The Faith Project: A Classroom Discussion on Working Together
2015 · 6m · Canada
Directed by Christopher Romeike
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, tender
Young Canadians of different faiths discuss learning to work and live alongside one another. The classroom conversation treats cooperation as part of spiritual life in a diverse country.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A well-meaning classroom roundtable about interfaith cooperation is exactly the kind of consensus-building pablum that puts me to sleep—until you realize Romeike's actually letting the kids' contradictions breathe, refusing to sand down the friction into a neat message, which almost makes me care.
This essay film sits squarely in the National Film Board's tradition of democratic pedagogy through cinema, and Romeike's restraint in the editing—letting silence and genuine pauses do the argumentative work—positions it as a quietly rigorous contribution to the nonfiction essay form.
The entire film turns on one choice: recording the children's voices without manipulation or score, so you hear the actual hesitation and thinking-aloud in real time, which transforms a potentially patronizing concept into something that feels honestly assembled and alive.