Baaria (film)

A beautiful Sicilian movie about 3 generations living in town Bagheria (Baaria in Sicilian slang) where the director, Giuseppe Tornatore, was born. I saw it in the cinema and before going, I watched the trailer and from what I saw there, I expected almost a kitch romanticized image of Italian life - simply only nice views made in Italian comedy-style.
I almost declined going, but then changed my mind but did not expect much.
The film was great - slow camera work at times, yes - the images were great and beautiful, but the story was narrated with such sensitivity and sensuality that I completely fell for it. Fragile characters full of humanity, childhood innocence, light and at times ironic humor, symbolism and just hints at a much deeper symbolism involved in that region. It left deep emotions in me, one of rare films I saw, very sensitive and intelligent.

en.wiki / Giuseppe Tornatore / cz.review / febiofest.review

Survival Song (film)

Today, when I was watching AlJazeera's news on China's plans to build twelve new hydroelectric dams along the Yangtze river and about how inhabitants are evicted and their life gets worse, I remembered a beautifully made film by a Chinese director, Survival Song - by Yu Guangyi. I saw this film at the Czech Jihlava Film Fest in 2009.

In Survival Song, a hunter/trapper and his wife take an unemployed drifter named Xiao Lizi into their home. When their house is demolished to make way for a nearby dam, the family scatters: the wife goes back to her hometown, Xiao Lizi finds temporary work on a construction site, and the hunter/trapper - who is wanted for poaching - flees to escape the law.

Survival Song - (Xiao Lizi) - 2008
Independent Chinese Documentaries
AlJazeera
Jihlava Film Fest

Michael Moore: Capitalism: A Love Story

This film is premiered next week at Jihlava Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic.

30-minute interview with Michael Moore
MM
Jihlava doc film fest

Steve McQueen: Hunger (film)

A life in prison under Thatcher's rule and a hunger protest by IRA prisoners. Chilling.
wiki (film)
1981 Irish hunger strike
UDA (a tattoo on a guard's fingers)
20-minute interview with Steve McQueen

Venice Film Festival 2009

Pickups:
Michael Moore: Capitalism with Love



Steven Soderbergh: Informant!



Oliver Stone: South of the Border



Claire Denis: Matériel blanc

Lineup:

Opening film: Baaria - Giuseppe Tornatore - Italy

Soul Kitchen, Fatih Akin - Germany
La Doppia Ora, Giuseppe Capotondi - Italy
Yi ngoi (Accident), Cheang Pou-Soi - China/Hong Kong
Persecution, Patrice Chereau - France
Lo Spazio Bianco (White Space), Francesca Comencini - Italy
White Material - Claire Denis - France
Mr. Nobody, Jaco van Dormael - France
A Single Man, Tom Ford - US
Lourdes, Jessica Hausner - Austria
Bad Lieutenant: Port Of New Orleans, Werner Herzog - US
The Road, John Hillcoat - US
Ahasin Wetei (Between Two Worlds), Vimukhti Jayasundara - Sri Lanka
El Mosafer (The Traveller), Ahmed Maher - Eqypt
Levanon (Lebanon), Samuel Maoz - Israel
Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore - US
Zanan-e-bedun-e mardan (Women Without Men), Shirin Neshat - Germany
Il Grande Sogno (The Big Dream), Michele Placido - Italy
36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup, Jacques Rivette - France
Life During Wartime,Todd Solondz - US
Tetsuo The Bullet Man, Shinya Tsukamoto - Japan
Lei wangzi (Prince of Tears), Yonfan - China/Taiwan/Hong Kong
There will be an additional “surprise film” in competition.

OUT OF COMPETITION

[Rec] 2 - Paco Plaza, Jaume Balaguero - Spain
Chengdu, Wo Ai Ni (Chengdu, I Love You), Fruit Chan, Cui Jian - China
The Hole, Joe Dante - US
The Men Who Stare At Goats, Grant Heslov - US
Ehky ya Schahrazad (Scheherazade, Tell Me A Story), Yousry Nasrallah - Egypt
Yona Yona Penguin, Rintaro - Japan
The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh - US

wiki
venice film festival official pages

What's happening in Northern Yemen? (2009)

5 years of conflict in the North of Yemen.

