Love Free or Die: How the Bishop of New Hampshire is Saving the World
Friday, Feb. 17, 2:45 p.m.
First United Methodist Church
After this film ends, please join us and the director, Macky Alston, and Alicia Lewis of Out Boulder for a very special Call 2 Action talkback session in the Tent!
Here's a wonderful preliminary look at Macky and his film, via the Sundance Film Festival --
And the program description: "This film features the consecration of Gene
Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in Christendom.
His historic elevation by the Episcopal
Church in America caused great controversy
worldwide, along with a stream of death threats.
But Gene Robinson refuses to leave the Church—
or the man he loves. By the end of the film,
because of Gene's faith and leadership, the
Church has done a 180-degree turn: more gay
bishops are being considered, more same-sex
marriages are being blessed and, in 2010, history
was made when Gene's conservative home state
of New Hampshire legalized same-sex marriage.
Gene proves that you don't have to leave behind
your Christianity, or your civil rights, just to love
and be loved."
BIFF Workshops and Panels Coordinator and DigiComm Commando
Monsieur Lazhar
Friday, Feb. 17, 2:45 p.m.
Boulder Theater
Someone
asked me what film I would recommend seeing at BIFF this year and I
immediately thought of the Academy Award-nominated "Monsieur Lazhar," which
I had the opportunity to screen a few weeks ago. It's a quirky story of
Bachir Lazhar, who left a tragic past in Algeria, to become a
substitute teacher in Canada. Even if you know nothing about Algerian
politics (I don't), and don't speak French (it's subtitled) and find
dark subject matter like suicide difficult, there's something subtly and
strangely beautiful and hopeful about the film. Apparently the film is
resonating with many audiences in that way.
In
a recent interview with Canadian public television, the film's
director, Philippe Falardeau, explained why he thinks that is so, "In
the past, people came to me and said 'we really enjoyed your film' and
they were talking about the qualities of the film. Now they come to me
and they say 'I was moved by your film, then they start talking about
themselves, and how they felt, and how they have a kid that's in school
and how it reminded them of a teacher...I think the film touches more
people because we've all been to elementary school and we all have our
point of entry into that film."
Here are your best bets for Friday, Feb. 17 at BIFF 2012!
1. "Give Up Tomorrow" Friday, Feb. 17, 5 p.m. First United Methodist Church
This film won the Audience and Best New Director Awards at the Tribeca Film Festival! This film is co-presented by Amnesty International. Its Director, Michael Collins, and its producer, Marty Syjuco, are here with us and will talkback with moderator Shaun McGrath in the Tent after the show!
Here's the program description: "This courageous film tells the story of ablatantly unjust conviction of a 19-yearoldboy for a double homicide he didn'tcommit. The case brought in the internationalthe international human rightscommunity, which launched a grass-rootscampaign to abolish the death penalty inthe Philippines. This film looks intimatelyat the case of Paco Larrañaga, a studentaccused of murder on the provincial islandof Cebu. In personal danger through muchof the filming, the filmmakers expose aKafkaesque world populated by crookedpublic officials, cops on the take andfrenzied tabloid sensationalism. It's alsoan intimate drama focused on the nearmythicstruggle of two angry motherswho have dedicated more than a decadeto executing or saving one young man."
2. Digital Media Symposium Friday, Feb. 17, 1 to 6 p.m. St. Julien Hotel, 900 Walnut dimeboulder.com
Colorado’s Third Annual Digital Media Symposium is the premier showcase of innovators and technology in Colorado’s digital entertainment industry and features national and local visionaries, both creative and technical. The DiMe is a great place to learn and forge new relationships with your peers, brands, executives, developers, content providers and technologists.
Dr. Alvy Ray Smith, 2-time Academy Award Winner and co-founder of Pixar, will deliver this year's DiMe Keynote speech. Also, Disney’s Don Hahn, Academy Award-nominated Producer of such digitally-animated films as ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘The Lion King’ and ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas,' will moderate and weave together experts in both singular presentations and panel discussions.
