Film Schedule and Synopses

Monday March 20, 2006: Global Issues Night

Heart of the Congo

In Heart of the Congo, at the end of a war, a handful of aid workers help refugees who have lost everything. They mobilize villagers to dig wells for clean water, train health workers, and nurse children with acute malnutrition back to health. They are confronted with threats of violence from roaming militias, systemic corruption, and a legacy of colonial dependence. And there are times when it is very clear that these workers exist apart from those they aim to help, beyond the reach of the rural Congolese. In spite of this the Congolese and European aid workers struggle to encourage the will and build the skills necessary for a self-sufficient future. Heart of the Congo is a film about courage, hope, and perseverance. (57 mins)

http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/heart.html

For a Place Under the Heavens

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. (53 mins)

Waiting for Quds

Waiting for Quds tells the story of Abed al-Ahmar, a Palestinian Muslim raised in a West Bank refugee camp and an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience, and Allegra Pacheco, an Israeli woman who was raised in a Jewish middle-class surburban New York home. Today, Allegra and Abed are husband and wife.

In Waiting for Quds, the filmmaker, Devorah Blachor, who is also Allegra’s cousin, explores the journey that Allegra and Abed took to bridge the enormous gaps of religion, culture and country to come together. The film follows Allegra before and after Abed is arrested during an Israeli army raid on Bethlehem, and then imprisoned as an administrative detainee without charge or trial. At the time of the arrest, Allegra is five months pregnant.

Waiting for Quds is filled with symbolism and hope, as this extraordinary couple is already living in the reality of coexistence between Jew and Aab, although politics and war constantly invade and divide them. Their baby, Quds (Quds is also the Arabic word for Jerusalem, and Allegra and Abed have deliberately chosen the name of the city that is holy to both Jews, Muslims, and Christians) epitomizes their union. Their love for the city of Quds—which is the Arabic Word for Jerusalem—binds them, while outside their home it is still a source of conflict and division. But Waiting for Quds is also, finally, a love story, with all its sentiment and romance, between a man and woman who happened to have been born on opposite sides of a great, tragic, historic divide. (79 mins)

Tuesday March 21, 2006: Global Issues Night

Following Antigone: Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights Investigation

The film exposes the use of forensic sciences, including anthropology, to uncover the truth of massacres, disappearances, and other gross violations of human rights as a means to help the families of victims recover the remains of their loved ones and provide evidence to courts. The film is a collaboration between Witness and Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense/Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), and it documents the stages of the EAAF’s work from pre-interviews and exhumations to trials and reburials, drawing on their landmark exhumation at El Mozote in eastern El Salvador, which EAAF has been documenting over the past 10 years, as well as on other examples from around the world. It also explores the history of EAAF and shows the reasons why science is an essential part of human rights investigations.

Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure

February 2002. With most of the US military aid under the so-called “Plan Columbia” anti-drug package delivered, Columbian President Andres Pastrana unilaterally withdraws from the peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) and steps up violence in the 50-year quest. In the post 9-11 context with the US state Department now branding the leftist FARC a “terrorist organization” and openly targeting it, what is left of the initial anti-narcotics purpose of the US “Plan Columbia”? Is the US government still concerned with fighting drugs? 20 years of drug wars in the Andes have resulted in a two-fold increase in cocaine imported into the US in the last ten years alone. Could there be alternate purposes to a plan focused on beefing up the Columbian military and spraying coca fields in rebel held parts of the country when coca is grown all over Columbia? (58 mins)

http://peacenowar.net/Colombia/film.htm

Lost Boys of Sudan

Lost Boys of Sudan is a feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America. Orphaned as young boys in one of Africa's cruelest civil wars, Peter Dut and Santino Chuor survived lion attacks and militia gunfire to reach a refugee camp in Kenya along with thousands of other children. From there, remarkably, they were chosen to come to America. Safe at last from physical danger and hunger, a world away from home, they find themselves confronted with the abundance and alienation of contemporary American suburbia. (87 mins)

http://www.lostboysfilm.com

Wednesday March 22, 2006: Domestic Issues Night

A Voice from Death Row

Directed by UT student Nathaniel Chris, this short film is constructed from footage of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty conference held in Austin in October 2005. Through speeches from the conference, including those of exonerated death row inmate Sujaa Graham, the film explores the fallacies of executions and the captures the growing strength of the movement to abolish the death penalty in the United States.

State V. Reed

Directed by UT grad and Austin film-maker Ryan Polomski, State V. Reed is the twisted story of how a 28-year old African American male from Bastrop landed on Texas’ infamous Death Row. Reed, who has now been on death row since 1998 despite much doubt about the verdict, will face a hearing in Bastrop, Texas regarding a new trial on Thursday March 23, 2006.

Too Flawed to Fix

This film explores and exposes the irreparable flaws in the criminal justice system that have wrongfully convicted 13 people in Illinois and caused the governor to declare a moratorium on capital punishment in that state. The film focuses on the personal aspects of capital punishment and how it affects a diverse range of ordinary citizens. (52 mins)

The Empty Chair

Tells four stories of murder victims' families reliving the crimes and confronting the loss of loved ones. Their instinct for revenge during trial and the debate for punishment by death climaxes in a search to forgive & heal. Other voices include a death-row warden whose first-hand experience with the execution system unfolds in chilling detail; and a nun, who as spiritual advisor to inmates sentenced to die, believes that we are all better than our worst acts. (42 mins)

Death on a Friendly Border

The border that runs between Tijuana and San Diego is the most heavily militarized border between "friendly" countries anywhere in the world. Since 1994 when the U.S. instituted Operation Gatekeeper, an average of one person a day has died crossing it. This poignant film puts a human face on a tragedy that occurs daily, as it seeks to give voice to the hardships imposed by heat and thirst and abusive border guards. Featuring first-hand interviews with a border guard, a human rights activist, and a citizen who actually goes into the desert each weekend to provide water for the fugitives, this memorable film is a portrait of people who risk everything to come to "the land of plenty" --- and often lose the gamble. (26 mins)

Thursday March 23, 2006: Globalization Night

Behind the Labels: Garment Workers on U.S. Saipan

Lured by false promises and driven by desperation, thousands of Chinese and Filipina women pay high fees to work in garment factories on the pacific island of Saipan - the only U.S. territory exempt from labor and immigration laws. The clothing they sew, bearing the "Made in the USA" label, is shipped duty and quota-free to the U.S for sale by The GAP, J. Crew, Polo and other retailers. Powerful hidden camera footage, along with the garment workers' personal stories, offers a rare and unforgettable glimpse into indentured labor and the workings of the global sweatshop-where 14 hour shifts, payless paydays and lock-downs are routine. BEHIND THE LABELS takes the story from the factory floor to the streets, where protesters worldwide wage an ongoing battle against globalization. (45 mins)

http://www.humanrightsproject.org/vid_detail.php?film_id=1

Cancel the Debt Now

This film shows how debts owed to rich, industrial nations are exacerbating the devastation of the living conditions and the environment of poor countries. The video also explains the origins of the debt and delivers an emphatic message calling for its cancellation. The film illuminates the facts that the poorest of the poor are repaying money they never received, and that the enormity of the debt service - paying the principal plus exorbitant interest rates - amounts to slavery, virtually eliminating meaningful self-determination. (25 mins)

http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=959

The Day My God Died

The Day My God Died is a feature-length documentary that tells the stories of Nepalese girls swept up by the international child sex trade. In their own words, we hear how the day traffickers took each of them from their rural villages and sold them into sexual servitude in the brothels of India. The girls describe it as, "the day my god died." The film documents the fact that these stories are not isolated or haphazard. The industry has formed a pipeline in which every person in the chain profits except for the girls, who pay the price with their lives. This heart-wrenching documentary offers a memorable portrayal of the corruption and evil behind the curtain of India's sex industry, providing us with a brief glimpse into a world seldom seen by outsiders. (70 mins)

http://www.thedaymygoddied.com/

Global Banquet: The Politics of Food

Explains how large corporations and the WTO, IMF and NAFTA combine to increase both hunger and environmental ruin throughout the world. The film illuminates the profound impact of globalization on our food system. (50 mins)

http://www.olddogdocumentaries.com/vid_gb.html