Home > Departments > Public Information > News Releases >

SISTER CITY DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKES JAPANESE DEBUT

         “Hot Springs and Hanamaki:  A Perfect Match,” a documentary film by Fountain Lake High School Cobra EAST Lab students about the sister city relationship between Hanamaki, Japan and Hot Springs, will make its Japanese debut at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 22 in the Civic Center on Grand Avenue in Hanamaki, Japan.
            The work will be screened along with a debriefing session that will include reports by junior high school students from Hanamaki that visited Hot Springs in January as part of the annual student exchange program between the sister cities.
            “A Perfect Match” was created by EAST Lab students Lauren Gross, Krystle Payne, Charlie Mattei, Holly Culpepper, Jordan Anderson (now a freshman at University of Central Arkansas at Conway), and Logan Pratt (now a freshman at Vanderbilt University), under the guidance of Dick Warrington, facilitator and Fountain Lake High School teacher.  The Cobra EAST Lab recently received the Founder’s Award of Excellence in February at the 2008 EAST Lab Initiative (Environmental and Spatial Technology) Conference in Hot Springs.  The conference drew nearly 2,000 youths from about 170 schools across the nation.  The Founder’s Award of Excellence is one of the four top national awards.
            The film explores the significance of Hot Springs and Hanamaki’s relationship through personal interviews with people in both cities who are involved in the program, and through scenes of local community activities like the annual Hanamaki Festival in Japan.  Subtitles were used so that viewers from both cities could enjoy the film.   
Through a generous seed grant from the Dorothy Morris Foundation, the Hot Springs National Park Sister City Foundation initiated the first Foundation-sponsored student exchange trip to Hanamaki last fall that included travel scholarships for Gross, Payne, Mattei and Culpepper.  The students traveled to Hanamaki with Dick Warrington and his wife, Elaine, who is also a teacher at Fountain Lake. The students were able to film extensive video footage in Hanamaki, much of which was included in the documentary.
            The film’s rough cut debuted last October at the Malco Theatre in Hot Springs during the 2007 Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
            EAST is an educational initiative where students use the latest technology to solve real world problems in their schools and communities.  Students are guided by a facilitator, but come up with their own projects and problem-solving methods.  The experience better equips the students for college and future careers.
            Information about the Cobra EAST Lab is available on the school’s Web site at http://flcobra.k12.ar.us.  Details about the EAST Initiative can be found at www.eastproject.org and www.eastinitiative.org.
            The film will also debut on HSTV-15, Hot Springs’ government access TV channel, beginning Monday, March 31 and will air at 9 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. daily through Sunday, April 6.
            For more information on providing tax-deductible contributions for scholarship assistance for student travel to Hanamaki, contact Donna Casparian, Sister City Foundation president, donna@sistercityfoundation.com.

-30-