Film Showing: Summer in the Forest [TRAILER]

Summer in the Forest

On Thursday, November 8 at 7:00 PM in Winants Auditorium students, faculty, and community members gathered for a screening of the film Summer in the Forest followed by a talk back with Dennis Feaster, professor of Social Work and Sociology at Hope College.

Summer in the Forest is a documentary film that explores the life and work of Catholic author and philosopher Jean Vanier. It traces Vanier’s activism and faith from wartime to present day and reveals to us the universal need for love, community and companionship.

Like countless others Philippe, Michel, Andre and Patrick were labeled 'idiots', locked away and forgotten in violent asylums, until the 1960s, when the young philosopher Jean Vanier took a stand and secured their release - the first time in history that anyone had beaten the system. Together they created L'Arche, a commune at the edge of a beautiful forest near Paris. A quiet revolution was born.

Now in his 80s, and still at L'Arche, Jean has discovered something that most of us have forgotten - what it is to be human, to be foolish, and to be happy.