The Other Journal is hosting the third annual Film, Faith, and Justice festival from October 23-25, 2008. The event, which is held at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, features eight powerful films from the 2007-2008 Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival, including Up the Yangtze, Project Kashmir, and Letter to Anna. The films are complimented by engaging lectures and discussion panels that articulate personal and communal faith responses to the issues raised in these films. The speakers at this year's film and lecture series include Christopher Heuertz (Executive Director of Word Made Flesh), Dr. Eugene McCarraher (Dept. of Humanities & Augustinian Traditions, Villanova University), Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock (Award-Winning Author, Co-Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good), Dr. J. Kameron Carter (Theology & Black Church Studies, Duke Divinity School), and local community leaders. To buy tickets or learn more about this event visit here.
THE FILMS
A Promise to the Dead
Filmmaker Peter Raymont travels to Chile with Ariel Dorfman in late 2006, when Augusto Pinochet, Allende’s overthrower and Dorfman’s long-time nemesis, is dying. Raymont follows Dorfman through emotional reunions with his friends and fellow resistors, to personal landmarks that are powerful both emotionally and historically.
Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo, this extraordinary film sensitively yet unflinchingly brings to light the plight of women and girls caught in that country’s intractable conflicts.
Letter to Anna
Anna Politkovskaya was a brave and tenacious journalist for one of Russia’s only independent journals, Novaya Gazeta. Anna used her journalist platform to strongly criticize Russian military actions in Chechnya. On October 7, 2006, she was shot dead in the stairwell of her Moscow apartment building. A few years before her untimely death, filmmaker Eric Bergkraut met Politkovskaya while making a documentary in which he filmed some powerful, frank interviews with the late reporter. This film is a celebration of the life of an extraordinary woman and mother, a fearless defender of the people, “the conscience of Russia.”
The Sari Soldiers
Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, this is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties.
To See if I’m Smiling
Israel is the only country in the world where 18-year-old girls are drafted for compulsory military service. This film is a disturbing look at the actions and behavior of women soldiers in the Israeli army who, stationed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, help maintain the 40-year-old occupation of Palestinian territories.
USA vs. Al-Arian
A passionate, outspoken pro-Palestinian activist, university professor Sami Al-Arian was charged in 2003 with funding and supporting a Palestinian terrorist group and held in prison awaiting a trial for two-and-a-half years. USA vs. Al-Arian is an intimate family portrait that documents the strain brought on by Al-Arian’s trial, a battle waged both in court and in the media.
Project Kashmir
Two American friends, one Hindu and one Muslim, enter the war zone of Kashmir to investigate the 60-year rivalry between their homelands India and Pakistan. How does a young generation remain hopeful in this endless war? Beautifully lensed by award-winning cinematographer Ross Kauffman, the film captures the physical splendor of Kashmir, while expertly interweaving deeply moving personal stories of Kashmiris with those of the two American women, who strive to reconcile their ethnic and religious heritage with the violence that haunts their homeland.
Up the Yangtze
A symbol of China’s economic prowess, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the world’s largest, and China’s biggest engineering feat since the Great Wall. It also represents the end to a way of life and livelihood for two million people along the Yangtze. Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang crafts a beautifully photographed and moving metaphor for life in contemporary China, as well as a disquieting glimpse into a future that awaits us all.
No comments:
Post a Comment