Throughout the afternoon, hear from and speak with industry thought-leaders in
Film/Video
Sports
Music
Marketing
Transmedia Storytelling
Gaming
User-Generated Entertainment
Reception with live music, hors d’oevres and cash bar to follow.
3. SURPRISE! At the Filmmaker Lounge tonight from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., HOLDEN YOUNG will be playing!
Micha X. Peled's documentary Bitter Seeds explores
the answer to a shocking question: Why have 250,000 farmers committed suicide
in India in the last 16 years?
To answer this question, Peled connects with a young,
aspiring journalist, Manjusha Amberwar, from the farming village of Telung
Takli who is trying to answer to the same question. There have been a number of suicides in her
small village, the first of whom was her own father. While she goes door to door in her community
finding answers, Peled weaves in interviews with representatives of seed
companies, Dr. Vandana Shiva, and farmers' rights activists.
We see early in the film some representatives from the seed
company bump into town in a nice SUV with blaring loudspeaker. They've come to talk to the farmers about
their Bt+ seeds. These are genetically
modified with Monsanto technology – no insects, big buds. The farmers ask some pointed questions, which
will haunt the film later. The reps need
not bother, there is in fact no other option available in India ever since the
US, applying pressure through the WTO, forced India to open the door to foreign
companies.
The genetically modified seeds can only perform under
conditions of high fertilizer use, high pesticide use, and irrigation. Farmers take out loans, first from banks then
from illegal money lenders who charge exorbitant rates to pay for the seeds,
fertilizer and pesticides. But, for Bt
seeds, applying pesticide must be timed with water application. Since the majority of India's farmers don't
have irrigation they are doomed to failure.
The seeds because they don't reproduce, thus having to be purchased
every year, are not subject to natural selection and not at all suited to the
local farming conditions.
Peled and Amberwar focus on farmer Ram Krishna Kopulnar
whose trials are a perfect synecdoche of the Indian farmer's plight. Kopulnar,
the worry on whose face is reminiscent of the character Antonio Ricci from de
Sica's The Bicycle Thief, must have a good harvest this year so that his
daughter “can go to school and have a good marriage.” Daughters, though they seem to be well-loved,
are a financial burden in traditional communities as marriages require large
dowries. The well-lensed beauty and
dignity of the small village, where everyone is well turned-out despite the
difficult conditions, allows the viewer to empathize with the shame a father
must feel to have to give up his land to a money lender or to be rejected by a
suitor's family because one cannot afford the dowry. Suicide can seem the only way to free the
family of debt burden.
The solution to these problems seem simple if the government
were to get involved, yet the power of the forces pushing for the status quo –
Monsanto, the US – seem overwhelming. Bitter
Seeds is the final movie in Peled's unplanned Globalization Trilogy which
started with the much lauded Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town and
then went undercover into the textile industry in China with China Blue
and has ended with the seed of the problem in the area of India where the
cotton is grown for China's textile factories.
The trilogy goes from consumer to manufacturer to the producer of raw
material in three major economic powers.
Peled said he had “the pleasure of doing one at a time” without knowing
where this story would lead over twelve years, otherwise it might have been too
overwhelming.
The film is showing in the Call2Action category of the film
festival. Local actions one can rally
around in connection with the movie are the upcoming renewal of the Farm Bill
in Congress, which subsidizes cotton farmers to the tune of 4 billion dollars
in defiance of WTO law and keeps world cotton prices unfairly low. Also for the
first time there are ballot initiatives in many states and counties for mandatory
labeling of GMO food. As Peled's
documentaries demonstrate, it is all interconnected.
Story and Photos by Donna Crain Workshops and Panels Coordinator and DigiComm Commando
(Editor's note: Until now, this amazing story has not been told. Thanks so much, Donna, for documenting it and sharing it with us!)
It
was at once exciting and harrowing -- the perfect give-and-take of comedy
and tension. There was a mishap when a cable broke, then a hero
performing a crazy stunt on a 40-foot ladder, and, at last, a happy
ending. And that was all before the first movie even played at 2012 BIFF.
The
festival kicks off tonight, but, as you would imagine. much has been
going on behind the scenes to make it happen. Including this one thing
that you might not even believe if you we didn't tell you about it.
