HONGKONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - 27 July 2020 - Over the past five months, students from Hong Kong and New Havenhave been participating in a stay-at-home filmmaking program that guides themto create short films about their experiences during the pandemic. Theinitiative, called Film Stylo, was started by Jeremy Hung, founder of BabelFilm Workshop, amid an arts residency at Yale, and has resulted in aninternational archive of student films documenting this historic time.

Jeremy Hung speaking at a welcome reception for Yale-China Arts Fellows at Yale University.
Photo: Emily Chew / Yale-China Association
https://bit.ly/2TWD9bq

In January, Jeremyarrived at the university for a fellowship administered by the Yale-ChinaAssociation and supported by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in NewYork. Jeremy had begun working with US students to promote arts and culturalexchange, but school closures in March abruptly cancelled his plans. Underlockdown at home, Jeremy launched Film Stylo as an online filmmaking initiativeto address students' emotional wellness and foster intercultural empathythrough filmmaking.

Over 200 studentsworldwide have since signed up. "Many of our students have produced their bestwork as a result," said Kieran Ryan, Head of Film at King George V School. Thefilms have been shared with other student filmmakers across the globe. "I feellike I can relate to others who participated in the initiative," reflectedYareli Calderon Romero, a junior at a New Haven Public School. "It made myexperience feel a lot better and less lonely."

Dr. Eunice Yuen, a ChildPsychiatry Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center, has also contributed to theinitiative's design. "One of our goals is to foster the psychological conceptof mentalization through self-reflection, sharing, and discussion," Dr. Yuensaid. "Mentalization helps students nourish a healthy sense of self and othersin the world, promoting empathy, diversity, and inclusion in our nextgeneration of students."

After his fellowship,Jeremy plans to develop Film Stylo into a global filmmaking platform thatprovides visual literacy education and facilitates arts and cultural exchangebetween classrooms around the world. "The pandemic has made it clear thatstudents' lives today are dominated by technology, so it's more important thanever that we teach them to keep sight of what makes us human," said Jeremy. "Asthe world's most powerful communication medium, filmmaking is the best way ofdoing that."

[See the films and signup at: www.filmstylo.com]

Babel Film Workshop

Babel Film Workshopbegan advocating and advancing visual literacy education for Hong Kong studentsin 2018. Since then, it has provided opportunities for hundreds of students toengage in the most powerful communication medium in the world by teaching filmas a universal language. Its team of filmmakers and educators is dedicated topromoting film culture as a crucial way to increase our empathy of others. Visitus at www.babel.com.hk and get our updates on Facebook and Instagram.