SCREEN

Session XII:  Session XII begins with a panel discussion “Producing Films with Passion – A Woman’s Perspective” co-presented with the Stanford Alumni Association.

Grandmother to Grandmother - New York to Tanzania (Tanzania/USA): In sub Saharan Africa, AIDS is wiping out a generation of parents, leaving thirteen million orphans behind. Many of the grandmothers, impoverished by the epidemic, have rescued these children from the streets and are struggling to raise them. A similar thing is happening in cities all across America. AIDS, drugs, and violence are wiping out generations of parents, leaving millions of children behind. Determined to keep these children out of foster care, their grandmothers are stepping in to raise them. Their task is made more difficult because many are poor women living in sub-standard housing and gang-ridden neighborhoods. This film introduces two outstanding projects—one in the Bronx, one in Tanzania. This film will inspire ordinary people to become visionaries, creating their own solution in their own communities, helping to lift the heavy burden carried by millions of grandmothers.

Tapestries of Hope (Zimbabwe/US): Zimbabwe is the number one AIDS-infected country in the world. Part of the rapid increase in AIDS in Zimbabwe stems from a single barbaric practice: traditional healers counsel that in order to cure his AIDS, all a man needs to do is rape a virgin. As a result, young girls and even infants are being raped and thereby contracting AIDS. Betty Makoni is a 34-year-old African woman, a child abuse survivor, activist and founder of the Girl Child Network (GCN) formed to assist in the rescue of girls from rape and abuse, and to create a strong path for them back to a normal life. The core focus of this nonprofit is to create a total physical, emotional, and spiritual renewal for these girls as well as to eradicate all forms of abuse. Part of that mandate includes ensuring that girls return to school should they choose to do so. 

XIII session:

The Sari Soldiers (Nepal/USA): Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers 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. When Devi, mother of a 15-year-old girl, witnesses her niece being tortured and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army, she speaks publicly about the atrocity. The army abducts her daughter in retaliation, and Devi embarks on a three-year struggle to uncover her daughter’s fate and see justice done. The Sari Soldiers follows her and five other brave women, including Maoist Commander Kranti; Royal Nepal Army Officer Rajani; Krishna, a monarchist from a rural community who leads a rebellion against the Maoists; Mandira, a human rights lawyer; and Ram Kumari, a young student activist shaping the protests to reclaim democracy. The Sari Soldiers intimately delves into the extraordinary journey of these women on opposing sides of the conflict, through the democratic revolution that reshapes the country’s future. This film is co-presented with 3rd i South Asian Film Festival.

Knock on Wood (Ghana/USA):  Valerie Naranjo, one of New York City’s top professional percussionists, followed her love of African xylophone music to Ghana, where her performances on the gyil, a predecessor of the modern-day marimba, prompted a change in the tribe’s relationship to its women. When Valerie first visited Ghana in 1988, the sound of the gyil was rarely heard outside of western Africa, so the focus of her journey was to learn more about the instrument and apprentice with the Ghanaian xylophone master Krakaba Lobi. The film follows Valerie’s journey from New York to Ghana and back again, as she discovers the cultural importance of the musical instrument she has learned to love. At one point during her trip she is asked by a local chieftain to play for him and his council. An unexpected controversy is ignited as soon as they hear the obvious talent of this foreign woman. Part performance and part biography, the subject is presented in a way that invites the viewer into the experience of the music, the musician and the people. The documentary combines concert performances with interviews and cinema vérité.

Dishonored (Pakistan): In June 2002, a dispute involving a question of honor between the Mai and Mastois clans in rural Pakistan was judged by a local tribal council. When Mukhtar Mai pleaded on her family’s behalf, the local imam consented to her punishment as honor-revenge, and she was brutally gang-raped by four men from the Mastois clan. Although local tradition presumed that Mukhtar would commit suicide because she had been dishonored, this strong-willed peasant woman reported the rape to the local police, and when they refused to do anything, a local journalist published her story, which soon erupted in a national controversy over the oppression of women under Islamic law. Dishonored documents the remarkable story of Mukhtar Mai, whose demand for justice received media coverage worldwide. Over the next few years her case led to a dramatic series of legal proceedings through Pakistan’s lower court system, with successive controversial decisions being appealed and a final ruling by the nation’s Supreme Court that resulted in changes to the legal system. Over a period of four years, despite death threats, Mukhtar Mai persisted in her search for justice. During this time she was instrumental in establishing a Crisis Relief Centre for abused women, helped found a new school where girls as well as boys could be educated, had her autobiography published in twenty-one languages in forty-five countries, and traveled on behalf of women’s rights throughout Europe and at the UN in New York. This film is co-presented with the Arab Film Festival and 3rd i South Asian Film Festival.