Opening a book of the 50 greatest directors I got recently, I bumped into Georges Melies and his work, which is one of the first artwork in the film history.
And, putting youtube to the test, I tried to find his work.
Well, hands down to youtube - this one was quite a catch!
Voyage dans la lune - A trip to the moon
Makes one realize how far film has gone in 100 years!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
One World Part II
This wonderful and touching documentary tells a story of kids from the Patongo school, situated in the north of
Every year, a national music competition takes place in Kampala, the capital of Uganda
However, focusing on the stories of three children in their early teens, who have experienced the most terrible atrocities during their young lives already from seeing their parents killed to being kidnapped and forced to kill by the rebels, the documentary shows that through an amazing drive and love for music, the kids from the Patongo school train very hard to win the competition.
The film shows how important music is in the lives of these children and how it has the ability to heal the worst inner wounds caused by the war.
War/Dance is one of the most moving films I've seen in a long time, it will make you weep, believe me. Especially when the children get on the stage to dance their traditional dance Bwola, which take take huge pride in. That sequence was just godly.
Moving right along to:
Hearing so much about this film, I was expecting tons from it. However, sadly, I must agree to some extent with this comment I saw on imdb:
"...However while good, its too over produced for my tastes (fancy camera tricks make photos pop, a new agey score, picture perfect cinematography) and I had the unfortunate feeling it was made by well off Americans to make them feel better rather than to actually help solve the problem..."
When I compare this documentary to Lisa Jackson's brave endeavour to help women in Congo, I found myself thinking that this movie has really been made sort of to show how the Americans "help" the poor and the in need. Plus the entire storyline of the film really followed the typical "American-dream/from-zero-to-hero" structure.
Plus, something that was said the documentary made me think of the following:
Based on what was said in the film as well as the fact that wikipedia describes one of the reasons for the conflict as:
The combination of decades of drought, desertification, and overpopulation are among the causes of the Darfur conflict, because the Baggara nomads searching for water have to take their livestock further south, to land mainly occupied by non-Arab farming communities,
plus the fact that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sudan_sat.jpg
And since:
On September 9, 2004, the United States Secretary of State Colin Powell termed the Darfur conflict a "genocide", claiming it as the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century.
And:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/sudan/2005/0615oil.htm
Another tidbit to all this is naturally the fact that the Sudanese government is Islamic and the Janjaweed militia, who are said to be hired by the Sudanese government, are also the ones who are said to be the most cruel killers in
I'll give you even one more:
In the film, one of the six characters who are being followed is Pablo Recalde, whose main aim is to mobilize UN convoys and deliver food to the north of
So now, you might get the picture of what's been going through my head after I've added all these pieces together.
Sweet
And since we started with this topic, let's move right on to
Academy Award winning documentary, which indeed casts light on one of the most discussed affairs of the Bush administration.
The movie depicts the
If you thought that you knew everything about this issue and you've got it pretty much all set, I bet that you'll still be taken by surprise with this movie. Since it goes even further than telling the stories of the victims. It actually shows that the tortures have not in many of the cases happened accidentally and have not been caused by the soldiers' loss of connection with reality (despite this was a factor as well), but have been planned and ordered by the Bush administration intentionally.
Not only that, but it also depicts how the US government found a way around the Geneva Convention, which set the way how prisoner's of war should be treated, in order to still be able to conduct the most terrible ways of torture.
Totally recommend watching this documentary, it'll add a few bits and pieces to your whole picture of the Bush administration inner workings.
Let's stay in
Think
This documentary follows a story of 22 Westerners who stayed in the city during the massacre, establishing a Safety zone for the Chinese to shield them from the Japanese army, saving thousands of Chinese.
With authentic shots from the time it is the most terrifying film I've seen at the festival and indeed makes you realize what people were/are capable of during wars.
Just watch these pictures. I don't think they need much more commentary..
http://prion.bchs.uh.edu/~zzhang/1/Nanking_Massacre/warning.html
The Lighting Testimonies
This documentary by independent Indian filmmaker Amar Kanwar depicts the violence on women in
Despite the violence started back then, it lasts even until now and Kanwar has tried to capture the history of the 50 years of violence on women, never spoken of.
He does that through a style which I've never seen before, the film flows in a very slow mode, telling you the history of the region and stories of the women and their families through silent on-screen explanations.
These three things have stuck with me the strongest:
- the fact that in 1949 a definition of an "abducted person" has been defined by both, the
- the film shows a story of a woman activist, who together with her husband wrote and acts in a play showing the brutal rapes and treatment on Indian women. In one of the scenes, the woman stands naked in front of the rapist. The authorities and the audience, however, condemn her and the play for this act, saying a woman can never show her naked body in public, totally ignoring the theme and topic of the play
- during the war, young girls were often told by their own parents to kill themselves if they see the soldiers from the other army. One of the stories also tells a story of a young girl, whose father and brother tried to strangle her with her own shawl before the soldiers were supposed to come. They were trying during the entire night, finally giving up in the morning. The girl survived.
Despite the strong topic, the documentary's slow mode and the fact that it lasts almost two hours made half of the audience leave during the screening – I've never seen that before and after that again.
For a sample of the unique filmmaking, have a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djp1Nk--0L8&feature=related
The last but not least documentary of the festival we saw was
In 2006, the Open House society in
This documentary follows the journey and difficulties the Open House members were facing from the fundamentalist Jewish, Christian, and Muslim churches in
They even went to so far to claim that the bombings of
One of the most shocking moments in the film are the seeing the Rabbi actually prey in front of the Wailing Wall for forgiveness for preparations of the parade and the riots which are provoked by the Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, which last through one night in front of the house of the Open House, when even the lives of the members are at stake.
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That, folks, is was my One World this year. Hope you got as much out of the tour as I did.
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