Georgia

Read in DemocracyNow! (Wed 11/26):
Ex-Georgian Diplomat: U.S. OK’d Georgian Attack
A former Georgian diplomat has publicly testified that the United States gave Georgia the green light earlier this year to start a war against Russia in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. The diplomat [Erosi Kitsmarishvili] told a parliamentary hearing in Georgia that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict. For months U.S. and Georgian officials have blamed Russia for starting the hostilities.

Bývalý gruzínský diplomat: USA souhlasila s útokem Gruzie
Bývalý gruzínský diplomat veřejně vypověděl, že USA daly Gruzii svolení k rozpoutání války proti Rusku v souvislosti s vyhlášením nezávislosti Abcházie. Erosi Kitsmarišvili uvedl během své výpovědi v gruzínském parlamentu, že zodpovědnost za započetí konfliktu nesou gruzínské orgány. USA a Gruzie již několik měsíců obviňují Rusko ze vzniku konfliktu.

Afghanistan

Read in DemocracyNow! (Wed 11/26):
Karzai Calls on Timeline To End War in Afghanistan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on the international community to set a timeline to end the war in Afghanistan. Karzai said: “This war has gone on for seven years, the Afghans don’t understand anymore, how come a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks.” Karzai also accused the U.S. and other foreign countries of creating a "parallel government” in parts of Afghanistan.

Kazraj požaduje časový plán na ukončení války v Afgánistánu
Afgánský prezident Hamíd Karzaj vyzval mezinárodní společenství k vytyčení časového harmonogramu na ukončení války v Afgánistánu. Karzaj uvedl: "Tato válka trvá již 7 let, Afgánci jí již vůbec nerozumí, jak je možné, že tak malá síla jako Talibán může stále existovat, nadále bujet a provádět útoky." Karzaj obvinil dále USA a další cizí státy z vytváření "paralelních vlád" v částech Afgánistánu.

Outrageous!

Read in DemocracyNow! (on Fri 11/21):

Judge Orders Release of Five Guantanamo Prisoners

A federal judge has ordered the immediate release of five Algerians held at Guantanamo. US District Judge Richard Leon said the government’s evidence linking the men to al-Qaeda was not credible, because it came from a single, unidentified source. The men have been held for seven years.

Soudce nařizuje propuštění pěti vězňů na Guantanámu

Federální soudce nařídil okamžité propuštění pěti Alžířanů držených na Guantanámu. Okresní soudce Richard Leon uvedl, že vládní důkazy spojující tyto muže s Al-Kajdou nejsou věrohodné, protože pochází z jediného a neověřeného zdroje. Muži jsou zadržováni 7 let.

Palestinian Film Festival in Toronto

Just watched on The Real News an invitation to Toronto Palestine Film Festival. It is not so frequent that there would be Palestinian Film Festivals, so let's see what's there..! (Links to other festivals here or here.)

B’Tselem - 'Shooting Back' Project

"I am shooting back"

B’Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization that monitors human rights in the Palestinian Territories and namely violations against Palestinians. I heard about them when watching news on DemocracyNow on Aug 1st 08 and there was a talk about civic activity of making videos at demonstrations which later help demonstrators when accused of some misconducts and later sued (e.g. at the Republican Convention 4 years ago and now preparing for Democratic Convention in Denver etc.). These people created organizations called I-Witness Video and the founder Eileen Clancy talked about a recent case when a cyclist was pushed off his bike by a by-standing policeman during 'Critical Mass Ride'.

This was compared also to another similar project - "Shooting Back", which is in general about giving cameras/video cameras to people whose rights are infringed to empower them and talk about their life conditions via camera.

So I looked up "Shooting Back" and found another DemocracyNow link leading to an interview with a film maker from the B'Tselem organization.

Going to B'Tselem pages, it is interesting to see videos, but also reports on Palestinian abuses and also the death toll of the conflict (from 9/2000-6/2008).

So for example, there were:
4748 Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces
45 Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians
236 Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians
244 Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians
577 Palestinians killed by Palestinians

I was surprised to see the number of Palestinians killed by Palestinians - very high! Why? Mainly killed in exchange of gunfire..., also in clashes between Fatah and Hamas... Among the victims of Israeli security forces, they were very often young guys who were exchanging fire with them; and also very often just innocent people being in the wrong place where an attack took place... Read more on their site, interesting with all the names given. (Finally there are names.)

What was also shocking is the statistics on death "following an infringement of the right to medical treatment in the Occupied Territories". 6 this year; 15 last year....


