All Posts Tagged With: "indigenous people"
Sundancing 08: Up the Yangtze
The New Deal was FDR’s answer to the economic depression in this country. It included big public works projects that created our infrastructure as well as providing jobs to those who had lost everything in The Depression. It was workfare aimed at modernizing the country and helping its citizens.
Arctic Son on POV
I hope that you’ve been checking out P.O.V. this summer. Tonight is one of my favorite films that I saw last year on the festival circuit and if you haven’t seen it, I hope you will tune in tonight. From the P.O.V. newsletter, a brief note from filmmaker Andrew Walton:
This film is the result of 10 years of hard work and was inspired by my chance encounter with a former Gwitchin chief named Johnny Abel. Johnny felt that a film about the Gwitchin lifestyle could be a valuable tool in preserving the culture. I didn’t plan to tell this story through a father and son that had been estranged for most of their lives, but this story emerged as one of the strongest cultural lessons I witnessed. That is the nature of vérité filmmaking — you begin with an idea, but the final film is defined by the twists and turns the characters’ lives take and how it all unfolds before the camera.
Visit the website for Arctic Son!
Events this week
There are a bunch of great movie events going on this week. If you are attending any of them, let me know and we can save each other seats!
Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman
Jennifer Fox’s multi-part series is ongoing at Film Forum. Screenings this week are sponsored by various organizations, including Arts Engine on Tuesday, Women Make Movies on Wednesday and RAINN on Thursday. It’s only a two-week run so get thee to the theater!
Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix
Opens July 11! Yeah, I know, not a doc but one of my favorite fantasy series. I was hoping it would be playing at the Ziegfeld, but no dice. Anyone have a suggestion for a great theater to watch it? I miss the Uptown!
Four Sheets to the Wind
On Thursday at New York’s NMAI, this narrative which had its World Premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival will screen. Tamara Podemski (Saulteaux) won the Special Jury Award for Acting and director Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek) is a Sundance Institute Annenberg Fellow and a 2006 Renew Media Fellow. More on the film>>
POV Launches: Rain in a Dry Land
Tonight is the launch of POV, a strand of independent documentaries screened weekly through the summer on PBS. Check your local listings to find out the exact time, but usually it is 10 PM. There are trailers and reminders online to help you remember, or set your TiVO!
Rain in a Dry Land by Anne Makepeace
After more than a decade in a refugee camp in Kenya, to which they had fled to escape the civil wars tearing apart the Horn of Africa, two Somali Bantu families are stunned to learn in early 2004 that they will finally be allowed to immigrate to America. The resettlement plan began under Clinton in 1999, was interrupted by September 11th, and began again late in 2003. The families are, in a Somali Bantu expression, grateful recipients of bish-bish, which translates literally as “splash-splash,” indicating the first rains after a long drought (”rain in a dry land”) and, by extension, resettlement in America. In a world teeming with desperate refugees, where barren camps like the U.N.-supported Kakuma in Kenya become permanent rather than temporary fixtures on troubled borders, a ticket to the United States may be the ultimate bish-bish. Read the synopsis>>
I'm really looking forward to this one and was excited to see the trailer posted, but it looks like the ...
Thanks for the feedback Mark, I'll keep that in mind :) 
Wow, that does look great!
More video, Agnes! I love when you post cool stuff like this! 
Right on! I thought the exact same thing when I read the times article. I think its also ...