Where does religion come from? Why do people believe in a higher power, or have no religion at all? And how do beliefs impact the way we live our lives? These are the sorts of questions KMTV dive into in a brand new series launching on 31st October
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00:00 Where does religion come from? Why do people believe in a higher power or have no religion
00:05 at all? And how do beliefs impact the way we live our lives? These are the sorts of
00:10 questions that KMTV has been diving into in its brand new series which launched today.
00:15 Generation Y brings together teenagers and world-leading researchers from all corners
00:20 of the country to discuss faith and spirituality. It's the latest in an exciting collaboration
00:25 between KMTV, the University of Kent and the British Film Institute's Young Audiences
00:30 Content Fund. I met with one of the co-hosts, Chris DC, earlier.
00:34 We'll be exploring all of this in Generation Y.
00:39 Namaste. My name is Sadgunthri Chandrapatla. I'm 14 years old. I'm also a Hindu.
00:43 Hi, I'm Alex. I'm 15 and I'm from Manchester.
00:46 My area of expertise is religion and philosophy and theology and film.
00:51 I class myself as a witch.
00:52 I feel like a lot of the media tries to separate religions away from each other.
00:57 Like the stress you have in the city and stuff like that and the water, it takes it away.
01:02 Yoga is a practice that has been around for thousands of years.
01:05 It connects our mind, body and soul together.
01:08 For others, Christmas can be a really difficult time.
01:12 Whatever your intention is, is what you're going to give out to the world.
01:15 Brings people together.
01:16 Do you think football and religion are closely linked?
01:19 Yeah, like, where I'm from, you're not a normal person. You're either Catholic or Protestant.
01:23 Now, in my research, I've also heard about imaginary or invisible friends.
01:28 In Hinduism, animals are very well respected and have very great significance as well.
01:33 We're going to try and get a bit more paranormal activity up here.
01:36 That's what I've seen.
01:37 Yeah, I've seen that.
01:38 Protesting is actually another legal right we have in the UK.
01:42 Love, for me, doesn't have a language, it does not have a sex.
01:45 (CHANTING)
01:49 For the end of Kiddush, you take the cloth off.
01:52 We're here today to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which we celebrate after Ramadan.
01:57 I've come back to my temple in Bradford to talk to my priest, Jeevan Gautam, about reincarnation.
02:02 (CHEERING)
02:05 Where people say, like, it's banter and stuff like that,
02:08 but most people probably won't take it that way.
02:10 You get to see how people fought for, like, where we are now.
02:13 I sincerely hope that for queer people, so much is taken away from us
02:18 that you don't end up having God taken away from you too.
02:20 What is the definition of a soul?
02:23 Can robots become religious?
02:24 You do have spirits that are either here for good or bad things.
02:28 If we didn't understand other beliefs, then we wouldn't be an actual community.
02:33 Well, I'm delighted to say joining me in the studio now
02:39 is one of the Generation Y presenters, Chris Deasy,
02:42 who many of our viewers may recognise from the Kent Film Club.
02:45 - Chris, welcome back. - Thank you. Thank you for having me.
02:47 Really good to see you again.
02:48 First of all, you've been working on this show for months.
02:50 How does it feel to finally see it going out this evening?
02:52 It actually feels amazing, and just watching that clip there,
02:55 it's exactly a year to the week since we started filming Generation Y.
02:59 It was just before Halloween last year,
03:00 which is also an indication of what's going to come up in the first episode tonight.
03:04 But it's like watching my whole life flash before me.
03:06 Absolutely. And, you know, our regular viewers will know you talking about film and TV.
03:11 How does it feel to be in front of the camera instead of behind it?
03:14 Well, it's incredible, because actually the two sort of work together.
03:17 And one of the episodes involves me going with our co-presenters
03:21 to a cinema just outside Manchester.
03:23 And that's how the journey kind of started for me,
03:25 because I do a lot of work, obviously, in film, as you say,
03:28 but I also teach religion.
03:29 And one of the things that was just so incredible about doing this series
03:32 is suddenly finding that I'm being taught,
03:35 both by the co-presenters and the young people who are a part of this project.
03:40 So it's been incredible and part of a journey just to actually find
03:43 that what 11 to 15-year-olds, which is our target audience,
03:46 are saying about religion completely makes me rethink
03:50 what I've been doing for years and years.
03:51 So it's been the most enormous and fantastic journey.
03:54 And talk to me about the connection with the BFI then
03:57 and how the British Film Institute has come into this.
03:59 I understand you were part of the team working towards securing that fund for KMTV
04:03 to be able to make Generation Y.
04:04 Yeah, and I can't thank the whole team at KMTV enough
04:07 for the magnificent work done here,
04:09 because it's been a real sort of labour of love
04:11 in actually getting external funding to show that this kind of work is validated.
04:15 Because obviously I work in the arts and humanities,
04:17 and often, of course, we need all the help, of course,
04:20 we need all the publicity we can do.
04:22 We do amazing work.
04:23 And I think to have that sanctioned in this way by the BFI
04:26 just shows that this is such an important project.
04:28 And we wanted to be joined this evening by two of your co-presenters,
04:31 Alex and Sadgun.
04:33 Unfortunately, they couldn't be here tonight.
04:35 We had a few technical issues getting them on the line.
04:37 But talk to me about what it was like to work with those two.
04:40 Well, it was exactly a year ago.
04:42 I keep saying that, but it was the anniversary,
04:44 I think even to the day since we actually had the auditions.
04:46 And Sadgun had been part of the Generation Genome project.
04:50 He was in the audience.
04:52 But I mean, these are young people.
04:53 I think they were both 14 when they auditioned for this.
04:56 And they have a future, there's no doubt, in front of the camera.
05:00 And also just in terms of bringing inquisitiveness, curiosity.
05:04 I mean, neither of them were coming from an obvious
05:06 sort of like religious studies background, which is where I am based.
05:09 But they're young people who are fascinated by questions around spirituality.
05:13 And so they asked the questions, they asked questions themselves organically.
05:17 You know, this wasn't scripted.
05:18 They went out on location as I did.
05:20 I spent quite a bit of time in the swimming pool.
05:25 That was an interesting story, doing things way outside my comfort zone.
05:28 I think that's what has made the series so incredible for me,
05:31 actually immersing myself literally, for example, in water
05:34 and asking questions about nature, mysticism, spirituality.
05:37 And doing it while floating in the water with sort of lots of 14-year-olds around
05:41 who do that sort of more naturally.
05:42 I'm the one who's floating, I'm the one who's actually sinking.
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