[Archives from 10/97-3/11]Having looked the beast of the past in the eyes, having asked and received forgiveness…let us shut the door on the past – not to forget it – but to allow it not to imprison us. – Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission A haggard, visibly distracted, and apprehensive middle-aged man and… read more »
Following the wedding preparations of a gay, middle to upper middle-class Catholic couple as they seek to be married in the Catholic faith, Abigail Honor and Yan Vizinberg’s Saints and Sinners is a lighthearted and sincere, but largely superficial exploration of the issues faced by homosexual couples searching for inclusion, acceptance, and basic human rights… read more »
Una de dos is set against the rural backdrop of Argentina in 2002 as a protracted recession and a government-instituted, desperate measure austerity plan to rescue the national economy from insolvency through the devaluation of its currency and announced default on its foreign debt has led to widespread rioting and worker strikes in the cities… read more »
On an unassuming afternoon in September 1989, Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, a 35 year-old physician, medical university professor, and human rights activist, was riding home on her bicycle after having finished grading the final examinations from her Anatomy class when she was gunned down on an anonymous street in her native city of Jaffna by unknown… read more »
The specter of the Partition of Bengal in 1947 continues to haunt the modern day consciousness of a divided Kashmir in Senain Kheshgi and Geeta Patel’s provocative and acutely observed Project Kashmir. Propelled by the idea of capturing the Kashmir conflict from a Hindu and Muslim perspective, Southeast Asian-American friends Kheshgi and Patel attempt to… read more »
A fascinating chronicle of the landmark tort case brought against Unocal on behalf of fifteen displaced Burmese villagers who were raped, beaten, enslaved, tortured, and even killed by the Burmese army in service to Unocal for the construction and security of the Yadana pipeline linking southern Burma to Thailand, Total Denial is a dense, intimate,… read more »
A Tutsi herdsman and genocide survivor sits atop a pastoral outpost on the side of a hill in Bisesero, reflects on the loss of his family and friends during the 100 day massacre, wistfully looks out into the horizon, and comments, “This place used to be beautiful. Now the only beauty is the skeletons on… read more »
As in Eva Mulvad and Anja Al-Erhayem’s Enemies of Happiness, James Longley’s Sari’s Mother, the edited “fourth fragment” from Iraq in Fragments, is a sobering portrait of the pervasive confusion and uncertainty that continues to define everyday life under postwar occupation, and its unseen toll on the weakest and most vulnerable. In this segment, Longley… read more »
Composed of three self-contained chapters that integrally represent the figurative image of the country divided, not only by ethnic and religious sectarianism, but also by the further destabilization of an undefined and politically – and culturally – intrusive occupation, James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments exquisitely fuses the aesthetics of Godfrey Reggio in the artful presentation… read more »
Francisco J. Lombardi’s What the Eye Doesn’t See is a convoluted, yet acutely illustrative fictionalized account of the desperate, intertwined lives of several Peruvian citizens who represent a cross-section of the country’s socio-economic strata during the uncertainty of the ever-increasing scandal surrounding the intricate web of corruption woven by presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos that eventually… read more »