A Ripple in the Water: Healing Through Art (57m, S, Africa / USA)
Directed by: Patricia Piroh & Eileen M. Foti
Feature Documentary
Synopsis
This documentary focuses on the work of South African artist/activist Kim Berman, who teaches others to use art
as a tool to promote healing and positive social transformation in South Africa. Her outreach programs include a
national grassroots campaign aimed at addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic through creativity, counseling and
solidarity. To address poverty and its host of related social problems, she spearheaded a network of hand-
papermaking/craft projects in urban and rural sites, creating hundreds of jobs, primarily for women, which greatly
improved peoples? chances for survival while adding a sense of meaning and value to their lives. The film examines
the human experience by considering how the long-term affects of a nation’s brutal history can be positively changed,
individually and collectively.