By Michael Worrell
Staff Writer
Slovakian independent filmmaker Zora Jaurova spent a few days lecturing on campus last week.
Enactus, the Career Center and the Bryan Center of International Development collaborated to bring Jaurova to Bryan College for a leadership forum.
Dennis Miller, director of the Bryan Center for International Development, was instrumental in actually bringing her into the country. He has been bringing speakers to Bryan since 2003. His goal is to bring the world to students, since many never leave the United States.
Enactus has teamed up this semester with Miller and the Career Center in order to bring in speakers who are relevant to Bryan students for Leadership Forum events. Jaurova is the first speaker they collaborated on.
Christy Corwin, president of Enactus, said their goal is to “expand students’ horizons” and “bring in ideas from all over the world.”
Jaurova hails from Bratislava, Slovakia, where, in addition to producing films, she has served as a theater professional, artistic director and a creative industries expert to European Union institutions. She is currently president of the Slovak Creative Industries Forum.
Although she has visited the country, this is her first time in the South, and her first time lecturing in the U.S., according to Jaurova.
Her first full-length film, “Slovensko 2.0” or “Slovakia 2.0” in English, is an omnibus of 10 films of 10 minutes apiece. Each was directed by a different director from across a wide range of ages and specialties and detailed something about Slovakian identity. She has two more films in development.
She spoke in the Leadership Forum Thursday evening on the interface between business and the arts. The increasing importance of creativity and workers with ideas to the economy and business world attracted a full classroom of about 40 students from business majors to communication majors.
Focusing mainly on Europe, Jaurova explained the shift in attitudes from art and business being separate, to art and business working together. She emphasized the role of digital technology in bringing the artistic and economic worlds together, birthing creative industries.
The Forum ended with two videos, the first, was a video ad for a flying car by a European company, a product of creative industry.
The second was a segment of “Slovensko 2.0” exploring Slovakian identity from the perspective of director Miso Suchy, a man who had left the country before its independence and lived in the U.S.
