Francophone - Saturday

The 3rd Annual Francophone Film Festival continues today with two FREE films.


Au-delà de la haine
Beyond Hatred (2005)
5:00pm, Wilson 402 Auditorium - FREE
Dir: Olivier Meyrou, 86 min.
Speaker: Carlos Fagundo, French Department
Twenty-nine-year-old François Chenu, openly homosexual, was murdered on the night of September 13, 2002 in a park in Reims, France by three skinheads. Olivier Meyrou’s camera follows François’ parents, sisters and brothers as each member tries to deal with his or her grief. In the course of filming, the family changes. The grief is gradually replaced by a desire to understand the murderers, who come from socially and culturally underprivileged families. The young murderers were exploited by right-wing radical groups. As a filmmaker, Meyrou did not want to make a documentary about homophobia, but a universal film about tolerance and intolerance. He arrived in Reims before the skinheads’ trial in order to meet the attorneys for both parties, but especially François’ family. His tact and sensitivity lead them to accept him. After a few months Meyrou brought his camera along. Soon, all those involved forgot that the camera was there and spoke with great dignity and natural authority, and without the least tendency to pathos.


Le plafond de verre
The Glass Ceiling (2004)
7:30pm, Wilson 402 Auditorium
Dir: Yamina Benguigui, 52 min.
Speaker: Majida Bargach, French Department
“The Glass Ceiling” is an American sociological expression referring to the invisible, impalpable barrier that prevents women from reaching the same level as men in their careers. Using this metaphor, Yamina Benguigui examines the integration of immigrants in the workplace. For her, the comparison between immigrants and women is relevant because they face the same challenges: the issue is not necessarily about finding work, but about being hired for positions of responsibility that correspond to their educational backgrounds. The film provides deeply moving testimonies of qualified students who, because of their obviously foreign last names, were not called back for job interviews. Some chose to fight for jobs for which they are qualified, others gave up and accepted positions with less or no responsibilities. Yamina Benguigui also interviews experts who discuss the reasons behind discrimination, which include France’s colonial past as well as deeply entrenched corporate practices, and the difficulty that individuals of foreign origins face.

Read more

Children Left Behind

UNICEF Awarded "Children Left Behind" in Rural China Documentary Screening
-"They have parents, but they live very lonely lives. They eat alone, they
play alone."

Producer: Catherine Lee Yuk San (Hong Kong)

"Children Left Behind", a 30-minute documentary, chronicles the lives of
children who are "left behind" in the villages of rural China, when their
parents migrate to urban areas in search of work. As part of China's
economic boom, it is estimated that over 120 million rural migrants have
moved to urban areas to work in factories and construction. A new phenomenon
in China, the number of children "left behind" is now estimated to be over
22 million. Although it is their basic right to have their parent's love,
concern and care, in reality you can see that they live like an orphan. (For
more info, visit http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/china_41650.html)
After the screening, Dream Corps will present an introduction about
education and community building projects in rural China. An interactive
question and answer session will follow, with information on how you can get
involved with our current projects.
Join us to learn a new perspective of China. FREE THAI TEA will be provided!

When: Feb 7th, Thursday 7:00-8:00pm
Where: Clark 108
Website: http://www.student.virginia.edu/~dcuva
Sponsors: Americans for Informed Democracy, Mainland Student Network

Read more

Terror's Advocate

OFFscreen Presents
Terror's Advocate
Dir. Barbet Schroeder - France, 2007 - 135 min.
Sunday, February 3 - 7:00 & 9:45 PM

Barbet Schroeder attempts to illuminate the mystery behind the enigmatic Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla fighter who has defended unpopular political figures and war criminals. Centered around interviews with Vergès, his colleagues, clients and comrades, the documentary seeks to uncover a man who took pride in his unparalleled tactics in the fields of law and politics. Schroeder explores and questions the history of blind terrorism and reaches towards shocking revelations that expose long-hidden histories. "It is one of the most engaging, morally unsettling political thrillers in quite some time, with the extra advantage of being true." (A. O. Scott, New York Times)

Click here to read A.O Scott's Full Review.

Click here to visit the official site of the film and check out the trailer.

Read more

Film series at UVa

Hey everyone, this film series just got started up last Thursday. If you are interested in any of these films on Globalization you should definitely check them out.