P.S.
"Shooting Back" as I read on another web site was originally started as a project in the early 1980s when UPI (United Press International) photographer Jim Hubbard was documenting lives of homeless people and children always wanted to look through his camera, he realized that they could document their world themselves. In 1989 Hubbard created the Shooting Back organization teaching photography to children at risk. "The name was coined from a spontaneous comment by one of the young participants in the program: when asked why he was photographing his own world, the homeless child responded, 'I am shooting back'."

PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to. They may experience sleep problems, feel detached or numb, or be easily startled.
nimh

On the 8th of July 2008, US vet from Iraq war, Joseph Dwyer (31), died of overdose on a computer cleaner aerosol. As all the newspapers note, Dwyer became famous when a picture of him was taken when he was carrying a child into safety in the first weeks of Iraq war.

His death "has highlighted the neglect many American veterans believe they face once they return home. (...) It emerged that Mr Dwyer's post-war civilian life was also no different to that of many fellow veterans. For years, he struggled against post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), drug abuse, unemployment and marital breakdown. (...) Police in several states had been dealing with Mr Dwyer for several years as he suffered from violent delusions that he was being hunted by Iraqi soldiers." More here and here.

US Department of Veteran Affairs:
What is PTSD?

Returning from the War Zone: A Guide for Families of Military Personnel
An Overview of the Mental Health Effects of Serving in Afghanistan and Iraq

Iran

What do we know about Iran’s nuclear program? We do not know that they have a nuclear weapons program. You know, we had the NIE back last November that told us they had actually suspended important aspects of the nuclear weapons program back in 2003. And nobody has said that they have reconstituted those aspects of the weapons program since then. So the basis for any kind of attack, either by the US or by Israel or by anybody, just doesn’t exist under international law, just as it didn’t exist back in 2003 against Iraq.

Helena Cobban
JustWorldNews.org
blogger, Quaker activist and veteran journalist; on June 23, 2008

And a famous speech by Gravel:

...This is Fantasy land--we're talking about ending the war [in Iraq]; my God, we're just starting another war! There was a vote in the Senate today--Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has offered another resolution, and it's essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran.
I want to congratulate Biden & Dodd for voting against it, and I'm ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You're not going to get another shot at this--we invade and they're looking for an excuse to do it. And Obama was not even there to vote.

Mike Gravel

On Sept 26, 2007; New Hampshire Democratic Debate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3gQfz8GC0o

And yet...

CLINTON [answering to Gravel]: My understanding of the revolutionary guard in Iran is that it is promoting terrorism. It is manufacturing weapons that are used against our troops in Iraq. It is certainly the main agent of support for Hezbollah, Hamas and others, and in what we voted for today, we will have an opportunity to designate it as a terrorist organization, which gives us the options to be able to impose sanctions on the leaders.

And yet...
Lieberman: Bomb Iran If It Doesn't Stop
Lieberman: Iran strike should be considered
Írán se připravuje na válku, už nechal vykopat 320 000 hrobů
New Yorker: USA chtějí do konce roku připravit útok na Írán
Senátor McCain před voliči zpíval: Bombardujte Írán
Bush: zpráva, že Írán bombu nevyvíjí, je varovným znamením
Hersh: Congress Agreed to Bush Request to Fund Major Escalation in Secret Operations Against Iran

unsubscribe-me.org

Amnesty International launched the unsubscribe campaign in November 2007 with this truly powerful film entitled Waiting for the Guards. It is NOT pleasant to watch... just a warning. (Also the same theme in The Road to Guantanamo.)



Waiting For The Guards is the first of 3 films commissioned by Amnesty to highlight the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA in the “War on Terror”. The Directors approached the making of the film in a way that has never been done before, choosing to show the reality of Stress Positions in as authentic a way as possible. They filmed a person who was put in Stress Positions for over a 6 hour period. There is no acting on the part of the “prisoner” – his pain and anguish are real. This powerful film shows without a doubt that what the US administrations say is interrogation is really torture, and must be stopped.

List of films:
Waiting for the Guards
Waterboarding
Close Guantanamo now - demo in London (part 1)
Close Guantanamo now - demo in London (part 2)

Leon Kuhn

Leon Kuhn es un escritor y pintor de caricaturas. Encontre su obra la primera vez con el grupo Fun-Da-Mental de Gran Bretana cual utilizo su imagen del "Statue of Liberty" por su disco "All is War: The Benefits of G-Had".

