Kids Corner

Above: Harleen Kaur and her mother. Below: Trishna Singh.

Film/Stage

Seeking The Seekers

TASHA REBENSDORF

 

 

 





Last summer, 14 Chapman University (California, USA) documentary film students sat on a transatlantic flight, headed to the United Kingdom. When the students landed, they had 10 days to film documentaries about people of the Sikh religion, a trip they had planned for during the spring semester but were still unprepared for upon arriving.

After a week and a half of “seeking the Sikhs,” as the students call it, they returned home with wisdom and gratitude.

“To open your mind up to a different thing that you’re not comfortable with is such a rewarding experience,” said junior news and documentary major Spencer Santini. “Sikhs devote themselves to helping other people, and not a lot of people know because of discrimination.”

The students were divided into groups that produced two documentaries about Sikhs in Scotland and England. They received international documentary scholarships from the SikhLens Foundation, which is funded by Ik Manzil, a group of Sikhs activists, the Bhathal family and other patrons.

Guided by their documentary production professor, Jeff Swimmer, the students followed the stories of Sikhs in Bradford, London, and Edinburgh. On November 18, 2017, the completed documentaries will screen at the 15th annual SikhLens Film Festival at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

Bicky Singh, the founder of the SikhLens Foundation, is the president and CEO of Future Computing Solutions, Inc. in Yorba Linda, California. He has lived in Orange, California, for 30 years, is a father of three, a husband and a philanthropist who always looks to see how he can give back to his Sikh community. Bicky emphasizes that the media is powerful, and the average uninformed person will absorb the images flashed at them and assume a person who wears a turban, like Bicky himself, is a terrorist, he said, based on ignorance and misinformation.

“From that standpoint, I think these (documentary) students learn that there is a lot more compassion and greatness under a Sikh’s identity,” Bicky said.

When Sikhs became the targets of hate crimes post 9/11 because of mistaken identity, it became apparent to Bicky that Sikh stories were not being accurately told even though the community has lived in the U.S. for more than a century. To help tell these Sikh stories, he founded the SikhLens Film Festival in 2002, which quickly gained a following, but it wasn’t the media exposure that he and the SikhLens Foundation wanted, he said.

So they decided to start a scholarship program in a film school so that students could one day have key positions in filmmaking, he said. By becoming more comfortable with Sikh stories, producers may green light these types of subject matters in the future, which would expand media representation of Sikhs, he added.

After speaking with film schools based in Los Angeles, Bicky realized he was overlooking one not far from where he lived.

In 2012, with the help of Dodge College of Film and Media Arts Dean Bob Bassett, Bicky started a small scholarship of $2,500 a year. It has since grown into a full program of $100,000 a year. The program takes place over the spring, summer and fall semesters and is called Project “S,” with “S” standing for Sikh. The budget covers the cost of travel, production, post-production, and marketing.

Swimmer has taught the international documentary class since 2012 and still enjoys watching the students absorb a new worldview.

“I love to be with students in the field and just see their eyes and hearts open and their curiosity blossom,” Swimmer said. “Making sense of the unfamiliar. That is the heart of learning.”

Santini filmed two documentaries in Bradford, England. One is about 17-year-old Harleen Kaur who is a martial artist and a leader in her community. Harlee travels to the subcontinent to give cancer tests to women and advocates for self-defense and gender equality.

“If she’s doing this now, what is she going to be doing in 10 years?” Santini said.

The second documentary is about Raj Singh Tattal, a pencil and graphite artist who creates lifelike drawings. Santini’s group discovered that he struggled with depression for 12 years and was diagnosed with autism at age 38. He inserted his perfectionism into his art which helped him work through his depression.

In Bradford, Santini’s group experienced the inside of a Sikh place of worship, called a gurdwara.

“Every day, nonstop in every gurdwara, (Sikhs) are cooking for people that can’t afford to eat or are homeless, and they will feed them whether they are Sikh or not. And that to me is how I think of them. They’re such loving, caring, good people,” Santini said.

Junior news and documentary major Jordyn Romero’s group traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to film.

“I learned that Sikhs are inspired by equality and that drives all of their actions and their willingness to help anyone, no matter what religion, race or gender. That was really special,” Romero said.

