Movie & Pizza Night
The new film I Will Build This World From Love (70 min), will be shown at Providence on Monday, February 10, at 6:30 PM, including a discussion afterward with one of the film’s principal subjects, Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili. Popcorn & pizza will be served. Admission is free, with donations accepted. All donations will go to the filmmakers’ efforts to bring the film to a wider audience.
Synopsis:
There is worry that Russia's encroachment on Ukraine will inevitably spell disaster for neighboring Georgia – a small country Russia invaded and permanently confiscated land from only 15 years earlier. Against this unsettling backdrop, I Will Build This World From Love tells the story of some young women and men from the country of Georgia who bravely aspire to practice their Judaism in all its fullness and without limitation. While their impending b’nai mitzvah ceremony raises the ire of Georgia’s dominant patriarchal orthodox Jewish community, they find acceptance from Georgia’s former Evangelical Baptist archbishop – demoted for his controversial stands against homophobia and Islamophobia. Undaunted, the charismatic visionary is building what he calls a Peace Cathedral, which houses a church, synagogue, and mosque under one roof – this, in an effort to advance interfaith relations and global harmony. In so doing, he partners with an indomitable rabbi from Israel and an effervescent American cantor and some congregants from New Jersey who are still reeling from a Molotov cocktail attack on their temple. From half a world away, they help train the spiritually hungry students, thereby enabling Georgian women to read publicly from the Torah for the first time in 2600 years.
The film comes from John Block, a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, who worked as an NBC NEWS long-form producer for 26 years, and Oliver Miede, a veteran journalist and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker who has spent more than four decades telling stories for television.
Don't miss your unique opportunity to experience and discuss this moving film!