Hampshire College

Hampshire College invited the public to a special free screening of the film Five Minutes of Heaven, followed by a discussion with Ruth Scott, an Anglican priest, writer and broadcaster, and international peace worker.

The film showed on October 26 at 7 p.m. in Franklin Patterson’s Main Lecture Hall on the Hampshire College campus.

It is a 2009 Sundance award winner, stars Liam Neeson, and has not yet been released in the United States.

The film is based on Scott’s book, Give a Boy a Gun, written with Alistair Little. Little is the subject of the book and the film, which tell of one man’s journey into extreme violence and beyond it to working internationally with the victims and perpetrators of political conflict.

Preceding the film there was  a book signing and reception with Scott in the Faculty Lounge in Franklin Patterson Hall.

Scott works increasingly with groups in conflict situations, using storytelling as part of the peace-building process. For the last 15 years she has been a regular contributor to the United Kingdom’s most listened-to radio program, Wake up to Wogan, on BBC Radio 2, and to Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday.

She has written many documentary programs and drama pieces for BBC World Service. Scott lectures internationally on interfaith and conflict transformation issues. She is the author of three books.

Working with Alistair Little, Scott has run storytelling workshops for prison inmates, asylum seekers who are HIV positive and have multiple rapes as part of their histories, and men and women in conflict situations.

Most recently they ran a workshop for Israelis and Palestinians who have lost one or more relatives in the Middle East conflict.

This summer, as a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellow, Scott spent six weeks in Israel and the West Bank researching transformative relationships across that conflict divide. She worked with Israeli ex-soldiers and Palestinian ex-fighters, bereaved families, human rights organizations, and individuals living in extreme circumstances.

For more information, please contact Bob Meagher, professor of humanities, at rmeagher@hampshire.edu or 413.559.5417.