{"id":464953,"date":"2025-12-22T19:07:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/464953\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T19:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T19:07:12","slug":"churchs-cinema-of-resistance-film-series-is-place-to-tackle-polarizing-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/464953\/","title":{"rendered":"Church’s \u2018Cinema of Resistance\u2019 film series is place to tackle polarizing issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Several<\/a>Resurrection OB hosts \u201cCinema of Resistance\u201d each month. (Photo by Dave Schwab)<\/p>\n

An Ocean Beach church has launched a free monthly film series featuring guest panelists discussing timely topics.<\/p>\n

Titled \u201cCinema of Resistance,\u201d the film series is held on occasional Fridays in the chapel space\u00a0at Resurrection Church<\/a>, 2083 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Each month, Dr. John McAteer, a philosopher specializing in film, pairs topics with guests to fuel a conversation about social issues. The film series takes surprising turns \u2013 both serious and not.<\/p>\n

In this year\u2019s first edition of Cinema of Resistance, McAteer had a panelist from KPBS talking about Night of the Living Dead, and one from Voice of San Diego discussing the use of the iconic film Casablanca as propaganda.<\/p>\n

Last month, the film series featured a climate activist from UC San Diego speaking about How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a 2022 fictional film about a group of eight young people who decide to\u00a0destroy an oil\u00a0pipeline\u00a0at two key locations.<\/p>\n

McAteer has plans for the first six months of season two, commencing in January, with comedy movies to be followed by more serious topics like immigration and Palestine.<\/p>\n

How did Cinema of Resistance come about?<\/p>\n

It was the end result of McAteer\u2019s exploration of his love of philosophy and cinematography, and finding a new way to combine those two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to use my skills and talents to talk about things in films, and the ideas behind them, that you usually write about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pointing out undemocratic tendencies like white nationalism, McAteer said recent movements, like the No Kings protests, motivated him to seek ways to address the nation\u2019s \u201cgrowing mood of despair\u201d by reflecting on its long history in film.<\/p>\n

McAteer talked about the idea for his film series with his friends and neighbors, and put up fliers around OB while advertising on social media. That turned out to be the genesis for the creation of the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to create a space for people to process their thoughts and feelings about things going on in the country,\u201d McAteer said. \u201cI wanted to bring like-minded people together to learn about social issues. I wanted them to become inspired to fight for the common good and for things that make America great, like its diversity and inclusiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAteer wants Cinema of Resistance to continue to stimulate discussions surrounding polarizing issues like women\u2019s rights, environmentalism and criminal justice. The idea is then to continually add other subjects to that menu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to do things on immigration and gun control, Palestine and the Holocaust,\u201d he said. \u201cThese topics are going to be controversial for sure. But we\u2019ve always had very good, very friendly discussions about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

McAteer described the community conversations his films are inspiring to be \u201cnot a debate supporting one point of view over another.\u201d But rather, he noted, the films focus the discussion more on \u201cwhat we should do\u201d regarding polarizing issues.<\/p>\n

Participants, he hopes, may be inspired to think about ways to divert the nation away from the \u201cwrong direction\u201d \u2013 abandoning democratic principles \u2013 to instead seek peaceful ways to halt any drift toward fascism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe price of valuing democracy is resisting anti-democratic forces in our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To see past films\/speaker panels in Cinema of Resistance, visit\u00a0eventbrite.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Resurrection OB hosts \u201cCinema of Resistance\u201d each month. (Photo by Dave Schwab) An Ocean Beach church has launched…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":464954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,211679,10086,211680,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-464953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-cinema-of-resistance","12":"tag-ocean-beach","13":"tag-resurrection-church","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115764792602175235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}