Who is advocating for the people?
The Great Awakening is a film about hope.
Eugene Dean believes it’s a message that Bermuda needs at the moment as, “in a general sense, people are not happy with the way things are”.
“There's a general sense that we can do a lot better as a country. The general sense is, enough is enough. Too many different things are going on and it seems like the interest of the people is being lost,” he said.
“Everyone is clear about who's advocating for government, everybody's clear who's advocating for business, nobody's really clear about who’s really advocating for the people.”
It’s a gap that his group, the Collective Action Solidarity Trust, wants to see filled. The Great Awakening is a tool in its overarching goal of helping people to network and advocate for themselves.
“Everything that we're doing is inspiring people to act in their own interest, to move away from dependence and move more towards independence and interdependence,” Mr Dean said.
According to its synopsis, The Great Awakening “assembles forbidden puzzle pieces to reveal the big picture of what’s really happening in the world and is intended to be a lighthouse to guide us out of the storm and into a brighter future”.
The documentary is the latest in a series of works by Mikki Willis, an American who led a group of civilians on a three-day search and rescue mission at Ground Zero after the fall of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
That effort “created an enormous shift in his mentality and attitude, from which he began to see the world through a different lens”.
In Bermuda, Cast is trying to help people do the same.
“I think over the last few years, what people have realised is it's important for us to be more connected – we've become very isolated in our modern lives,” Mr Dean said.
“We need to stay in tune with what's happening so that we're not getting caught off guard with major events that take place.
“Ultimately, [our goal with] this film is to raise awareness but also be inspiring, just to encourage people to make positive changes in their lives moving forward.
“We’re looking to do things that are educational and inspiring to help create a healthier atmosphere in the country so we can all enjoy success and prosperity.”
It is something Cast has been working towards since the start of the pandemic. Its formation brought a group of people together who “under normal circumstances, wouldn’t necessarily cross paths” but who had “a list of shared values”.
“I feel like a lot of this stuff was bubbling for a long time anyway and then the pandemic was the catalyst that shook people up,” said Mel Dupres, another member of the group. “It’s an opportunity to look at what's really happening with humanity and realise that we are evolving into a new space, into a new time.”
Mikki Willis’s outlook on life changed after the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001. Ultimately, it led to the creation of The Great Awakening.
Q: How did you help out at Ground Zero?
A: I was part of a group of civilians that organised to assist first responders. The first two days we used food from local stores that were destroyed to feed them. We were also focused on washing their eyes which were literally bleeding from sharp micro-debris that was in the air. Day 3 I joined the first responders in the search for survivors and bodies.
Q: How did your mentality shift as a result?
A: It was a “snap-to-grid” moment for me. Suddenly I saw the impermanence and fragility of the material world. This allowed me to recalibrate my senses to direct my focus on the things that matter, such as family, people and life itself.
Q: Why do you think people are encouraged by the questions asked in your films?
A: They are questions we’re all asking to some degree. We as the human life here on Earth feel intuitively that we are being systemically led away from the nature within us. We know that our lives were designed to be much easier than we are experiencing. Our natural immune systems are being destroyed to leave us dependent on synthetic pharmaceuticals. Our foods are being replaced with chemically grown replications. We look around at the brilliance and resilience of nature and we see that all the real food and medicine we’ll ever need grows from the soil beneath our feet. We are waking up to the harsh reality that there are people who have lost their own humanity such that they are willing to do great harm to the very organism that gives them life. The good news is, “We are waking up!”
She believes The Great Awakening offers “pertinent information” that’s in the public interest.
“It’s there to enlighten people. It woke me up to events that I didn't necessarily know before and it helped me to connect dots with things I did know but they weren't necessarily in a framework or a context.”
Mr Dean added: “That’s the thing about the film. It’s meant to raise awareness. I think most of the things people see in the film, they will have some type of familiarity with but they won’t necessarily see how all those seemingly independent events all align.
“We're encouraging people to come and watch because of the inspiration you can get from the film. We’re encouraging them to look within, to grow, to make changes, to stand together as people, to build community and family and things of that nature because those are actions that will contribute to improving our quality of life.”
Many people felt isolated throughout the pandemic because of social distancing regulations which kept them apart from family and separated from community groups, he added.
“It was a really tough situation. If we can take steps now to build relationships and build community in a way that people feel far more supportive when going through challenging experiences like we went through in the last few years, then we feel that will be a step in the right direction.”
Although the hope is to effect change, he likened Cast to a “community initiative” rather than a political group.
“I think that the beauty of coming together, and networking and community, is that all sorts of things come out of it,” Mr Dean said.
“In the end, our focus is bringing people together because we recognise so many positive things can come out of us working together and being far more unified than we've been in the past.”
Ms Dupres added: “Unification is the goal. We realise that at the end of the day, we're all in this together – trying to have a better life, creating a better life on this planet.”
• The Great Awakening will screen at 7pm on Monday at Speciality Cinema. A panel discussion featuring film-maker Mikki Willis will follow. General admission is $25, patron tickets are $50. Tickets are available at the cinema or at jointhecast.org. Additional screenings will take place on October 23 and 30
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