Romero and her group filmed a Sikh music producing duo called “Tigerstyle,” a Scottish folk-pop group with a more than 135,000 Facebook followers.

Their second documentary focused on a woman named Trishna Singh, who started her own nonprofit for Sikh women in Edinburgh to help them get jobs and break away from traditional roles as housewives.

Trishna Singh said she was astonished that someone from America had heard about her nonprofit’s work and that its impact made the students want to travel to Scotland to film a documentary about her.

“When I realized it was about me, that was even more humbling,” she wrote in an email. “I was a ‘wee Scottish Sikh woman’ who was doing what she felt strongly about. Why would they want to film me?”

When agreeing to do the film, Trishna Singh considered how the exposure would allow people to learn about the different faces of the Sikh community.

“We were an invisible group of women and we were headhunted by an American university to be their project. It was something that people dream of, and we, who had always been on the ‘bottom’ rung of the ethnic community’s ladder, would be in the spotlight. It was too good an opportunity to turn down,” Trishna Singh wrote.

She will be attending the film festival in November with her children and grandchildren.

This international documentary scholarship program has created the perfect fusion, Bicky Singh said. He gets to help his community while furthering the careers of Chapman documentary students. But his relationship with Chapman extends beyond the Project “S” scholarship.

His daughter, Anupreet Singh, graduated in 2016 from the Argyros School of Business and Economics and he sponsors another program at Chapman called Destination “S” for filmmakers to take a sabbatical to travel to other countries and produce a film about Sikhs.

Additionally, Bicky Singh and his foundation sponsor the World Religion class’s trip to Punjab and the subcontinent, which began in January this year.

“It’s just pure love and passion,” Bicky Singh said. “Growing up, the main focus (for me) was science and engineering and math, so I went in that direction. But more inside of me was art, film, and history. I am experiencing that life through this program for myself.”


[Courtesy: The Panther. Edited for sikhchic.com]
October 24, 2017
 

Conversation about this article

1: Shahbaz Singh (Chandigarh, Punjab), October 24, 2017, 1:11 PM.

Bravo, Sardar Bicky Singh ji. This is exactly the direction we should be heading in. My prayers and best wishes are with you and your team.

2: Kanwal Prakash Singh (Indianapolis, Indiana, USA), October 25, 2017, 8:19 AM.

Sardar Bicky Singh has been tirelessly at work for the past two decades to create a place for the Sikh arts - Music, Fine Arts, Sikh History, Literature, Heritage, Culture and Spirit. In the past his vision and initiatives included his tribute to filmmakers, artists, creators of documentaries. Today, with Chapman University and its Dodge College of Film, Bicky Singh is inspiring Sikhs and non-Sikhs to train their talents and lenses on critical challenges faced by the Sikhs in the diaspora and the neglected treasures in the Sikh homeland in Punjab. I have had the pleasure of knowing him and working with him and his dedicated staff in the creation of two magnificent SikhPoint Interfaith Calendars (2007-2011) with my drawings and writings. I found Bicky Singh's extraordinary dedication and philanthropic endeavors to shine light upon the Sikh faith, culture, arts, heritage, community experiences, and related Sikh-centric topics refreshing and farsighted, and as an important idea to advance the place and pride of Sikhs in their own heritage and share the transcendent facets of this heritage and creativity with the world. This is no small seva! We applaud this undertaking of Bicky Singh, his annual SikhLens Arts Film Festivals, and the constructive and myriad imaginative efforts of thousands who are at work in this noble task and support of sikhchic.com, Sikhnet, and other media to share such endeavors with global audiences.

3: Harjeet Singh Oberoi  (Jalandhar, Punjab), October 27, 2017, 12:15 PM.

Bicky Singh is an inspirational personality for every Sikh around the world. His dedication and vision is pure. Sikhlens has given a platform to many Sikhs around the world to showcase their talent. Congratulations to Bicky Singh and his team. May Waheguru bless you always.

4: Jasmeet Singh Kohli (Ludhiana, Punjab), October 27, 2017, 1:34 PM.

Thanks to Sikhlens for helping Sikhs around the world through scholarships and opportunities to prove their talent. My best wishes for the organization and the team.

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