A film series about trauma starts Jan. 13 and will continue every second Tuesday of the month through June.
The Winnebago County Health Department and the Rockford Public Library are addressing how trauma impacts the community by showing these films. Sandra Martell, the public health administrator for Winnebago County, said this isn’t the first time they’ve used movies to help with messaging.
"In 2018 we actually had our first trauma summit in Winnebago County, where we brought together over 150 different community partners came. Then we worked on different working groups. From that we kind of give an introduction and an overview of trauma.”
A film series work group came from that. Martell said the first film, "Minding the Gap," was shown in 2019. This movie was directed by Oscar-nominated director Bing Liu and was filmed in Rockford.
“As we started to continue working,” she explained, “there was a whole series of films that were viewed at that point we partnered, for showing the films in our schools, with the parent teacher organizations.”
She said after the films, the community can take part in a panel discussion.
She encourages people to stay through the entire film.
“Sometimes when you see these pieces of film out of context and don't have a time and opportunity to kind of discuss with the community,” she said. “I think that becomes a challenge, right? You wouldn’t want to just come for an introduction piece.”
The first event takes place at 6 p.m. Jan. 13 at the Rockford Public Library Nordlof center.