Description
Meet the ultimate citizens whose superpower is empathy
THE POWER OF SMALL (DOCUMENTARY 42 min): In a world longing for compassion and human connection, imagine gathering a diverse group, endowing them with unexpected financial means, asking them to focus on a single mission: spread kindness. No rules, no supervision – just empathy as their guide.
AWARDS/ACCOLADES for ULTIMATE CITIZEN:
WINNER – Feature Documentary Jury Humanitarian Award, Woods Hole Film Festival, MA
WINNER – Best Feature Documentary Jury Award, San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, CA
WINNER – Best Picture Jury Award, Ely Film Festival, MN
WINNER – Excellence in Feature Filmmaking Jury Award, Cindependent Film Festival, Cincinnati, OH
WINNER – Feature Documentary Special Jury Performance Award, Oak Cliff Film Festival, Dallas, TX
WINNER – Best Feature Film Jury Award, Los Alamos Film & Culture Festival, NM
WINNER – Best Director Jury Award, Los Alamos Film & Culture Festival, NM
WINNER – Best Feature Documentary Jury Award, Oxford Film Festival, Oxford, MS
(25 Awards in total)
FRIDAY, SEPT 12TH
7 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm)
Total Run time (both films): 1 hour 34 min
See ULTIMATE CITIZENS trailer HERE
See THE POWER OF SMALL trailer HERE
Director’s Statement, Francine Strickwerda
ULTIMATE CITIZENS is not a movie about Frisbee. The “flat ball” is one tool that Jamshid Khajavi uses in his work as a primary school counselor. A fiery, funny 65-year-old Iranian immigrant and ultra-endurance athlete, Jamshid does some of his best work on the playing field with his students, the children of refugees and immigrants.
In a season of healing, Jamshid coaches two intrepid 11-year-olds, Nyahoak, whose South Sudanese parents came to the U.S. as refugees, and Pio, whose Samoan parents came for a better a life, but struggled through homelessness. Jamshid mentors the kids on their way to compete in the world’s largest youth Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
The story unfolds at Hazel Wolf K-8 School in Seattle, a city known for its high-tech companies and $7 coffees. It’s also an America where many families quietly struggle to afford housing and survive.
Jamshid’s efforts to build community where all kids can thrive are heroic. But it’s the parents who work low-paying jobs around the clock, and their first-generation Americans kids, who are the champions. They save themselves, with a little help from a counselor in a supportive school.
At a time when schools are on the frontlines of America’s culture wars, some politicians and parents are fighting the work of counselors like Jamshid. He teaches social emotional learning and sex education. He talks with families about grief and loss, and helps remove barriers to learning and belonging.
Today there are roughly 100 million forcibly displaced people around the world – more than at any time in modern history. The plight of these asylum seekers is increasingly met with anti-immigrant policies and violence.
The documentary offers an antidote, and a vision of a more welcoming America. You often hear Jamshid saying to people, “I’m so glad you’re here,” and he means it. For almost 40 years he’s taught children how to be “ultimate citizens” – to look out for themselves and each other, and to choose inclusion over exclusion. Jamshid and the kids show us how to do the hardest work of all – find our way forward, together.
— Francine Strickwerda, Director, ULTIMATE CITIZENS
CREATIVE FILMMAKING TEAM
Directed, Produced and Written by Francine Strickwerda
Edited by Nate Lessler, Gabrielle Shelton-Jenck, Charlie Spears
Cinematography by Doug Plummer, Francine Strickwerda, Nakean Wickliff
Executive Producer: Tracy Dethlefs
Directors Statement: T.C. Johnstone
As a director, my goal is to tell stories that will educate, entertain, and inspire you to live a life of purpose. The Power of Small is a different film for me. It is the first film I am both the director and a participant in the story. It is the first film that took me on a very personal journey. From being recruited as a “kindness ambassador,” to persuading Terri to let me make a film about the Kindness Movement, to going deep within to find my own path to extending kindness, to taking my film crew to film six of the kindness ambassadors, I kept stumbling into my own story.
Who among us has not needed kindness? Whether you needed a teacher who understood dyslexia, or wanted to feel valued for the work you did, or hungered for community, or were moved by the power of music, or treasured the unconditional love (and kindness) of your dog, we all need kindness. And the truth is – extending kindness benefits both the giver and the recipient, and even the smallest of actions can have immense power. That is the story in The Power of Small. My hope is that everyone who watches this film is persuaded to find a way to change the conversation. – T.C. Johnstone, Director of The Power of Small
DIRECTOR T.C. Johnstone
PRODUCER Kristen Johnstone
CINEMATOGRAPHER Andrew Robinson
SECOND CAMERA Jack Zakrajsek
SOUND Kristen Johnstone
DRONE OPERATOR Jack Zakrajsek
EDITOR Tyler Boyd
POST COLOR Justin Arwood
SOUND MIX Cleod9 Music
ANIMATION Scope & Sequence
ORIGINAL SCORE Scott Stevens
PHOTOGRAPHY Ally Cole
STORY CONSULTANT Gregg Helvey
