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Filmmakers Forum on Films about War, Peace and
Reconciliation
at Common Ground Film Festival
Professor and Center Director Pat Aufderheide
moderated a roundtable discussion with film directors participating
in the Common Ground Film Festival on Sunday, October 21st. The
forum included John Michalczyk (Prelude to Kosovo), Sy
Rotter (Zegota), Mark Landsman (Peace of Mind),
Barbara Sonneborn (Regret to Inform), and Ilan Yagoda (Rain
of 1949).
The film festival featured films from seven different countries,
including South Africa and Vietnam. It was sponsored by Search for
Common Ground, The Center for Global Peace, and the School of Communication
in cooperation with The Coexistence Initiative.
Festival films:
Rain 1949
1998
Director: Ilan Yagoda
Production: Israel Film Service
Running Time: 52 minutes
In the year of 1949 there were torrential rains in Israel. During
that year many refugees from the Holocaust arrived in Israel, settled
on the land and built their homes. The people who had been living
on that same piece of land were displaced. This is a program about
two groups of people - connected to the same hill and the same olive
groves - and the Arab village that is now an Israeli kibbutz. They
are the settlers of Kibbutz Megido and the Arab villagers of Lajun.
Director Ilan Yagoda's mother was one of the refugees who founded
and built Kibbutz Megido. Ilan had lived on the kibbutz during his
youth, and left it after the death of his father. Seventeen years
later he returned to the kibbutz, and talked with some of the original
refugees and settlers, each one still carrying their own unique
burden. He also talked with the original Arab elders who were forced
to leave their village. Each one is tied to the same land. This
is their story and Ilan tells it beautifully and sensitively.
Second Prize for Broadcast Documentary: Israel—Seventh Annual
International Jewish
Video Competition
Honorable Mention—48th Annual Columbus International Film
and Video Festival
Hamptons International Film Festival
Peace of Mind: Coexistence
through the Eyes of Palestinian and Israeli Teens
1999
Director: Mark Landsman
Production: Global Action Project
Running Time: 56 minutes
This film is an intimate portrait of a conflict rarely seen from
a youth perspective. The story centers on the efforts of teenagers
to visit each other in their homes, amidst bombings and volatile
peace talks that threaten their security. It's about their often-difficult
attempts to listen to each other and learn. They met at the "Seeds
of Peace" camp, in the idyllic woods of Maine. This film chronicles
what happens when they return to their homes, to their segregated
communities, amidst fear, mistrust and hatred for the other side.
The Palestinian and Israeli teenagers were each given their own
video camera to document one year in their lives in Israel, the
West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority. Using cameras as video
diaries, the teens turned the lens on themselves, their families,
friends and communities, revealing the internal and external challenges
each one of them faces as peace seekers in a fiercely divided conflict.
Peace of Mind has been featured on ABC's Nightline, and was screened
at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and in festivals
in Israel and Canada.
Best Documentary: Audience Award Honorary Mention—Hamptons
International Film
Festival 1999
Most Inspiring Film - Canyonlands Festival 2000
Zegota
1992
Narrator: Eli Wallach
Director: Sy Rotter
Production: Documentaries International Film & Video Production
Running Time: 28 minutes
Using archival photographs and film footage, together with interviews,
this film narrated by Eli Wallach, tells the story of the desperate
plight of Polish Jews and the conditions of terror under which the
Zegota rescuers tried to help. Zegota participants, Jewish survivors
and Polish and Jewish historians recall and reflect on the extraordinary
courage of people who risked—and some who sacrificed—their
lives trying to save Polish Jews from certain death.
Frustrated by the Allied government's refusal of intervention, the
exiled Polish leaders set in motion their own efforts to save Jewish
lives by financing and encouraging the cooperative action between
the Polish Underground and their civilian counterparts, who together
had formed the clandestine Council for Aid to Jews. This was the
only government-sponsored social welfare agency established to rescue
Jews in German-occupied Europe. This organization, given the code
name "Zegota," provided hiding places and false identity
documents for Jewish men, women, and children who were able to escape
from Nazi control. Their efforts saved thousands of lives.
At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel, they recognize
the "Righteous Gentiles" for their rescue of Jews. More
than 40 percent of the righteous gentiles were Poles. It is the
highest percentage of all national groups who assisted Jews.
