HOLLAND, MI (WHTC-AM/FM, Nov. 18, 2022) – The International Relations Commission’s (IRC) annual Reel Time Film Series concludes with Small Island Big Song on Tuesday, November 29th, 2022 at 7pm at the Knickerbocker Theatre. Admission is free. This year’s film series is a partnership of the IRC and Hope College.
About Small Island Big Song
In the 21st century, more than 200 million people are forecast to become climate refugees–people forced to leave home because climate change makes their homes inhabitable. For them, home is where they want to be but will have to exist only as memories carried around in their hearts. How can home live on in exile? How has it lived on before? Often through the joys and dreams of song and dance, art and culture–connecting a diaspora of people scattered around the globe but united culturally.
Tim Cole’s Small Island Big Song captures the joys of an existing diaspora of cultures scattered around the Pacific and increasingly at the front lines of climate change with rising sea levels. Filmed over three years on 16 island nations across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Cole worked with over 100 artists, solo artists, elders, community groups, and grassroots musicians, recording them in their homelands, in nature, using traditional instruments and languages, with each contributing to each other’s songs. It resulted in two award-winning albums, a world-touring concert, and a feature film.
Small Island Big Song is a grassroots musical that follows the ocean highways uniting ancient musical lineages, from Madagascar to Rapa Nui/Easter Island, Taiwan to Zenadth Kes/The Torres Strait. The film serves as a heartfelt plea for environmental awareness and cultural preservation from those on the frontline of the climate crisis.
Following the screening there will be a virtual Q&A with filmmakers Tim Cole and BaoBao Chen.
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