trip meant different things to each person, including the filmmaker, and it was intense and intriguing to watch how the journey played out for each of them;
4. and the ways in which we have things in common with people who we may perceive as hugely different.

Woven into the larger film is a series of themed short films by each of the participants, who, as I mentioned above, were given small video cameras to record the trip from their own perspectives. By encouraging the subjects' participation in creating the film, Williams seemingly becomes the first "critical pedagogy" filmmaker - adopting the Paulo Freiere approach which says that learners are teachers, teachers are learners, and everybody has an important story to tell and contribution to make. In this case, participants become researchers - the study-ers become the studied. As a result, everyone wins: the five youths gain more control in how their experience is shared with viewers; Williams ends up with some of the most rich and wonderful footage of the entire film; and the audience is blessed with having six perspectives, instead of one, through which to develop a greater understanding of the dynamics of the relationships and personal growth that are the essence of the film.

I highly recommend Uncommon Ground for high school and college educators in areas including Anthropology, American Studies, Cultural Studies, Education, and International Relations looking for tools through which to introduce intercultural relations issues in an accessible way, encouraging self-reflection, introspection, and the complexities of intercultural friendships.

Organization and institution purchases can be made by contacting the educational distributor, New Day Films, at 888-367-9154.

For further purchasing information, contact Bal-Maiden Films
211 North Buffalo Dr., Ste. D
Las Vegas, Nevada 89145

Phone: 702.804.0722
Fax: 702.804.0745

Email: balmaiden@aol.com

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