[Needtoknow] Fwd: Spring 2008 William Joiner Center Film Series

[gary hicks]

gary hicks <watermelongreen2003 at yahoo.com> wrote: Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:26:43 -0800 (PST)
From: gary hicks <watermelongreen2003 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Fwd: Spring 2008 William Joiner Center Film Series
To: gary hicks <watermelongreen2003 at yahoo.com>

 

Joiner Center <joinercenter at umb.edu> wrote: Subject: Spring 2008 William Joiner Center Film Series
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:17:54 -0500
From: "Joiner Center" <joinercenter at umb.edu>
To: "Joiner Center" <joinercenter at umb.edu>

 William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences

Spring 2008 Film Series

February 25th
Close To Home
By Dalia Hager & Vidi Bilu
99 Mins. - 2005
2:30 PM, Room 3545, 3rd FL. Campus Center
In the nation of Israel, military service is compulsory for all citizens. Now an award-winning drama offers an in-depth look at young women's lives in the service. Dutiful Mirit (Naama Schendar) is assigned to a street patrol with the rebellious Smadar (Smadar Sayar). Plunged into the simmering tensions of Jerusalem, they find their values completely at  odds. Surprisingly frank and quietly moving, Close to Home reveals an unusual friendship where roles reverse under the looming shadow of terror.

March 10th
Paradise Now
Dir. Hany Abu-Assad
91 Min. - 2005
2:30 PM, Room 3540, 3rd FL. Campus Center
Said and Khaled are walking time bombs. With explosives strapped to their bodies, the two young Palestinians slip into Israel, planning a suicide mission in Tel Aviv. Can anything or anyone change their minds? Paradise Now - sweepingly powerful and intricately detailed, highly acclaimed and widely controversial - tells the story of these two lifelong friends and their mission of doom. Hany Abu-Assad directs, shooting this harrowing thriller in locations made equally harrowing by real-life missile attacks, exploding land mines, suspicious Palestinian factions and Israeli occupied forces, and the kidnapping of a crew member. The result is a film that knows its topic up close and provides no easy answers.  Instead, Paradise Now lays bare the humanity and the horror for all to see, to ponder...and perhaps to change.

March 24th
Winter Soldier
They Risked Everything to Tell the Truth
Produced & Directed by The Winterfilm Collective in Association with Vietnam Veterans Against the War
95 minutes - 1972
2:30 PM, Room 3540, 3rd FL. Campus Center
Between March 13-16, 2008 hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will meet in Washington, D.C. to testify publicly about the realities of the wars from which they have recently returned. Calling themselves "Winter Soldiers" their goal is to tell the public the truth about how the war is being waged, how it affects civilians, and what it is doing to the souls of American forces. In 1971 the first Winter Soldier Investigation took place when 125 Vietnam veterans testified about what they saw as the brutalities and unspeakable violence they witnessed. Taking their title from a phrase written by Tom Paine during  the American Revolution, the Winter Soldiers said that the time had come for real patriotism and truth to replace the lies and distortions of the "sunshine patriots" who supported the Vietnam War from their safe and privileged havens.  Winter Soldiers then and now are risking careers, veteran's benefits, and family and friendship relations to speak truth to power
 and the American people.  Rarely seen since its 1972 Cannes film festival premier, Winter Soldier has been called one of the most powerful anti-war films ever made and remains to this day a remarkable plea for peace.

April 7th
La Sierra
A Film by Scott Dalton & Margarita Martinez
84 minutes - 2005
2:30 PM, Room 3540, 3rd FL. Campus Center
A searing portrayal of three young lives defined by violence, the award-winning documentary La Sierra traces a year in the life of a small Colombian neighborhood ruled by paramilitary thugs. It is an intimate, meditative exploration, revealing not onlyl  startling moments of violence and its aftermath, but also the tenderness and faith that allow community to survive in times of conflict. 

April 28th
Wall
A Film by Simone Bitton
88 minutes - 2004
2:30 PM, Room 3540, 3rd FL. Campus Center
WALL (Mur) is a cinematic meditation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which the filmmaker blurs the lines of hatred by asserting her double identity as Jew and Arab. In an original documentary approach, the film follows the separation fence that is destroying one of the most historically significant landscapes in the world, while imprisoning one Arabic, defy the discourses of war, passing through the deafening noise of bulldozers. MUR offers its spectators a last glimpse of the beauty of this land and the humanity of its inhabitants a moment before they disappear behind the wall. 

May 5th
Gaza Strip
Directed by James Longley
74 minutes - 2002
2:30 PM, Room 3540, 3rd FL. Campus Center
In  January of 2001, American director James Longley traveled to the Gaza Strip. His plan was to stay for two weeks to collect preliminary material for a documentary film on the Palestinian Intifada. It was during his stay that Ariel Sharon was elected as Israeli Prime Minister. As violence erupted around him, Longley threw away his return ticket and filmed for the next three months, acquiring nearly 75 hours of footage. Gaza Strip, his first feature documentary, is an extraordinary and painful journey into the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip struggling with the day-to-day trials of the Israeli occupation. Filmed in verité style and without narration, Gaza Strip at last gives voice to a population largely ignored by mainstream media. 

The William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at UMass Boston
100 Morrissey Boulevard     Boston, MA 02125
(617) 287-5852      www.joinercenter.umb.edu       joinercenter at umb.edu


           

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