THE EDUCATION OF
SHELBY KNOX
Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt - USA - 2005 -
76m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD In
English
The national debate over federally funded “abstinence-only”
sex education programs plays out in full force in The Education
of Shelby Knox. Fifteen-year-old Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas
is a self-described “good Southern Baptist girl,” who
herself has pledged abstinence until marriage. When she finds that
Lubbock has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually
transmitted diseases in the nation, and her county’s high
schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, she becomes an unlikely
advocate for comprehensive sex education, profoundly changing her
political and spiritual views along the way. “I think that
God wants you to question,” Shelby says, “to do more
than just blindly be a follower, because he can’t use blind
followers. He can use people like me who realize there’s more
in the world that can be done.” Here is a story for our times,
where the combustible mix of politics, family, and faith are not
as predictable as the red state/blue state divide would suggest.
Film’s website http://www.incite-pictures.com/Shelby_Knox.html
PULLED FROM THE RUBBLE
Margaret Loescher - U.K. - 2004 - 63m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD In
English
In August 2003, Gil Loescher went to Baghdad on a
humanitarian research trip. He and his colleagues were in a meeting
with the head of the United Nations in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello,
when a truck full of explosives was driven into the side of the
building. Gil was the only survivor from the most devastated section
of the building. All of the other people in the meeting died. Through
poignantly honest narration, and observational scenes of high emotion,
his daughter records the family’s recovery during the months
after the bombing. Filming becomes her way of dealing with the suddenness
of the family’s changed reality, and a way of re-visiting
the haunting images of the bomb site—a place of both horror
and hope.
Film’s website http://www.pulledfromtherubble.com
PRIVATE
Saverio Costanzo - Italy - 2004 - 94m - drama
Available on Beta SP and DVD
In English and in Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles
Winner of the Golden Leopard for Best Film and Silver Leopard for Best Actor for Mohammad Bakri (Locarno Film Festival 2004), filmmaker Saverio Costanzo’s Private approaches the Israeli Palestinian conflict through the eyes of one Palestinian household - a well-educated, middle-class family who own a luxury car and a spacious home in the countryside. The family members are totally divided about what they should or should not do. Understandably worried about the safety of her sons and daughters, mother Samia wants to leave. Her husband, Mohammed, feels quite differently, insisting that they stay in their house and deal with the situation as it develops. Soon, their domestic arguments give way to a harsher reality when a group of Israeli soldiers enters the home unannounced and occupies it as an observation post, effectively turning the family into prisoners. They divide the house into three areas: one for the Israelis, one for the Palestinian family, and a common space to be shared. Humiliated at being rendered powerless in their own home, the elder teenage children, Yousef and Miriam, start to vent their anger at their parents and take matters into their own hands.
Distributor’s website http://www.arabfilm.com
STATE OF FEAR
Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy -
USA/Perú - 2005 - 94m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD
In English and Spanish with English subtitiles
How can an open society balance demands for security
with democracy? State of Fear dramatizes the human and
societal costs a democracy faces when it embarks on a “war”
against terror, a “war” potentially without end, all
too easily exploited by unscrupulous leaders seeking personal political
gain. The film follows events in Perú, yet it serves as a cautionary
tale for a nation like the United States. Filmmakers Pamela Yates,
Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy masterfully blend personal testimony,
history, and archival footage to tell the story of escalating violence
in the Andean nation and how the fear of terror undermined democracy,
making Perú a virtual dictatorship where official corruption
replaced the rule of law. Terrorist attacks by Shining Path insurgents
provoked a military occupation of the countryside. Military justice
replaced civil authority. Widespread abuses by the Peruvian Army
went unpunished. Terrorism continued to spread. Nearly 70,000 civilians
eventually died at the hands of Shining Path and the Peruvian military.
Filmmaker’s website http://www.skylightpictures.com
MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA
David Redmon - USA - 2004 - 72m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD
In English, Cantonese, Fujianese and Mandarin with English subtitles
Mardi Gras: Made in China tracks the “bead
trail” from the factory in China to Bourbon Street during
Mardi Gras, poignantly exposing the inequities of globalization.