Just a Little Red
Dot
Director: Mitra Sen
Production: Sandalwood Productions
Running Time: 35 minutes
Inspired by a true story.
When a newcomer to Canada from Sri Lanka enters her new 5th grade
class, wearing a little dot on her forehead, some of her classmates
are curious while others make fun of her and show racist attitudes.
Things change when the girl gives her teacher a package of red dots
(bindi), a South Asian cultural symbol, as a birthday gift. The
kids are fascinated by the new symbol on the forehead of their teacher,
and similarly want a dot for their own foreheads too. Out on the
playground, they are faced with insensitivity and negative attitudes
from their peers…and realizing the hurt and the pain that
results from discrimination, the class decides to do something about
it. Together they create an ingenious solution and set out on a
mission to challenge prejudice and spread the message of respect
and understanding for people who are different. This is a film that
was made for children, but which can be enjoyed and appreciated
by adults as well.
Best Short Film—International Film Festival for Children,
India
Golden Book Prize—Roshd Educational Film Festival, Iran
Most Popular Film—Chicago International Children's Film Festival
Grand Trophy/Best Educational Film—New York Festival
First Place Short Film—Cinema e Educaco, Brazil
Best Live Action Short—Korean International Family Film Festival
Regret to Inform: A Journey
in Search of Truth
1998
Director: Barbara Sonneborn
Production: Sun Fountain Productions
Running Time: 72 minutes
Barbara Sonneborn's husband was killed during the Vietnam War. On
one level, it is a story about her travel to Vietnam, to find the
place where her husband was killed. Her translator and guide in
Vietnam is a survivor of the War, whose own story of suffering and
survival is woven into the program.
This film is also Sonneborn's story about her journey towards understanding
what happened to him, what happened in Vietnam, and who she became
after her life was forever changed. But it is also the story of
other women whose husbands were killed in the war…both American
women and Vietnamese women. Although the American women's stories
are different from those that the Vietnamese tell, what unites them
is their love for their husbands, the loss they felt when their
husbands were killed, their personal suffering, and ultimately their
strength.
Best Feature Documentary Nomination—Academy Awards 1999
Best Director and Best Cinematography: Jury Awards—Sundance
Film Festival 1999
Best of Festival Award—Vermont International Film Festival
1999
Nester Almendros Award—Human Rights Festival 1999
Prelude to Kosovo
1999
Director: John Michalczyk
Production: Boston College and the Boston Theological Institute
Running Time: 52 minutes
"The film challenges some of the conventional wisdom about
the recent horrors in Kosovo and offers some plausible shreds of
hope for reconciliation and a brighter future. Filmmaker John Michalczyk
has a background in theology, and it is his clear ecumenical spirit
and interest in religious history that animates this informative
and worthy film"—John Koch, The Boston Globe.
Prelude to Kosovo was shot on location in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia.
The documentary combines graphic footage with interviews with religious
and political figures. The film addresses the ideology of "ethnic
cleansing" and the massacres resulting from a nationalist quest
for political, cultural, and religious domination. The Serbian Orthodox,
Bosnian Muslim, and Croatian Catholic perspectives are all represented.
The film features original Balkan music by Alexis Gavras, Vedran
Smailovic, and Vuk Kulenovic. Boston PBS affiliates WGBH and WGBX
broadcast the television premiere of Prelude to Kosovo in November
1999.
Forbidden
Marriages in the Holy Land
1995
Director: Michel Khleifi
Production: Sinibad Films in association with
Sourat Films and the New-Media program of the European Union
Running Time: 66 minutes
Exploring the lives and loves of eight mixed marriages from different
generations and backgrounds, director Michel Khleifi uncovers the
human side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The stories shown in Forbidden
Marriages in the Holy Land include that of a young Palestinian musician
living with his Israeli musicologist girlfriend; a fiery Palestinian
woman married to a Jew; a Jewish woman who converted to Islam to
be with her husband in Gaza; and an African woman married to a Palestinian.
An intriguing expose of couples that, in a region scarred by conflict
and catastrophe, chose love instead of hate.
As one interviewee remarks, "If all Arab women married Jewish
men and vice versa there would be no problem."
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