SCREEN

Session XIV:

Soldiers of Peace (Australia/Colombia/Ireland/Kenya/Nigeria/UK/USA): The current challenges that the world community faces in terms of its sustainability affect everyone: climate change, accessible fresh water, ever decreasing biodiversity and over-population. These issues call for global solutions that will require cooperation on a scale unparalleled in human history. Soldiers of Peace, narrated by Michael Douglas, travels around the globe revealing the inspiring every day people who are proving that peace is a more viable alternative to war. The film shows religious fundamentalists in Nigeria who preach a peaceful coexistence, an IRA bomber reconciling with the daughter of one of his victims, a young Kenyan woman who brings clashing tribes together through football, and Columbian musicians making guitars from AK47s. Featuring interviews with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hans Blix, Sir Bob Geldof, Prince Hussein of Jordan, Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand, Tim Flannery, James Galbraith, Paul Rogers, Sir Richard Branson, Gill Hicks and Scilla Elworthy. Soldiers of Peace focuses on the countries that have made the most progress towards peace, as measured by the Global Peace Index, and the thousands of unsung heroes who are striving for peace, either individually or in cooperation with others. In a world dominated by the negative, Soldiers of Peace offers an affirmative message that peace can be achieved.

Letters to the President (Canada/Iran): This is an observational verité film about President Ahmadinejad’s regime in Iran. Allowed to travel on several of the president’s populist trips to the countryside, the filmmaker (the only foreigner given such access) shows Ahmadinejad to be different than he is portrayed by the international media: He is far less a fiery dangerous leader than he is an ordinary but charismatic politician. During his trips, the president receives many letters—the government claims ten million—from poor Iranians asking for help. The film uses these letters to the president as its narrative thread, and as a device to provide a glimpse into an Iran that is usually not open to outsiders. While not finding evidence for the government’s claim that its charity resolves the problems of most letters, the film does show that promises almost always kindle the desperate hope of the poor—a hope that finds different outlets, particularly for the religious poor, who turn to belief in a Shia messiah, the Mahdi, who will come at the end of time to bring the world justice. At the holy Mosque where the Mahdi will one day reappear, the poor write their letters and put them in a wishing well, hoping their prayers might be answered. What image does the film give of President Ahmadinejad and contemporary Iran? That will depend on the eye of the beholder. The film tries to avoid facile judgment, treating its subjects with respect, and allowing all its characters to express the truth.

XV session:

City of Borders (Israel/Palestine/USA): In observing the lives and struggles of the regulars at the gay bar Shushan, City of Borders highlights the bond forged when people from warring worlds embrace what everyone shares in common—the right to be accepted and belong—rather than be defined by the differences that tear them apart. City of Borders follows the intersecting lives of five bar regulars as they face extraordinary risks and intolerance. Each participant’s storyline chronicles a bittersweet balance between survival and the need to honor his or her true self as well as his or her limitations in transcending barriers between people. On the dance floor, a 33-year-old Palestinian Israeli, Samira Saraya, kisses her 35-year-old Jewish Israeli lesbian lover, Ravit Geva. Their union breaks two of Middle Eastern society’s biggest taboos: same-sex relations and intimacy between Jews and Arabs. Ironically, these barriers have drawn them closer together, but isolated them from their families. Their relationship complicates over the issue of starting a family of their own. Outside of the bar, Jewish, Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, in a rare show of solidarity, strive to eliminate all demonstrations of gay identity through the reversal of anti-discrimination laws, riots and death threats. This film is co-presented with the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Crips and Bloods - Made in America (USA):  South Los Angeles is home to two of America’s most infamous African-American gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. On these streets over the past thirty years, more than 15,000 people have been murdered in an ongoing cycle of gang violence that continues unabated. It was here, just a few miles from the gated communities and sprawling mansions of Beverly Hills and Bel Air, where this nation’s most bloody and costly outbreaks of civil unrest erupted—not once, but twice. Hard-hitting, yet ultimately hopeful, this film not only documents the emergence of the Bloods and the Crips and their growth beyond the borders of South Central, but also offers insight as to how this ongoing tragedy might be resolved.