Neck & Neck: Leon Kuhn's take on the Obama / Clinton race

Watch: freedocumentaries.org

Virtually by chance, I came across this site with many documentary films that can be watched online - e.g. Sicko, Road to Guantanamo, The Take and many many others. There are Africa, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, Russia, South Asia and US documentaries... unbelievable selection...

Armenian Genocide (1915)

Vittorio (left) and Paolo Taviani on the set of "The Lark Farm." (Spiegel)

At the FebioFest in Prague, I am going to watch the film "The Lark Farm" by Italian directors Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani about the disputed genocide of Armenians in Turkey at the start of WWI. Supposedly 1.5 million Armenians died, which was 3/4 of Armenian population in Turkey at that time...
More links below.

Czech article on this
Wikipedia
Genocide disputed
Genocide disputed 2


LA MASSERIA DELLE ALLODOLE: Genocidio armeno


Armenian genocide

PetrUhl - Human Rights as Whipping Stick

Czech journalist, political activist and politician Petr Uhl wrote an article on Tibet and how the current situation can be misinterpreted easily:

"Beijing should acknowledge that Dalai Lama is not pursuing independence, but he is asking for a dialogue. Even European and US right-wing parties have no interest in making this fact public. Freedom for Tibet and hanging up of Tibet's flag is understood by all as desire for independence. As in Kosovo. ...The matter is not human rights, or protection, but on the contrary weakening, and in this case of China..."

TheGuardian: Husak vs. Bush

Husak's Czechoslovakia and Bush's America is compared by the Guardian, inspired by Martina Navratilova's criticism of Bush (she is saying there is no difference between Husak's era in socialist Czechoslovakia and Bush's reign now, or Bush is even worse). The newspaper compares support of the presidents (Husak 15%; Bush 19-30%); health care (free; 16% without health insurance respectively); standard of living vs. freedom (low standard but want of freedom; high standard but no fight for freedom; , i.e. consumerism does not / does placate the population respectively); employment (full employment vs. recession and job loss); visa (similar approach - "arbitrary" vs. Patriot Act); torture (covert tool vs. officially sanctioned).

For me, growing up under Husak... this is quite incomparable (people did want consumerism and not everyone was ready to fight for their freedom and risk the future of their children, but I have no real experience of living in the US under Bush as Novotna does..). However, as for social rights, that seems a different story.

Guardian article here. Czech version here.
Other articles in Guardian when searching for "Husak" here.

Film: Lake of Fire

Lake of Fire trailer

A good film on the dilemmas of abortion and fundamental religious right members who go and kill "abortionists" - doctors carrying out abortion. I was shocked to see how many doctors were killed and how brutal and blind in views the pro-life side could be, what fundamentalism lies behind the anti-abortion propaganda. This film is not a 'black and white' depiction of abortions, but shows how complex / personal / political and dubious this question can be.
Another great film treating abortion is the Romanian "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days".



Official info about the film from ThinkFilmNY:
Ever since Roe v. Wade, the United States has been deeply divided on the issue of abortion. In that landmark case, an unmarried pregnant woman was refused an abortion in Texas and, with the ensuing judicial challenge, won American women the right to safe, legal abortions. Ever since, proponents and opponents have lined up on either side of the issue, launching verbal abuse -- and worse -- at each other. As the religious right has increased in size and power in the past decade, the issue has become even more divisive -- and violent.

Filmmaker Tony Kaye, best known for "American History X," has been working on LAKE OF FIRE for the past fifteen years and has made a film that is unquestionably the definitive work on the subject of abortion. Shot in luminous black and white, which is in fact an endless palette of grays, the film has the perfect esthetic for a subject where there can be no absolutes, no 'right' or 'wrong.' He gives equal time to both sides, covering arguments from either extremes of the spectrum, as well as those at the center, who acknowledge that, in the end, everyone is 'right' -- or 'wrong.'

With graphic images of termination procedures and their aftermath, Kaye endeavors to show abortion's physical and psychological reality -- to make clear what exactly is at stake. LAKE OF FIRE -- the film's title comes from one person's description of what awaits abortionists in hell -- is a brave film, even a monumental one. And whatever you believe now, you are certain to think differently after seeing it.