Hosted by Cairns Peace Week 2006

The “Being Human” documentary Film Festival

The complexities of human nature have shown throughout time, that for whatever reason, peace, equality and social justice are not things to be achieved as simply as we would hope. 

The films selected for the Being Human film festival will feature Documentary Filmmakers who have not only documented important events, but who have also taken on the hard issues, analyzed them, exposed them and given them a human face. 

The Being Human documentary film festival will weave a tapestry of stories that will represent some of the most poignant issues facing our quest for peace and justice. Peace in our homes, peace in the streets, peace in our communities, peace in our countries and peace in our minds and hearts.  

Frontier Documentaries has pulled together a two day documentary film festival that will inform and encourage debate, sometimes shock and hopefully inspire positive social change.  The festival mainly showcases Australian documentary filmmakers who have captured these kinds of stories.

Out of these struggles come the unsung heroes, the crusaders for freedom, peace, justice and positive social change.   Our Australian filmmakers have told inspiring stories from our homeland whilst others have ventured to places like Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Iraq.  The film festival will also showcase a handful of overseas filmmakers’ work from India, South America and Africa.  

The films selected will remind us of our vulnerability at the mercy of other human hands together with celebrating the perseverance, determination, power and wisdom of the human spirit.  We hope to provoke deep thinking and maybe, just maybe it will change something in the way an individual thinks, communicates and decides to take action.  We also know we will be reconfirming and reinspiring those who are already part of fighting for change.

The Being Human doco film festival will donate 100% of its profits to the Cairns Sexual Assault Unit to assist in providing services to children who have been victims of sexual assault.

 The event hosting the documentary festival

Cairns Peace Week 2006

United in Diversity Community Festival                                       

Commemorating the UNESCO International Decade for The Culture of Peace 2000-2010

Mission Statement: To Build Compassion and Understanding in The Community.

The Cairns Peace Week United In Diversity Community Festival, is the only one of its kind in Australia, dedicated to commemorating the UNESCO International Decade For The Culture of Peace 2000-2010 initiative. The festival has also become one of the largest community initiated events supported by the Cairns City Council, every year since 2000.  Cairns City Council is also the only Government Authority in Australia to host a yearly event dedicated to this UNESCO initiative.  The overall festival is coordinated within the Council’s Community Development Department, through the Local Area Multicultural Partnership (LAMP) program. One of the key goals of the LAMP program and Peace Week is to improve community relations between people of all cultures and backgrounds and to encourage Council and the private and public sectors to get more involved with their communities. Peace Week has become a powerful vehicle for bringing these worlds together through various entertainments based, educational and awareness raising activities.

Peace Week brings together people from a diversity of cultures, ages, social, spiritual and ideological backgrounds.  The festival entertains while it educates, encourages discussion, cross cultural communication, increases awareness and facilitates the expansion of community networks. The themes of peace, social justice, anti-racism,  human rights and diversity are expressed and cultivated through a wide range of creative mediums that include, film, music, song, dance, theatre, literature, visual arts / photographic exhibitions, forums, workshops, dinners, lectures, sports and environmental based activities. Every year the festival Is supported by a small army of volunteers, community organizations, receiving the majority of its sponsorship and in-kind support from private and public sectors, small project grants where required, and the Cairns City Council.   For the past three years, the festival has incorporated a fund raising activity, to assist community-based organizations.  The amazing thing is, that most of the festival happens without funding, but succeeds through the generous spirit of our community partners and volunteers.

This year the festival will help raise funds for the Sexual Assault Unit to enable them to assist in providing services to affected children.  Children and their protection will be a recurring theme throughout the festival.  

The event receives no target funding; focusing instead on building social capital through regular community meetings and email bulletins, to keep communication channels open and flowing, information/resource sharing and exchanging, individual project funding programs, and the building up the skills and capacity of participants and their projects.

The Cairns community, along with the support of the Council , are committed to seeing this festival out to the end of the decade, 2010.