St. Thomas University Wins Miami International Film Festival Award for Haiti Documentary

MIAMI – Miami’s St. Thomas University is the winner of this year’s Miami International Film Festival Florida Focus Student College Social Short Film Competition for the documentary Blooming Hope – shot in Haiti prior to the recent earthquake – that chronicles the University’s in-country social missions.

The Florida Focus Screening and Awards Ceremony will be held Thursday, March 11, 2010 at the Tower Theater, 1508 SW 8th Street, Miami FL. The program begins at 7 PM.

St. Thomas University’s involvement in Haiti advocacy efforts dates to the 1980s when a “sister-diocese” relationship was created between the Archdiocese of Miami and the Diocese of Port-de-Paix in hopes of ameliorating the root causes of the Haitian migration to the U.S. In 2001, St. Thomas University President, Monsignor Franklyn M. Casale, led a University delegation traveling to the capital for the opening of Haiti Tech, a trade school built by an alliance of South Florida business.

Haiti Tech miraculously survived Haiti’s earthquake. The STU team – comprised by faculty, staff and students under the leadership of Anthony Vinciguerra, Director of St. Thomas Center for Social Justice – is now engaged in three long-term development projects in Port-de-Paix: a Fair-Trade Artisan project with Haitian women; a Solar Energy Program in Baie-de-Henne and a Fair-Trade Coffee Collaboration with coffee farmers from the diocese of Port-de-Paix. These initiatives are providing both immediate relief and long-term development to this extremely poor region, where the people suffer from numerous diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and typhoid. A large part of Blooming Hope was shot there.

The documentary is a tribute to poor women in devastated regions who can and are doing what seemed to be impossible. Produced by the Institute for Communication, Entertainment and Media of St. Thomas University under the executive production of Professor Marcela Moyano, it portrays how the fair-trade coffee cooperative, the women artisan initiative and the solar energy project are planting seeds of transformation in the poorest region of Haiti. It demonstrates how an inspired group of individuals that include students and faculty can engage in successful efforts and help promote social reconstruction.