SOUTH OF THE BORDER

 

 

Thursday, February 24

 

 Frick Fine Arts Auditorium

 

Reception 6:00pm  //  Screening 6:30pm

 SOUTH OF THE BORDER

(a film by Oliver Stone – 2009)

 

 

The film will be presented by Dan Beeton, who played a role in the making of the film and will be available for Q and A.

 

Mr. Beeton works for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which is based in Washington, DC. South of the Border was co-written by economist Mark Weisbrot, Co-founder and Co-Director of  CEPR.

 

About the CEPR http://www.cepr.net/index.php/about-us/

 

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) was established in 1999 to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR conducts both professional research and public education.

 

About  South of the Border    http://southoftheborderdoc.com/synopsis/

The film is the product of Oliver Stone's 2009 road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements taking place in those countries and the mis-perceptions most people have about Hugo Chávez and other leaders in South America, mostly due to a skewed portrayal by major US media.

Synopsis: There's a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn't know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chávez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband the late Néstor Kirchner,  Fernando Lugo  (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro  (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region.

 

You can view the trailer and more info at www.southoftheborderdoc.com.

 

 

 

 

Thursday, March 3,

La Nana (The Maid)  (2009)  Dir. Sebastian Silva

As a boy, the Chilean filmmaker resented that his family’s maid had the right to boss him around, and fought against her authority in the home. Young Silva believed his rebellion would be without serious consequences, because she was “just the maid”. Later, he came to understand that “She’s more or less family.”

Growing up with a live-in domestic made Silva both conscious and curious about what such a person was doing in his house. He wrote his character, Raquel, as sort of a lost soul, who comes to live with a bourgeois family at a very young age. For 20 years she's been operating with the emotional intelligence of a teenager, and slowly going crazy. She has neither a social or sexual life.

 

 

 

Thursday, March 17   

 Frick Fine Arts Auditorium

 

Reception 6:00pm  //  Screening 6:30pm

 

 

CICLOVIDA Lyfecycle

 

Presented by Matt Feinstein, one of the Lead filmmakers

 

 

 CICLOVIDA: Lifecycle.  The film follows the protagonists as they embark on their journey south through Brazil, across the borders of Paraguay and Argentina to Buenos Aires and eventually back home through Uruguay to Northeastern Brazil, stopping along the way to gather novel ideas and seeds.  This feature-length documentary is made up of moving stories from landless peasants, indigenous communities, and small farmers that expose the devastating effects of industrial agriculture destined for agrofuels.

With practically no money and no support crew, the protagonists rely on their resourcefulness and the solidarity of people they meet along the way.  They carry with them only the simplest of necessities: their radical ideas and philosophy, collected heirloom seeds, and a video camera.  The main characters, Ignacio and Ivania, identify as farmers, poets, musicians, and activists for ecological and social justice.  They seek to gather and disseminate thousands of seeds, a wealth of knowledge, and contribute to an invaluable network amongst small agricultural communities of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina, all without the use of oil or biofuels.  This film also explores their role as parents as they struggle with distance, both physical and figurative from their children, who share their ideals but do not accompany them on the journey. 

This stirring narrative captivates its audience, while it unflinchingly conveys the disturbing ecological, economic, and social impacts of large agribusiness practices. It portrays an alternative to the biofuel monocultures that threaten all small farmers, as the triumphant protagonists create significant and sustainable change using what sparse resources available to them.

Matt Feinstein, one of the Lead filmmakers will present the film 

Brothers Matt and Loren Feinstein are Ciclovida: Lifecycle’s two lead filmmakers.  Loren is a composer and film consultant, with specific experience in educational film, who has worked extensively with the Media Education Foundation, an award winning educational film company.  Matt’s past documentary filmmaking includes Work, Dignity & Social Change, Descubrir con Dignidad, adult mentor for Listen Up’s “Beyond Green Youth” media project and numerous short documentaries. Additionally, he has long been deeply involved in various social movements.

You can view the trailer and more info at http://ciclovida.org/en/ciclovida-lifecycle

 

 

Thursday, March 31

Los Herederos  (The Inheritors )   (Eugenio Polgovsky, 2008)

The most highly praised and awarded Mexican documentary in many years, THE INHERITORS by Eugenio Polgovsky immerses us in the daily lives of children who, with their families, survive only by their unrelenting labor.

The film takes us into the agricultural fields, where children barely bigger than the buckets they carry, work long hours, in often hazardous conditions, picking tomatoes, peppers, or beans, for which they are paid by weight. Infants in baskets are left alone in the hot sun, or are breast-fed by mothers while they pick crops.

THE INHERITORS also observes other labor routines, including the production of earthen bricks, cutting cane, gathering firewood, ox-plowing fields and planting by hand, and even more artistic endeavors such as carving wooden figures and weaving baskets to sell.

The indelible impression conveyed by THE INHERITORS, in which everyone-from the frailest elders to the smallest of toddlers-must work reveals how the cycle of poverty is passed on, from one generation to another.

 

Thursday, April 14

 

They Killed Sister Dorothy (2008)
Monday, January, 24, 2011

Director: Daniel Junge

They Killed Sister Dorothy chronicles the legal proceedings that followed the execution-style murder of a Catholic nun and activist. At age 73, Sister Dorothy Stang had lived in Brazil for 30 years, collaborating with the government to establish sustainable development in a remote corner of the Amazon. But along the way, she had made enemies among the ranchers who stood to benefit from the exploitation of the rainforest and its natural resources. In 2005, she was shot six times at point-blank range. Two men were arrested for the killing, but it quickly became clear that her death was part of a much greater conspiracy.

Archival footage featuring the so-called "Angel of the Amazon" supplements interviews with her brother and best friend, who are seeking justice in the case. But when Colorado-based filmmaker Daniel Junge and his crew gain access to the courtroom proceedings, it is the shockingly candid encounters they have with the men who confessed, the ranchers accused of hiring them, the defense lawyers and a federal prosecutor that really shed light on the circumstances of Sister Dorothy's death - as well as on the struggle over the future of the rainforest within a dangerously corrupt system often compared to the Wild West.

The director's credits include numerous award-winning PBS-aired documentaries like Chiefs, which follows Wyoming Indian High School's basketball team, and Iron Ladies of Liberia (SDFF 30), about Africa's first elected female president. Coproduced by Academy Award-winner Nigel Noble, They Killed Sister Dorothy also features a score by Pedro Bromfman, whose latest project, Tropa de Elite, won a Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival.