SCREEN

Session IX:

A Film From My Parish - 6 Farms (Ireland): A Film from My Parish-6 Farms crackles with an almost manic nervous energy that is completely unexpected for a celebration of rural, Irish life. Traditional farming goes beyond the world of crop rotation and animal husbandry. In this film, filmmakers explore farm traditions that include hand painted furniture, home made sheets, general repairing and recycling. These six farmers are not eco warriors, but they do embody traditional farming attitudes of sustainability and working with the land. In keeping with the sustainable nature of these farms, this film was made in a green way. The film was shot with two cheap digital still cameras, a tripod, a minidisc recorder and a bicycle. A full 95% of filming was done in natural light.

American Outrage (USA): Carrie and Mary Dann are feisty Western Shoshone sisters who have endured five terrifying livestock roundups by armed federal marshals in which more than a thousand of their horses and cattle were confiscated—for grazing their livestock on the open range outside their private ranch. That range is part of 60 million acres recognized as Western Shoshone land by the U.S. in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, but in 1974 the U.S. sued the Dann sisters for trespassing on that land, without a permit. That set off a dispute between the Dann sisters and the U.S. government that swept to the U.S. Supreme Court and eventually to the Organization of American States and the UN. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management insists the sisters are degrading the land. The Dann sisters say the real reason is the resources hidden below this seemingly barren land, their Mother Earth. It so happens that Western Shoshone land is the second largest gold producing area in the world.

Session X:

Mustang - Journey of Transformation (Nepal/USA): Narrated by Richard Gere, Mustang – Journey of Transformation, tells the remarkable story of a culture pulled back from the brink of extinction through the restoration of its most sacred sites. The Himalayan Kingdom of Mustang lies on a windswept plateau between Nepal and Tibet in one of the most remote regions of the world. Isolated both by geography and politics, Mustang—known as the Forbidden Kingdom—has been completely off limits to westerners for fifty years. Although Mustang is culturally and ethnically Tibetan, politically it is part of Nepal. This starkly beautiful place is home to one of the last surviving repositories of Tibetan sacred art from the 15th century. To travel here is to journey into the past where one can witness the ancient ways of life. In 1991, Nepal opened Mustang’s border to the outside world. What the first visitors found was shocking—the ancient monasteries were on the verge of collapse; the Buddhist wall paintings were disintegrating; the community was deeply impoverished. The people needed health care, education and jobs. Surprisingly, the King’s first plea to outsiders offering help was to save the monasteries. Mustang – Journey of Transformation features interviews with the Dalai Lama; the King of Mustang; Luigi Fieni, the chief art restorer; and Richard Blum, founder of the American Himalayan Foundation, the NGO that worked closely with the community to restore the monasteries and bring essential social services to the people. This film is co-presented with 3rd i South Asian Film Festival.

Burma VJ (Burma/Norway): Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. Armed with small handycams, the Burma VJs (video journalists) stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. Burma VJ offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching. Amidst protesting monks, brutal police agents, and a shooting military, the reporters embark on their dangerous mission, working around the clock to keep the world informed of events inside their closed country. Amazingly edited, Burma VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government. This film is co-presented with the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Session XI:

China's Unnatural Disaster - The Tears of Sichuan Province (China/USA): On May 12, 2008, a catastrophic earthquake hit Sichuan Province in rural China, killing nearly 70,000 people, including 10,000 children. In town after town, poorly constructed school buildings crumbled, wiping out classrooms filled with students, most of them their parents’ only child. But when grieving mothers and fathers sought explanations and justice, they found their path blocked by incompetence, corruption and empty promises. China’s Unnatural Disaster examines the reality of modern China for its people, presenting a rare glimpse at how the government reacts to civil unrest. The film visits parents of deceased children from several schools a few days after the disaster, sharing in their unimaginable grief at the loss of what was for most their only child. This film is co-presented with the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center for Asian American Media.

Disco and Atomic War (Estonia/ Finland):  Did disco cause the collapse of the Soviet Union? According to this lighthearted and informative film, nighttime soap operas and disco-dancing footage had as much to do with the Soviet’s demise as did any political movement. Disco and Atomic War tells the story of a strange kind of information war, where a totalitarian regime stands face to face with the heroes of popular culture. Despite a ban on western media, from the 1950s onward many Estonias were able to easily pick up Finnish radio and television broadcasts from across the border with homemade antennas. Western popular culture had an incomparable role shaping Soviet children’s worldviews in those days—in ways that now seem slightly odd. Finnish television was a window to the world of capitalism’s pleasures that the authorities could not block. Blending dramatic reconstructions with talking heads and archival footage, the film includes some brilliant scenes such as, for instance, the filmmaker’s rural cousin Urve reading the latest “Dallas” plot developments to the entire town.