SCREEN

Session XIX:

The Dhamma Brothers (USA): Donaldson Correctional Facility is situated in the Alabama countryside southwest of Birmingham. Around 1,500 men, considered the state’s most dangerous criminals, live behind high security towers and a double row of barbed and electrical wire fences. Yet within this dark environment, a spark was ignited. A growing network of men was gathering to meditate on a regular basis. Were these prisoners, many of them survivors of personal trauma, even capable of withstanding the emotionally and physically demanding experience of a ten day meditation retreat? Despite the extreme difficulty in obtaining permission to film inside a prison, the Alabama Department of Corrections allowed a film crew to document, not only the Vipassana retreat, but many other scenes revealing the daily lives of prisoners and staff. This is, most likely, the first time non-inmates have ever lived among inmates inside a prison. But, has the retreat been genuinely transformative for the men? Or, as the Warden suggests, could they just be faking these changes to look good to the parole board? Is the transformation sustaining?

Sin By Silence (USA): With unprecedented access inside the California Institution for Women, Sin by Silence offers a unique gateway into the lives of women who are domestic violence’s living worst-case scenarios—women who have killed their abusers. Brenda Clubine endured broken bones, skull fractures, and a bruised and battered face. By the time Brenda was put behind bars, for killing her husband in 1983, she felt worthless. She received a sentence of fifteen years to life and had to give up her son for adoption. She thought she was the only one in her situation. But Brenda soon discovered that she shared common experiences of love turned violent with many of her fellow inmates. After years of meeting on the yard and telling each other their whispered stories, in 1989, Brenda’s revelation inspired the inmate-initiated and led group Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA). This support group, the first of its kind in the entire U.S. prison system, has become an avenue to help women inside prison break their silence about abuse and learn more about what they need to do to help others stop the cycle of violence.

Session XX:

Milking the Rhino (Kenya/Namibia/USA): The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Namibia’s Himba—two of the oldest cattle cultures on earth—are emerging from a century of “white man’s conservation,” which turned their lands into game reserves, and elevated wildlife for its exoticism at the expense of local people. Having borne the costs while reaping few of the benefits of wildlife, the Maasai and Himba are now vying for a piece of the economic pie and a path towards self-sufficiency. Milking the Rhino depicts people at the cutting edge of “community-based conservation” (CBC), a new paradigm that tries to balance the needs of wildlife and people. It is a movement led by NGO field-workers and social entrepreneurs at the village level. CBC has been touted by environmentalists as “Win-Win”; but the devil is in the details. While the host of a community eco-lodge in Kenya contends “we never used to benefit from these animals but now we milk them like cattle,” his neighbor disagrees, “A rhino means nothing to me! I can’t kill it for meat like a cow.” Charting the collision of ancient lifestyles with Western expectations, Milking the Rhino tells intimate, harrowing and hopeful stories about rural Africans in the midst of deep cultural change.

Garbage Dreams (Egypt/UK): Filmed over four years, Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys—Adham, a bright precocious seventeen year old; Osama, a charming impish sixteen year old; and Nabil, a shy artistic eighteen year old—born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage village, a ghetto located on the outskirts of Cairo. It is a world folded onto itself, an impenetrable labyrinth of narrow roadways camouflaged by trash. It is also home to 60,000 Zaballeen, Arabic for ‘garbage people.’ For generations, the residents of Cairo have depended on the Zaballeen to collect their trash, paying them only a minimal amount for their garbage collection services. The Zaballeen survive by recycling the city’s waste. These entrepreneurial garbage workers recycle 80% of all the garbage they collect, creating what is arguably the world’s most efficient waste disposal system. When the city they keep clean suddenly decides to replace the Zaballeen with multinational garbage disposal companies, the Zaballeen community finds itself at a crossroads. Face to face with the globalization of their trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community. This film is co-presented with Chicken and Egg Pictures and the Arab Film Festival.

Session XXI:

The Yes Men Fix the World (USA): The Yes Men Fix the World is a screwball true story that follows a couple of gonzo political activists as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks that highlight the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Andy and Mike are two guys who just can’t take “no” for an answer. They have an unusual hobby: posing as top executives of corporations they hate. Armed with nothing but thrift-store suits, they lie their way into business conferences and parody their corporate nemeses in ever more extreme ways—basically doing everything that they can to wake up their audiences to the danger of letting greed run our world. Andy, purporting to be a Dow Chemical spokesperson, gets on the biggest TV news program in the world and announces that after twenty years of denial, Dow will finally clean up the site of the Bhopal Catastrophe, the largest industrial accident in history. At Exxon, Andy and Mike demonstrate a new biofuel made from climate-change victims. It’s a gut-busting laugh riot—one of several in the film—to see the unsuspecting audience learn that the lit candles they hold are made out of dead people. And as they appear on the BBC before 300 million viewers, or before 1000 New Orleans contractors alongside Mayor Ray Nagin, the layers of lies are peeled back to reveal the raw heart of truth—a truth that brings with it hope. They visit the twisted (and accidentally hilarious) underworld of the free-market think tanks, where they figure out a way to defeat the logic that’s destroying our planet. This film co-presented with the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts.

Following the films, stay for the Closing Night Party with music by Potential and sumptious International Food sponsored by La Mediterranee, Douce France, and Hobee’s.