Morelia Film Festival

Hollywood, Health & Society, together with the World Bank, presented a series of activities at the 13th annual Morelia Film Festival on Oct. 28-29 to enhance understanding of entertainment education and strengthen storytelling skills to advance public health and pro-social topics. 

“What’s Your Story?: Changing Society Through Storytelling” offered workshops and panels that brought together an international group of writers-producers and filmmakers from Hollywood, India and Nigeria. In the first session, panelists from HH&S, the World Bank and Cinépolis Foundation discussed entertainment education, showcased best practice examples in TV and film and highlighted their own experiences in the creative process as it relates to public health messages in storytelling.

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Other sessions featured an interactive storytelling workshop for entertainment industry professionals and a look at the future of entertainment education through innovative approaches.

Panelists included Jennifer Cecil, consulting producer/writer for the AMC series “Hell on Wheels”; Vinta Nanda, a TV writer-producer based in Mumbai who’s also the director of The Third Eye; Mburugu Gikunda, executive producer for “The Team”; Indira Paez, writer, Telemundo Studios/NBCUniversal; Christian Borja-Vega, an economist for the World Bank; and Alejandro Ramirez, executive director of Cinépolis Foundation.

Jennifer Cecil leads workshop designed to sharpen storytelling skills.
Writer-producer Jennifer Cecil (left) leads workshop to sharpen storytelling skills.