Community Building With Films
Discover how films can bring people together, spark conversations, and inspire positive change. Join Shoulder to Shoulder on Wednesday, September 20th at 2pmET for a 90-minute conversation about the power of film as a tool to support community healing, process experiences of violence, and engage new communities in the important ongoing work of building a pluralistic and inclusive country. This conversation will feature Aber Kawas, a community organizer featured in An Act of Worship, Pardeep Singh Kaleka co-director of Not in Our Town, and Dr. Hussein Rashid a professor and scholar of religion specializing in Muslims and American Popular Culture. This conversation will equip community leaders with a new and growing list of films and resources they can use in their community conversations and engagement as we explore how films can help change hearts, minds, and actions.
From exploring the role of documentaries in raising awareness about social issues to discussing the influence of fictional films in shaping our perceptions, this event offers a unique opportunity to delve into the world of community building through cinema. Join us online for Community Building With Films and be part of a global conversation that explores the transformative power of movies!
The Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign: Standing with American Muslims, Advancing American Ideals, is a national multifaith coalition committed to building a country where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. Our multifaith coalition was founded on the notion that anti-Muslim discrimination is not just a “Muslim issue” but a problem that impacts us all. If religious communities and people of faith in the United States are connected, equipped, and mobilized to address, counter and prevent anti-Muslim hatred, discrimination, and violence, we will build a more inclusive and pluralistic nation where people of all faiths and cultural backgrounds are treated respectfully, fairly, and with dignity.
Speakers:
Pardeep S. Kaleka MS, LPC Pardeep is the co-director of Not In Our Town, specializing in community hate prevention and de-radicalization interventionist with Parents4Peace, assisting families & individuals entrenched in extremism offramp from hateful ideologies. He also currently serves as a professor on Peace Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Pardeep is the co-author of, “The Gifts of Our Wounds” and an award-winning columnist with Milwaukee Independent, contributing articles on community mental health concerns. As a first-generation immigrant from India, Mr. Kaleka has spent more than 25 years in law enforcement, education, social services, counseling and assisting hate crime survivors and perpetrators across the United States with recovery.With a specialization in community psychology, he has assisted in developing policies and practices to help mental health workers, social service practitioners, law enforcement agents, and educators build healthier, safer, more inclusive communities across the US.
Aber Kawas is a Palestinian-American community organizer from Brooklyn, New York. She has been working with the Arab and Muslim communities in New York City around policy issues such as immigration reform, unlawful policing, and surveillance and advocating against Islamophobic policies. Aber served as the NYC Advocacy Specialist with the Campaign to Take on Hate under the National Network of Arab American Communities, transitioning from her position as Advocacy Director at the Arab American Association of NY. Aber, who has relocated to Johannesburg South Africa to complete an MA focused on Islamic Liberation Theology, is a featured participant in the Tribeca premiered documentary An Act of Worship and has been the Impact Producer on the project since 2022.
Hussein Rashid, PhD, is Assistant Dean of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. His research interests include Muslims and US popular culture and Shi’i theologies of justice. He has published a chapter on Muslim representation in film, and is co-editor, with Kristian Petersen, of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Muslims and Popular Culture (2023). He is an executive producer of the award-winning NYT op-doc The Secret History of Muslims in the US, and is currently a consulting producer on a multi-hour documentary project on Muslims in the US. Hussein is part of the Pillars Fund’s inaugural Muslim Narrative Change Fellowship, which seeks to add nuance to depictions of Muslims on screen and television.