Grace Film Festival: July Official Selections

Here is the list of official selections and screening times for films showing on July 25th.  All films will screen at Grace Lutheran, 3201 Ulloa St, San Francisco, CA.

Saturday, July 25, 2015 6-8pm

Love in the City (4:20) Emanuele Michetti - USA
In a big city where everything moves too fast and everyone is too busy, there is no time to relax. How can relationships evolve?

3:00 PM (13:41) hongyi cao-USA

This is a story about two young lovers who want to get married three months after their first sight. It is supposed to be a sweet beginning of love. However, after they live together, they have some conflicts. They turn to find help from a psychologist. An interesting story begins.​

On Flying Water (2:06) Dominique Monfery - France

This film is a metaphore of life, with drops born at dawn and dying at sunrise. the drops are personalized, a visual metaphor of human and animal's life. they all fight, die, win, etc. but they are treated as animals or any other characters.

The Gospel of Jon (9:20) David Goehring - USA

On the heels of deciding to become a Christian, Jon and his girlfriend start having some trouble. Soon, Jon finds that this decision will affect his relationship with all his friends. He questions whether he can actually follow through with it, until he learns something that changes the way he views faith and gives him hope for the future.

A Map of the Heart (36:12) Muzhgan Rasul & Lisa Herndon - US

A Map Of My Heart, a documentary by Muzhgan Rasul & Lisa Herndon, is the story of Ayesha Akhtar, a 25-year-old Bengali American Muslim, who is torn between her traditional Bengali parents and her American boyfriend. To help find answers and to challenge the gender inequalities she believes are in her religion and culture, Ayesha starts a photography project The Burqa Project that she is keeping a big secret from her parents. She asks Muslim and non-Muslim men to wear a burqa for a day and photographs them as they go about their daily lives.  

Finding Gondal (52) Morgan RAUSCENT - France

A documentary about the Reverend Patrick Bronte and how a series of tragedies helped instill a love for the arts in his three remaining daughters; Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

Our Pastor is In the News Again

Reposted from the Argus Leader

Jill Callison, jcallison@argusleader.com 11:18 a.m. CDT June 26, 2015

Within minutes of hearing that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, a Lutheran pastor sent out a tweet sympathizing with those who would be dismayed by the announcement.

"#Remember, we celebrate while others weep. Justice comes in pieces. We yearn for more and our hearts are also with those who mourn," wrote the Rev. Megan Rohrer.

What makes her remarkable is that Rohrer might have been expected to do nothing but celebrate. After all, she is the first transgender pastor ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and stuck with her childhood denomination even when it was against church rules to be ordained. She was raised Lutheran in South Dakota, where she graduated from Lincoln High School and Augustana College.

In August 2009, however, the ELCA agreed to allow congregations to call pastor in "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships." Rohrer was officially ordained in 2010. In 2014 her wife and she traveled to Hawaii and were married.

As a pastor, her first response to the Supreme Court ruling was excitement "because weddings are fun to do," said Rohrer, who returned to South Dakota last weekend to officiate at a cousin's wedding. "I was particularly excited for friends in South Dakota who have long been waiting to be married."

Then she thought of the November day in 2008 when the United States elected Barack Obama as its first black president. That same day, California voters banned same-sex marriage. There was cheering in the streets for Obama's victory and tears of sadness for those who lost the chance to marry.

Rohrer also thought about the funerals that are taking place in Charleston, S.C., where nine black people were killed by a single gunman who has expressed racist views.

"A large part of our community is deeply mourning racial injustice at the same time Pride (events) is happening," Rohrer said. "What is victory for one group means the other group feels it lost something."

Her attitude, Rohrer said, is shaped by growing up in South Dakota, living in a small community where your best friend might hold polar-opposite political or social justice issues.

Rohrer said she happily will return to South Dakota to perform same-sex unions, although people who don't want to wait could travel to states where it is legal, including Iowa and California. She doubts that South Dakota will be able to perform such weddings for some time.

"In San Francisco they had pre-ordered marriage licenses that say 'spouse and spouse' not 'husband and wife,' " she said. "I imagine South Dakota probably didn't pre-order them."

Rohrer also expects legislation to be proposed that will attempt to chip away at the Supreme Court ruling and other roadblocks before same-sex weddings can start in South Dakota.

"We've seen it happen in other states that already passed it," she said. "I think you'll get there. It might take longer."

***Update: South Dakota has revised its marriage-license software making the wording gender neutral. Pennington County has issued a marriage license to two women.