Globalization and Education
An International Film Series for the
Curry/UVA Community

When: Thursdays 5-7pm

Where: (in the auditorium in Ruffner Hall) RFN G004C

We've compiled a documentary film series of cutting edge, social
justice films that we hope will inspire, educate and engage the entire
UVA community to discuss and think more broadly about global issues in
education. Most of the films have been selected from various
international film festivals and focus on globalization, and we've
identified those that look specifically at global influences on
education and other social sectors. Offering an alternative view to
understanding globalization in purely economic terms, the film series
and discussions will serve as an important forum for thinking about
and acting on global concerns, reminding us that a different
trajectory is not only possible but imperative. We hope you'll be able
to join us!

Each of the films runs approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hours and will be
followed by a facilitated discussion (sometimes with the film actors,
directors or faculty from the particular country or region ? see
details in the flier!). We will kick off the series this Thursday
night (1/31) with a film about education and the colonial system in
Cameroon. We are fortunate to have Caroline Berinyuy, a Social
Foundations doctoral student who is from Cameroon and has been
teaching there for the past 20 years to lead off the discussion.


Film topics and dates

Feb. 7 Life and Debt (Jamaica, Stephanie Black, 1 hour 26 min)
(***ROOM CHANGE ?RFN 175): Utilizing excerpts from the award-winning
non-fiction text "A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid, Life & Debt is a
woven tapestry of sequences ... all » focusing on the stories of
individual Jamaicans whose strategies for survival and parameters of
day-to-day existence are determined by the U.S. and other foreign
economic agendas.

February 14: Testing Hope: Grade 12 in the New South Africa (South
Africa, Molly Blank, 1 hour) Chronicles the lives of four young people
in Nyanga township, just outside Cape Town, as they work towards their
crucial final high school exams, the Matric. While this is the new
South Africa, many vestiges of apartheid remain ? poverty is
entrenched, many students live in shacks, and families have been
dramatically changed by the impact of HIV-AIDS.

February 28: The Other Europe (58min) Immigration is as hot button an
issue across Europe as it is here. The film is a penetrating study of
the economics and politics behind the immigration debate with
revealing parallels to our own country.

Mar. 13: Granito de Arena (Grains of Sand) (Mexico, 2 hours) For
over 20 years, global economic forces have been dismantling public
education in Mexico, but always in the constant shadow of popular
resistance...Granito de Arena is the story of that resistance ? the
story of hundreds of thousands of public schoolteachers whose
grassroots, non-violent movement took Mexico by surprise. Discussion
with David Edwards, International Initiatives at the NEA.

March 27: Saudi Solutions (Saudi Arabia,77 min) Filmmaker Bregtje van
der Haak is the first Western filmmaker ever granted permission to
film the lives of Saudi women. She profiles several women with
professional careers--including a journalist, a doctor, a
photographer, a television newsreader, a university professor and the
nation's first female airplane pilot--and asks them to explain what it
means to be a modern woman in a fundamentalist Islamic society.

April 10: Sand and Sorrow (Sudan, Freedman, 93 minutes) Offered
exclusive and unparalleled access to the situation on the ground
inside Darfur, Peabody award-winning filmmaker, Paul Freedman ("Rwanda
- Do Scars Ever Fade?"), joins a contingent of African Union
peacekeeping forces in Darfur while a tragic and disturbing chapter in
human history unfolds. Discussion with the Filmmaker Paul Freedman and
human rights activist and author of many books on Darfur, John
Prendergast.

April 17: Secret Ballot (Iran, 100min) A film about democracy and
social change in Iran explored through the lives of a soldier and a
young woman who are tasked with collecting votes throughout the
country. Followed by a discussion with the film's leading actor,
Nassim Dezfooli, about the film, girls' education and the grass-roots
democracy movement in Iran.

April 24: Two films: New Rulers of the World (53 minutes) Journalist
John Pilger investigates the realities of globalization by taking a
close look at TNCs in Indonesia (companies such as GAP, Levis, Nike,
Rebock) and Afro@Digital (Congo/France/ Nigeria, 52 minutes) begins
with a provocative question: How can Africa escape the logic of
poverty and unequal development by making sure that digital technology
doesn't pass it by, become an agent of neo-colonialism or marginalize
it still further?

Read more

OFFScreen gets Press

So many of you may have seen our articles in both the Declaration and in the Tableau portion of the Cav Daily, but if you didn't here they are:

Cav Daily, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2008: HERE


The Declaration, Jan. 24, 2008: HERE

See you Sunday for Terror's Advocate.

Read more