Festivals : Indie Grits 2019 - Gimme A Faith (2019)
For day two of the Indie Grits Fest, I had quite a bit on the docket. First up was a documentary from Chinese-born American immigrant Hao Zhang, his study on finding your way in a foreign land known as Gimme A Faith.
In the hopes of gaining an deeper education, Hao Zhang traveled from China to North Carolina to study film, his newly found passion. Upon arrival, Zhang is impressed by the metropolitain status that is New York City, but his experience quickly changes as he reaches North Carolina, where he finds that being car-less and knowing nobody has left him in a feeling of isolation. In hopes of meeting people, Zhang soon discovers a community of Chinese students that meet up with a Chinese-American Christian named Steve who is eager to spread the word of christianity to the chinese community. As Zhang observes his countrymen trying to find their footing in the states, the documentary becomes a study on the cultural differences and the vast differences in faith/belief systems, and the sacrifices that some students make in order to not feel isolated.
That cultural gap becomes the driving force of the film, as we are immediately shown just how different Chinese and American faith systems can be. To most of the students, the concepts of God, Jesus, the Bible and church are all foreign, but the camaraderie that comes with fellowship is too important for some of the students to miss. In the words of one of the students, ‘I don’t know if I need God, but I need friends. While certain students, such as Ang and Fu, take it upon themselves to embrace faith wholly and try to bring other Chinese immigrants into the fold, students like Gong (a mathematical prodigy and member of the Communist party) cannot bring themselves to believe in a system of faith so foreign to them, sacrificing opportunities for community building to remain in isolation.
In trying to gain an understanding of what Christianity entails, many of the students face dilemmas, such as accepting the concept of being born with sin, as many of them were taught that we were born pure and innocent. Some, however, outright state the fact that Christianity is essentially a shortcut to overcoming the social hurdle that is finding friends so far from home. Hao often finds himself in the crosshairs of Steve in hopes of turning him to the faith, but Hao does all that he can to remain an impartial observer, as he finds that his work with the camera brings him the same feeling that the students get through God.
The rift that the belief in God causes between some of the students and their parents is also an interesting one, as the concepts of ideologies versus belief systems come into play. On top of that, Christianity being tied so close to American culture becomes quite the interesting situation, as many seem to fall into belief well before they have any grasp or understanding in what they believe in. Upon a trip to the Crabtree Valley Mall, Hao and Fu find themselves in the midst of a random shooting, and Fu finds himself at a crossroads, unsure if his belief in God is enough for God to accept him in a moment of need. The situation also leads to the golden observation of ‘what’s more American than gunshots and God'?
I went into the film expecting a study on the differences between Eastern and Western belief systems, but what I was given was something much deeper. The study on isolation, assimilation and the power of faith is one that really hit me strongly, and it is one that I will remain thinking about and meditating on for a long while, I am sure.