One
of the venues for BIFF each year is the First United Methodist Church
at the corner of 14th and Spruce. The sanctuary features exquisite
stained glass windows spanning 45 feet in height. The kaleidoscope of
light they cast is perfect for church service, but not ideal for showing
a film. When the problem was first recognized a few years ago, BIFF
executive producer, Kevin Smith, drew on his experience as a stage
production designer, and enlisted the help of local artist, George
Peters, to craft an ingenious solution.
"Kitemaker
is one of my jobs," Peters said in a discussion earlier today. "My
partner and I travel around the world with our kites and try to fill the
sky with color." When asked how he became involved with the project,
Peters stated, "Kevin knew a friend of mine and when he called me to
talk about it, I said yes without hesitation. That's one of my biggest
faults. " he added, laughing.
"I love the
wild, crazy and wacky idea. It keeps going on in your head until you
gotta do it," Peters said. His idea involved 850 yards of fabric,
thousands of feet of rope, pulleys and more than a few brave souls.
"One
woman sewed them all together," Peters said, "she was working in a tiny
room, maybe 10 x 6, just surrounded by all of this fabric. Then it was
really an engineering problem. How could we lift these heavy curtains
into place without having multiple people on 40-foot ladders? The trick
was starting the ropes in the tip-top position."
BIFF's
Kevin Smith added, "We hired a construction company to drill the holes
for the pulley systems. We had a guy as high as the ladder
could go, as high as he could stand, as high as he could reach with a
drill. That’s how we decided where the top hole would be."
The
curtains were produced a couple of years ago, now, before each
festival, they have to be transported to the church . . . and installed.
And, that is something that is truly awesome to watch in action.
Twenty volunteers stand on ladders, tiptoes, and backs of church pews.
Like a ship's crew hoisting a mast, they work the pulley system together
until each curtain is in place, shrouding the church in darkness so
another festival can begin.
Then, after the final film plays on Saturday, they all come down again before Sunday service the next morning.
The first film at The United Methodist Church Jiro Dreams of Sushi plays at 10 a.m. Friday. Learn more about George Peter's kitemaking exploits.
(Editor’s note: Here’sa lovely guest piece on the engrossing documentary “Nicky’s Family,” penned byKathryn Bernheimer.Kathryn isdirector of Menorah: Arts, Culture and Education at the Boulder Jewish Community Center, as well as the JCC Program Director.
From 1980-1996, Kathryn was the film criticand features writer for the BoulderDaily Camera. She was also the Bouldercorrespondent for the Intermountain Jewish News, the host of the Denver Jewish Film Festival, and a guest film programmerat the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture. She is theauthor of two books of film criticism, “The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies” and “The50 Funnies Films of All Time.”
“Nicky’s Family” tells the story of Nicholas Winton, whorescued more than 600 children from Czechoslovakia in 1939.
The Kinderstransport, which relocated nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children fromNaziGermany to England, is a well-documented and oft-told chapter of Holocausthistory, and there are already several terrific films that deal with thesubject.
“My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports”(1998) was directedby the daughter of a Kindertransport child and narrated byJoanne Woodward.
“Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of theKindertransport,” narrated byJudiDench,won theAcademy Awardin 2001 for bestdocumentary feature. There is also a companion book by the same name. Thefilm's producerisalso the daughter of a Kindertransport survivor. Local audiences may rememberthe film’s director, Mark Jonathan Harris (a three-time Oscar winner), whospoke at the Boulder JCC a few years ago.
There alsoa British documentary film, “The ChildrenWho Cheated the Nazis,” narrated byRichard Attenborough, whose parents were amongthose who responded to the appeal for British families to foster the refugeechildren.
Although the story of Nicholas Winton’s role went untoldfor 50 years, during which time he never even mentioned it to his wife,“Nicky’s Friends” is the third film about the unsung hero – all directed by thesame person.
