John Forrest had been producing religious programming for the BBC for several years when he had the idea for Insight film festival. He saw a damaging gap in the media industry for content that gave serious consideration to religious faith. With Insight, John has created an arena for this discussion, and the festival has snowballed from a one afternoon event to an international platform, with screening held in Manchester, London and New York. We spoke to John just before the year’ s event, about the conceptualisation of Insight and why he feels an exploration of faith is vital for social cohesion.
John, first off, where did Insight come from, and what kind of a background story is there to the festival? Insight began in 2007 with a group of media professionals deciding it was time to encourage filmmakers to use their artistic skills to explore faith and in doing so to make a contribution to society and social cohesion. For me the idea began in conversation with a( then) young camera trainee who confided that he had a strong Christian faith but felt he had to keep it quiet on the studio floor as few of his colleagues would appreciate it and some would misunderstand it. I was sympathetic because I had worked in religious programmes for the BBC for many years. I had experienced how there’ s a sort of systematic refusal to understand many of the positive values of faith and to suppress healthy discussion of the issues and challenges that faith practices present to the modern world. I soon found a valuable colleague in Dr David Butler, senior lecturer in screen studies at the University of Manchester. He had noticed that film students who wanted outlets to present films which may be reflective views on life are less than obvious. It was time to start something different.
Religion can be quite a personal and sensitive issue, why do you think it is an important subject for film? It is difficult to argue that faith is anything other than a vital dynamic in the contemporary world. Billions of people claim adherence to forms of faith. In our own nation the far greater majority of people claim faith beliefs- and many of them adhere to‘ traditional’ faith allegiances- Christianity, Islam, Sikh, Jewish, Hindu etc. Yes it can be personal and sensitive, but its effects impact on how we live our lives together. But a tendency to regard it as personal and sensitive may have lead some media players to think it has no place in the media mix. And the consequence is it has often been ignored or treated with disdain. Some of our films deal with overt-
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