2007 Film festival schedule
refreshments will be served
Friday, November 2
5.00pm - Untouchables vs Aryans (52 minutes)
For centuries, Hinduism has relegated a low-caste group of people known as "Untouchables" to the fringes of Indian society. Today, a growing movement among Untouchables proposes the renouncement of Hinduism in order to achieve social, economic and spiritual freedom.
6.00pm - Fueling the Fire (22 minutes)
A film about a murder at a gas station that is witnessed from three different points of view. Comments on the ambiguity of “truth.”
6.30pm - Por Los Caminos (54 minutes)
The documentary is a journey through the heart of Managua, Nicaragua that reveals, often through disturbing images, the anguish and moral disillusionment of the people there.
7.30pm - Black Slaves for Sale (52 minutes)
For more than 17 years, Sudan, Africa’s largest country, has been crippled by a civil war between the Islamic north and the Christian-animistic south in which over 2 million people have died. One of the conflict's horrible consequences has been the revival of slavery. This is the story of John Eibner, a man who has bought back 25,000 slaves on behalf of Christian Solidarity International (CSI): Is Eibner contributing to the liberation of the Sudanese or is he in fact stimulating the trade? This documentary explores the horrific dilemma of modern slave trade.
8.30pm - Supermax Wisconsin (27 minutes)
A documentary exploring the new era in American
incarceration, with respect to a Wisconsin prison utilizing high-tech security
measures recognized as supreme violations of human rights.
9.00pm - Time of Fear (60 minutes)
During World War II, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes and relocate to military camps. This documentary tells the story of the 16,000 men, women and children who were sent to two camps in southeast Arkansas, one of the poorest and most racially segregated places in America. The film -- a tale of suspicion and fear, of inspiring resilience and the deep scars of racism -- features interviews with Japanese Americans and Arkansans who lived through the events.
Saturday, November 3
1.00pm - Bought and Sold (42 minutes)
The documentary is based on a two year undercover investigation conducted by the Global Survival Network (GSN) into the illegal trafficking in women from the Former Soviet Republics, and features interviews with traffickers, Russian mafia, trafficked women, and groups working to provide services to trafficked women.
1.45pm -
Who killed America? Is an experimental short that uses
narrative and documentary footage to tell the story of a three-year-old boy who
fears being killed by police. The idea for Who killed America? arose from the
filmmaker's shock that mainstream media was not covering the brutal clashes
between protestors and police that he witnessed at the Democratic National
Convention (DNC). He and a few friends armed with DV cameras decided to put
together their courage and conviction to the test and document the events
themselves. After a week of shooting various protests and press conferences,
Modolaji made the decision to utilize his narrative filmmaking skills acquired
at the American Film Institute (AFI) to weave together an experimental narrative
that he believes represents the psychological impact of police brutality on our
nation youth.
College students tell the story of their unique visit to
Cuba while providing a critical analysis of the experience. From these personal
reflections emerges a complex portrait of Cuba and of academic travel.
Baba, a young Ghanaian woman, goes in search of her father for his blessing on her impending marriage to the young man she loves. Her joy at finding him turns into a nightmare as he insists she submit to his choice of marriage to an old man, and that she undergo female genital mutilation, as is the custom in his tribe. She is forced to flee her father's village, seeking refugee status in the U.S. Instead she becomes enmeshed in the U.S. immigration system.
4.45pm - Archivo de la Identidad (28 minutes)
In Argentina, adopted children have grown up with a haunting legacy of state violence: the "disappearance" of their parents under circumstances that are still being unearthed. In the course of their search for the truth, the new generation is building an archive of remembrance. ARCHIVO DE LA IDENTIDAD presents the work of the Grandmothers of the Plaza De Mayo Association and a group of students at the University of Buenos Aires, as they bring to life the forgotten faces and memories of "Los Desparecidos." They file not statistical facts or fingerprints, however, but memories of the deceased: a favorite color, or a place frequented on leisurely afternoons. This is a work that can help all of Argentina to search for its identity.
5.15pm - The Oil Factor (93 minutes)
After spending three months in Iraq, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan, Free-Will Productions’ Gerard Ungerman and Audry Brohy assess the
results of the US attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. They expose the human cost
and examine the bigger geo-strategic picture of these invasions that may lead
the world toward the next global conflict.
An artist, a grandmother, and two physicians journey by land and river to the depths f Hanford Nuclear Reservation; the site of the world’s first reactor that produced the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb. They confront the onerous challenge of cleaning up the radioactive and chemical waste from building bombs.
7.15pm - For a Place Under the Heavens (53 minutes)
Acclaimed director Sabiha Sumar, recent winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival for her feature Silent Waters, offers an insightful perspective on Pakistan in this finely crafted personal film. Beginning with the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Sumar traces the relationship of Islam to the state in an effort to understand how women are coping with and surviving the increasing religiosity of civil and political life in her country. Raised in a more secular time, she struggles to comprehend how religious schools have expanded at once unthinkable rates and presents chilling footage of a mother encouraging her toddler to be a martyr when he grows up. Mixing political analysis with interviews with activist colleagues, noted Islamic scholars and Pakistani women who have chosen to embrace fundamentalism, Sumar’s provocative questions dramatically capture the tension between liberal and fundamentalist forces that are shaping life in contemporary Pakistan.
8.15pm - Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion (104 minutes)
Ten years in the making, this award-winning feature-length documentary was filmed during nine journeys throughout Tibet, India and Nepal Cry of the Snow Lion brings audiences to the long-forbidden "rooftop of the world" with an unprecedented richness of imagery... from rarely-seen rituals in remote monasteries, to horse races with Khamba warriors; from brothels and slums in the holy city of Lhasa, to magnificent Himalayan peaks still traveled by nomadic yak caravans. The dark secrets of Tibet's recent past are powerfully chronicled through personal stories and interviews, and a collection of undercover and archival images never before assembled in one film. A definitive exploration of a legendary subject, Cry of the Snow Lion is an epic story of courage and compassion.
For more information, contact Dan at cabez77@hotmail.com.