Coming into first-year, I was really obsessed with
the idea of like wanting to become a director

in the narrative sense, but I think I
just kind of had a real sudden shift

away from narrative cinema and more
towards documentaries just because I think

our world is fascinating, people are fascinating
and there's a lot of stories worth telling.

"Common Grounds" is a social experiment in the shape
of a film that brings together some students from

across the political spectrum to talk about
different controversial political topics in

an effort to also kind of see if they can find
any sense of common ground. When you boil the

film down to its basic elements, it is composed of
individual interviews with UVA students from

across the political spectrum, a group interview
with some of those students to kind of discuss

specific topics, and a final scene taking place at
UVA's iconic Beta Bridge where those same students

come together and paint a message together
that they came up with. It was kind of ironic

that the process of making the film was parallel
to the actual film itself. In addition to having

people we asked to participate in the documentary
be as politically diverse as possible, it was also

important that our group who was making the
documentary also represented that wide array of

political beliefs. "How are you going to ask this
question?" "How are we going to frame this topic?"

That constant conversation of having students
from different perspectives actually create

this project together was a key reason
it probably works. It wasn't without its

challenges. There were definitely several
moments of disagreement, misunderstanding.

Ultimately in working through those moments we
got to experience the value of what it is to

collaborate with people who are very different to
you who you might disagree with. The documentary

itself is very similar in that it challenges
students to work on a creative project together.

The goal of this project was to see if we could
talk with each other and it was as simple as

that. I didn't expect any minds to be changed, I don't think anyone really expected that. You know,

"we'll come together and we'll talk it out
and we'll come to some sort of agreement

on things," -- that's never going to happen in that
short of a time, but for me it was just can all

these people who we just saw say very different
things talk to each other about those things?

The differences were there at the very beginning
and they will always be there, but ultimately it's

not about "can we find common ground?" Because the
answer is a very simple "yes." If people try they

can find common ground, even if it's something
as simple as watching a beautiful sunset.

I mean, that has nothing to do with your political
background or your ideology; a beautiful sunset is

a beautiful sunset and we can all appreciate
that. But the question is really do we want to?

Will we try? And that's why the film does still
end with "Common Grounds question mark" because

it really isn't "oh find common grounds,"
like we can do that... it's do we want to?

Just imagine if our collective efforts could lead
to a whole new era of cooperation in America. Never

hurts to dream. You can find more information
at the following link. Thank you for watching.