Slovak filmmakerMatej Mináč first told the story in 1999 as a feature film, “All My Loved Ones,” starring Rupert Graves as Winton in this well-made biographical drama. Next camehis 2002 Emmy Award-winning documentary “The Power of Good:Nicholas Winton,” which we showed at the Boulder JCC.
“Nicky’s Family” covers the same territory, and while it does not addmuch to the story, it is a very moving tribute to a modest man of great courageand tenacity.
Born in a family of German Jewish ancestry that convertedto Christianity, Winton was a 29 year old stock broker who abandoned plans fora ski trip to join a friend involved in Jewish relief work in Prague. Determined to help move children tosafety in England,he embarked on a heroic effort that has earned him a reputation as “The BritishSchindler.” Thousands of people are alive today thanks to his dramatic daring.Winton’s late-life recognition is much deserved, and this film allows us toshare that touching moment.
Granito plays a bit like a procedural in, as their slogan
says, how to nail a dictator. The movie
starts with present-day Pamela Yates combing through film footage from her
25-year-old documentary When the Mountains Tremble, her time-worn hands
on the old medium remind us of the time that has passed since the events in the
film and the young filmmaker synching the sound recording therein. Yates has been contacted by a Spanish lawyer,
Almudena Bernabeu, who thinks her footage can help them build a case in the
Spanish courts against the military dictators of Guatemala who committed
genocide against the indigenous population in the early 80's when Yates made
her film. (Here's a Feb. 3 news update from the Latinamerica Press.)
Slowly, piece by piece, person by person, like grains of
sand (granitos de arena) we see how an international criminal case is
built. The struggle begun in those days
and so violently crushed has continued with each person doing a little part
from then until now. As one of the
characters says, opening little cracks and pushing and pushing until they open
up. Everyone has a role to play and it
does seem almost like divine intervention (the film website credits a Mayan
god) that they all can come together and that evidence emerges from unexpected
sources.
From the old days, there is Yates and her footage, a
journalist who helped her get contact with the guerrillas who was working in
Guatemala at the time who is now an international lawyer, one of the commanders
of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor who lived underground in Guatemala City for
17 years, and a witness whose highland village was massacred when he was
11 years old. Coming into the story now
are the Spanish lawyers, a forensic archivist, a forensic archaeologist whose
family left Guatemala under death threats in 1980, and a daughter of the one of
the disappeared who has become a lawyer.
One of the most interesting aspects of the movie especially
for film lovers is Yates' coming to terms with the fact that witnessing and
telling the story was not enough. In
1982, she and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel risked their lives getting
footage that revealed the true story of what was happening in Guatemala at the
time. We are reminded in the days before digital how difficult it was to get
film footage under repressive regimes.
There is no way she should have gotten the footage that she got from the
guerrillas and the military, and yet she did, and she brought it together into
a film that had as much success as one could hope for.
When the Mountains Tremble showed at
the first Sundance Film Festival, the narrator Rigoberta Menchú received the
Nobel Peace Prize, the film showed broadly internationally and in 40 cities in
the United States and won many awards.
And yet the massacres continued with 200,000 thought dead, the U.S.
continued to support the Guatemalan dictators and other repressive
dictatorships in Central America, the perpetrators have continued to go
unpunished.
Journalist turned lawyer
Naomi Roht-Arriaza expresses similar disillusionment at the time, when she felt
she was getting a story out and yet it was doing absolutely no good against the
violence of the state apparatus. Only
now are the pieces starting to come together, bringing together different
fields from law, to forensic science, to digitizing archives, to begin to bring
justice in the region. On January 26th
of this year, after thirty years of impunity, General Ríos Montt, who reveals
himself in an interview with Yates done in 1982 as the head of the Guatemalan
military, was placed under house arrest for 11 massacres against the Mayan Ixil
population.
This self-reflection makes Granito a perfect film for
BIFF's Call2Action where it has been paired with Philanthropiece
and Reading Village, both of whom work in development in highland
Guatemala, to direct viewers to action-oriented responses. Granito will be showing Friday,
February 17th at 10am at the Boulder Theater followed by a Q&A
in the theater and a public discussion in the Call2Action tent on the Pearl
Street Mall in front of the courthouse.
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