Where? Friedman Student Union, 2nd Floor, on the NSU Campus.
Dates: Monday, April 17 – Thursday, April 20, 2006
Local Sponsors: NSU School of Social Sciences, as part of the ongoing American Democracy Project.
Generous Provider: New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival
Cost? FREE! (Donations of any amount to “Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center” in New Orleans will be gratefully accepted.)
Who? Students and General Public are invited to attend.
Why? To raise awareness of human rights issues and provide a forum for artistic expression of these themes.
MONDAY, APRIL 17 800AM – 830AM
FINDING COMMON GROUND IN NEW ORLEANS (23 min)
A short documentary that addresses the social injustice that took place during and after the hurricane Katrina disaster through the lens of poet and activist Walidah Imarisha. Through compelling and often heart wrenching interviews with residents, survivors, activists, volunteers and officials, the landscape of a city devastated and trying to rebuild comes to light. Includes exclusive footage shot in the makeshift bus station jail known as “Camp Amtrak” and interviews with officials at the jail about the city’s criminal justice system, or lack thereof.
MONDAY, APRIL 17 845AM – 940AM
SOMA: An anarchist therapy - a documentary by Nick Cooper (49 min)
Blinded by torture and with great difficulty walking, 75 year-old Roberto Freire continues his work in a small collective of anarchist group therapists in Brazil, fighting the psychological effects of authoritarianism. Nick Cooper traveled from the United States to Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to capture the exercises, the voice, and the movement of Soma Therapy. He spent many long sessions with Roberto Freire, who having survived the Brazilian military dictatorship, developed Soma (body) thirty years ago, incorporating Wilhelm Reich's teachings, a martial art / dance form called capoeira angola, and the political ideas of anarchism.
MONDAY, APRIL 17 1000AM – 1015AM
RIGHTS ON THE LINE: VIGILANTES AT THE BORDER (13 min)
"Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border", documents human rights violations along the U.S. / Mexico border, particularly at the hands of vigilantes such as the Minutemen.
MONDAY, APRIL 17 1030AM – 1040AM
PEOPLE SAY (9 min)
Directed by Mary Beth Black. Disastrous Hurricanes, martial law & curfews, housing crisis, toxic earth, closed schools and hospitals, abandoned elders, centuries of festering racism, a neo-police state... while the "New" New Orleans struggles to survive and exist outside of the American illusion of democracy, the most dynamic grass roots efforts in the country claim the streets, deliver food, celebrate, build homes and tell the truth in this visual collage set to the song "People Say.”
MONDAY, APRIL 17 1100AM – 1130AM
THE ABORTION DIARIES (30 min)
The Abortion Diaries, directed by 27-year-old Penny Lane, dispels the stigma of abortion by presenting the abortion stories of twelve diverse women. Their stories weave together with Lane's own diary entries to present a compelling, intimate and at times surprisingly funny "dinner party" where the audience is invited to hear what women say behind closed doors about sex, love, careers, motherhood, medical technology, spirituality and their own bodies.
MONDAY, APRIL 17 1145AM – 1230PM
RWANDA, IN REMEMBRANCE (RWANDA, POUR MÉMOIRE) by Samba Felix N’Diaye
An ode to life and an indictment of those who use death to manipulate the living. The aim here is to liberate speech, for words to grasp the genocide. For a ritual is necessary if a grieving process is to be possible, a ritual of writing to contribute to the world's memory. It is indeed a question of memory. "There is a dormant beast in each and every man and woman", reminds the Ivoirian Véronique Tadjo. Memory is about understanding that this is man's nature. So what's the point of continuing to exhibit the corpses? Someone answers: to stop the revisionists from performing their macabre inversions. The genocide happened. It has to be shown to avoid repetition. (68 min.)
TUESDAY, APRIL 18 800AM – 900AM
WITH BLOOD (56 min)
WITH BLOOD follows ordinary peoples efforts to overcome extraordinary obstacles in pursuit of routine health care in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip. Using personal situations to demonstrate the effects of political policy and military actions, this documentary offers a general viewing audience a way to approach what is often depicted as an impenetrable political debate.
TUESDAY, APRIL 18 915AM – 1015AM
WOMEN IN STRUGGLE (56 min)
The documentary film Women in Struggle is about Palestinian women whom are ex-political detainees demonstrating their struggle during their years of imprisonment in Israeli jails exploring the affects and influence on their present life and their future outlook.
TUESDAY, APRIL 18 1030AM – 12 Noon
THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX (76 min)
A self-described "good Southern Baptist girl," 15-year-old Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas has pledged abstinence until marriage. But she becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex ed when she finds that Lubbock, where high schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the state.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 800AM – 920AM
QUILOMBO COUNTRY (74 min)
"Quilombo Country” provides a portrait of rural communities in Brazil that were either founded by runaway slaves or began from abandoned plantations. This type of community is known as a quilombo, from an Angolan word that means "encampment." As many as 2,000 quilombos exist today.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 930AM – 1030AM
CONTES CRUELS DE LA GUERRE (CRUEL TALES OF THE WAR) by Ibea Atondl & Karim Miske (52 min)
From Congo - Brazzaville, this powerful documentary poses a singular glance on the wars of contemporary Africa. Fascinated by the fatal madness of Mignon, a fighter destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the narrator tries to seize the mechanisms which pushed him and his companions to lose their human dignity. To evoke the horror of the war, no images of violence are needed; this is a metaphorical work which comes to support testimonies of victims and torturers alike.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 1045AM – 12 Noon
DROWNED OUT (90 min)
An Indian family chooses to stay at home and drown rather than make way for the Narmada Dam – featuring famed writer Arundhati Roy.
THURSDAY, APRIL 20 800AM – 845AM
DEMOCRACY’S GHOSTS: HOW 5 MILLION AMERICANS HAVE LOST THE RIGHT TO VOTE (34 min)
From the cradle of the civil rights movement in Selma, Alabama to the wind-blown plains of South Dakota's Native American reservations, to the hallowed halls of an Ivy League college, this 33-minute film spends time with people who are living their lives as legal ghosts because of felony convictions. Their stories are complemented and enriched by interviews with experts and well-known personalities, among them evangelist Chuck Colson, actor Charles Dutton, civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis and Harvard Professor Lani Guinier.