Filmmaker Redmon gained unprecedented access to follow the stories
of four young Chinese women working and living in the largest Mardi
Gras bead factory in the world, located in Fuzhou, China. We witness
their economic realities, self-sacrifice, and dreams of a better
life. Redmon inter-cuts these stories with strikingly candid interviews
with the factory manager and the US businessman (who owns the factory)
who offer their own visions on why globalization is a success. Brilliantly
interweaving factory life with Mardi Gras festivities, the film
opens the blind eye of consumerism by visually introducing workers
and festivalgoers to each other. A dialogue results when bead-wearing
partyers are shown images of the Chinese workers and asked if they
know the origin of their beads, while the factory women view pictures
of Americans exchanging beads, soliciting more beads, and celebrating.
Film’s website http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com
COMPADRE
Mikael Wiström - Perú/Sweden - 2004 -90m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD In Spanish with English subtitles
In 1974, the Swedish photographer and journalist Mikael Wiström traveled across Perú chronicling the lives of people who literally had nothing and were forced to live off what they could find in rubbish dumps. There, Wiström met Daniel Barrientos, a young man stricken with polio. Daniel asks Mikael what a man his age is doing with such an expensive camera. From that moment, a complicated friendship, lasting over 30 years, develops between these two men. Following Wiström’s 1991 documentary The Other Shore, which chronicled Daniel’s family’s continual struggle to create a decent life for themselves, Wiström returns once more to Perú in 2003 in hopes of coming to terms with both his responsibility and Daniel’s plight. In Compadre, Wiström documents the daily life of Daniel’s family and also involves the viewer in the great dilemma of the Western filmmaker being confronted with dire poverty, an existential inequality that puts great pressure on the friendship. Wiström may call Daniel his brother, but how far does his “fraternal” responsibility extend?
Filmmaker Mikael Wistrom mikael.wistrom@chello.se
OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND
Garrett Scott and Ian Olds - USA - 2005 - 78m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD
In English and Arabic with English subtitles
Occupation: Dreamland offers a rare and intimate
window into the daily life of one group of US soldiers stationed
in Iraq to “keep peace” less than one year after President
Bush announced mission accomplished. The film follows one squad
in the US Army’s 82nd Airborne deployed in the doomed Iraqi
city of Falluja during the winter of 2004. Featuring a series of
remarkably candid interviews with the squad’s soldiers who
detail their sometimes shocking daily life and the creep of disillusionment
with their mission, Occupation: Dreamland brings a first
hand view of the moral and operational complexities inherent in
American warfare in the 21st century. As low-intensity conflict
proliferates, distrust between the Iraqi civilians in Falluja and
the US soldiers stationed there increase leading to greater confusion
and skepticism on all sides. The film presents a fascinating look
at the last days before a final series of assaults in the spring
of 2004 effectively destroyed Falluja.
Film's website http://occupationdreamland.com/
Distributor's website http://www.rumur.com/
STREET FIGHT
Marshall Curry - USA - 2005 - 83m - doc
Available on Beta SP and DVD In
English
Called "the best American political documentary since
1993's The War Room" by the Washington Post, Street Fight
tells a riveting story about the underbelly of American democracy.
It chronicles the bare-knuckles race for Mayor of Newark, N.J. between
Cory Booker, a 32-year-old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law School grad,
and Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent and undisputed champion
of New Jersey politics.
Fought in Newark's neighborhoods and housing projects,
the battle pits Booker against an old style political machine that
uses any means necessary to crush its opponents: city workers who
do not support the mayor are demoted; "disloyal" businesses are
targeted by code enforcement; a campaigner is detained and accused
of terrorism; and disks of voter data are burglarized in the night.
Even the filmmaker is dragged into the slugfest, and
by election day, the climate becomes so heated that the Federal
government is forced to send in observers to watch for cheating
and violence.
The battle sheds light on important American questions
about democracy, power and -- in a surprising twist -- race. Both
Booker and James are African-American Democrats, but when the mayor
accuses the Ivy League educated Booker of not being "really black"
it forces voters to examine both how we define race in this country.
"We tell our children to get educated," one Newarker says, "and
when they do, we call them white. What kind of a message does that
send?"
Street Fight presents a rarely-seen look
at a kind of electioneering that is not about spin doctors, media
consultants, or photo ops. In Newark, we discover, elections are
won and lost in the streets.
Street Fight is the winner of the Audience
Award at Tribeca Film Festival, SilverDocs Festival (Washington
DC) and Hot Docs Festival (Toronto), and was given the Jury Prize
for Best International Documentary at Hot Docs.
Filmmaker’s website http://www.marshallcurryproductions.com
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