Mass shootings are a regualr occurrence in the United States, so it’s heartbreaking but not surprising when a 16-year-old high school student like Odessa Shlain Goldberg says she no longer trusts people, no matter if strangers or otherwise as much as she used to.
These violent outbursts of a divided society affected her life in several ways, from shooting drills at school to an unshakeable fear in crowded places. It’s also what led her to her topic for the Our Pride Student Video Competition, for which she won first place.
Her film combines Rufus Wainwright’s rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and Martin Niemöller post-World War II poem First They Came with images of various mass shootings in the US.
‘The film illustrates how passivity in the face of injustice is complicity during World War II, but instead reframes and rewrites the 1946 poem to focus on the prolific, devastating shootings in schools and public institutions,’ Goldberg said of her film.