Introducing Pangea Day

Introducing Pangea Day

Jehane Noujaim.

I came to know this incredible woman early last year. I was surfing Youtube and I came across this video with an intriguing description: "Visionary documentary filmmaker, TED Prize Winner, and Pangea Day founder Jehane Noujaim speaks to an audience of "the world's leading thinkers and doers" at the 2006 annual TED Conference. Watch and listen as she unveils her inspiring wish - to change the world through the power of film."

I felt compelled to watch her speech, as my curiousity drove me into wanting to know how on earth exactly can you change the world through films. How on earth exactly, I ask you?

I took the liberty to transcribe the beginning of her speech and let the text seduce you into clicking the Youtube video link to her speech. Indulge in her powerful and inspiring speech, and by the end of it you'll most probably feel like contributing to world peace, without feeling corny.

I can't help with this wish to think about, when you're a little kid and all your friends ask you, "If a genie could give one wish in the world, what would it be?" And I always answered "Well, I'd want the wish to have the wisdom to know exactly what to wish for," Well then you'd be screwed because you'd know what to wish for and you'd used up your wish, and now since we only have one wish (...) I'm not gonna wish for that.

So let's get to what I would like... which is world peace.

And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "The poor girl up there, she thinks she's at a beauty peagent. She's not, she's at the TED prize."

But I really do think it makes sense. And I think the first step for world peace is for people to meet each other. I'd met a lot of different people over the years and I've filmed some of them (...)

So what I'd like to talk about today is a way for people to travel, to meet people in a different way because you can't travel all over the world at the same time (...)

Now I really think that as the world is getting smaller, it becomes more and more important that we learn each other's dance moves, that we meet each other, we get to know each other, we figure out a way to cross borders, to understand each other, to understand people's hopes and dreams, what makes them laugh and cry. And I know that we all can't do exchange programs and I can't force everybody to travel (...)

But I'd like to talk about another way to travel that doesn't require a ship or an airplane, and just requires a movie camera, a projector and a screen. And that's what I'm going to talk about today.

I'll talk more about what I did (or at least planned to do) right after her speech touched my heart and my mind. Just wait for it.

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(Who says Youtube is no good?)

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(credits to Nokia)