Browsing: CinéEqual

Social Justice Cinema

Zana is Kosovo’s Selection for the Best International Film Award for 2020 Academy Awards written and directed by Antoneta Kastrati. at Cinema Without Borders and CineEqual we had the opportunity to have a podcast interview with Antoneta Kastrati about making of Zana. https://soundcloud.com/user-222526075/an-interview-with?in=user-222526075/sets/cwb-podcast In Zana, an Albanian woman, Lume, lives with her husband, Ilir, and mother-in-law, Remzije, in their small Kosovo village. Haunted by night terrors, childless and unable to get pregnant, Lume is relentlessly pressured by Remzije to fulfill her wifely duties? if Lume cannot produce a child, her mother-in-law threatens, it will be Remzije’s responsibility to bring in a younger and more…

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Incitement, is Israel’s selection for Best International Film Oscar. In September 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin announces the Oslo Accords, which aim to achieve a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians after decades of violence. Yigal Amir, a law student and a devoted Orthodox Jew, cannot believe that his country’s leader will cede territory that he and many others believe is rightfully — by the word of God — theirs. As the prospect of a peaceful compromise approaches, Amir turns from a hot-headed political activist to a dangerous extremist. Consumed by anger and delusions of grandeur, he recruits fighters…

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In this Op-Ed, Larry Dane Brimner explains his writing process for his forthcoming book, Accused!: The Trials of the Scottsboro Boys: Lies, Prejudice and the Fourteenth Amendment (Gr 8 Up, Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills & Kane) and how the book shares unfortunate parallels to the state of today’s justice system. “When I first began Accused!: The Trials of the Scottsboro Boys: Lies, Prejudice, and the Fourteenth Amendment, I had no idea how relevant the book would be to today’s political and social reality. My nonfiction books are contracted long before I sit down at my keyboard to write them. Accused! was…

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“Gloria and I were just talking about the fact that both of us congratulated Jane when we read that she got arrested,” said artist Judy Chicago on Saturday night at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, where she was being honored at the annual Gala in the Garden, now in its 17th year. Gloria Steinem, that is. The two feminist icons and longtime friends were cheering on Jane Fonda from afar, said Chicago, after news broke that the actress was put in handcuffs on Friday and charged with unlawful demonstration during a climate change protest outside the U.S. Capitol. “God bless her,”…

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COLLISIONS, directed by Richard Levien tells the story of two young kids separated from their mother by ICE forces. When twelve-year-old Itan (Izabella Alvarez), a straight-A-student in San Francisco, comes home from school, she is stunned to find their furniture up-ended, and no trace of her mother, Yoana (Ana de la Reguera), who was detained by ICE. Child Protective Services dumps Itan and her six-year-old brother Neto (Jason Garcia) with their estranged uncle Evencio (Jesse Garcia), a big rig truck driver. Itan can’t stand him. He’s arrogant, unreliable, and possibly a criminal. After a desperate search, Itan locates Yoana in an…

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“As an American-Iranian filmmaker I spent most of my life outside the U.S., therefore I had no idea how it is to live under the shadow of gun violence. When I moved to California 30 years ago, I tried hard to understand the love for guns. I tried to understand why people needed guns at home. I was told that this is our 2nd Amendment right and it is part of U.S. Constitution, so it is sacred. I also never understood why constitutions cannot be rewritten; why we think they are untouchable. There are many old and fanatic beliefs that…

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Every month at Cinema Without Borders and CineEqual, we receive numerous emails and phone calls from independent, international filmmakers of social justice cinema, seeking help in making or distributing their projects. Help is wanted everywhere. On September 2nd, 2019 alone, social justice cinema filmmakers from the US, UK, Iran, Bangladesh, France, Pakistan, Germany, Canada, South Africa, and Thailand contacted us looking for help. Considering today’s world political climate that beckons for awareness of social justice issues, we have decided to introduce and spotlight organizations that offer support for independent filmmakers working on social justice projects. SIMA Studios, the organization we’re…

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Cold Case Hammarskjöld is a shocking documentary by Mads Brügger. In 1961, United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane mysteriously crashed, killing Hammarskjöld and most of the crew. We had an audio interview with Mads Brügger that we post it here as one of our podcasts: https://soundcloud.com/user-222526075/cold-case-an-interview-with?in=user-222526075/sets/cwb-podcast With Dag Hammarskjöld’s case still unsolved 50-plus years later, Danish journalist, filmmaker, and provocateur Mads Brügger (The Red Chapel, The Ambassador) leads us down an investigative rabbit hole to unearth the truth. Scores of false starts, dead ends, and elusive interviews later, Brügger and his sidekick, Swedish Göran Björkdahl, begin to sniff out something more monumental than anything…

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For more than 35 years, China enforced a radical experiment in population control, restricting couples to a single child and imposing harsh penalties on those who violated the policy. In the 2019 Sundance U.S. Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary One Child Nation, Chinese born filmmakers Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow) and Jialing Zhang dig fearlessly into the past with startling testimony from victims and perpetrators, including members of Wang’s own family, as well as archival footage, vintage propaganda materials and intimate first-hand accounts of the policy’s horrific consequences. A stunning, nuanced indictment of a program that prioritized a national agenda over human life,…

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Honeyland is an amazing and beautiful documentary directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov. The freshness and importance of the topic of the film, honesty of the filmmakers dealing with their subject and the magical structure of Honeyland makes it one of the best and exceptionally entertaining and informative documentaries of our time. I had the opportunity to speak to Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov in a Skype video interview.and ask them about making of Honeyland: Bijan Tehrani https://vimeo.com/351211822 Hatidze lives with her ailing mother in the mountains of Macedonia, making a living cultivating honey using ancient beekeeping traditions. When an…

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