Sunday, November 11th, 6:30pm @ Portland High School Auditorium
Monday November 12th, 3pm @ SPACE, 538 Congress St.
THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern | USA/Chad, 2006 | 85m | Documentary
Sponsored by Frontier Cafe Cinema & Gallery

Unwilling to accept a desk job but desirous of “serving his country,” Marine Captain Brian Steidle quits his job with the US Marine Corps and accepts a six-month post with the African Union as an unarmed military observer in the western Darfur region of Sudan. Soon after arriving in Darfur, however, Steidle realizes that things are going terribly wrong in this huge, remote province bordering Chad. Unable to intervene, Steidle uses his camera to document what some, including the US Government, have called a genocide—and which without doubt has involved what international law calls “crimes against humanity and war crimes” on a massive scale—the conflict in Darfur that has claimed at least 200,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million people since early 2003. Filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern’s astonishing film allows us to witness Steidle’s transformation from soldier to observer to witness and, finally, to activist. Steidle’s journey becomes ours as the more than 1,000 photographs he took become evidence of a crisis that cannot be denied.
Film's Website: http://www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com

Followed by discussion with Gretchen Steidle-Wallace from Global Grassroots

Monday, November 12th, 7pm | Tuesday, November 13th, 3pm
COCALERO

Alejandro Landes | Argentina | 2007 | 94m
In Spanish and Quechua with English subtitles

Cocalero is a film about controversial Bolivian president Evo Morales and his rise to prominence. The story follows the presidential campaign of Morales as he moves from union meetings in the Andes and Amazon to formal fundraising dinners and mass rallies in cities. The political rise of Morales, an outspoken critic of the United States whose political power base is in the coca-growing areas of central Bolivia, dates to his work with farmers resisting a coca eradication drive prompted by the US-backed war on drugs. In 2005 Morales, of Aymara Indian heritage, was elected as Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president, winning the election by the largest majority in the country’s history. *Nominee, Grand Jury Prize, World Cinema, Sundance Film Festival 2007*Official Selection, Tribeca Int'l Film Festival 2006
Film’s website: http://www.cocalerofilm.com

Tuesday, November 13th, 7pm | Wednesday, November 14th, 3pm
BANISHED
Sponsored by Asia West
Marco Williams | USA | 2006 | 86 min
In English

In towns throughout the United States, in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression, thousands of African American families were violently driven from their land by their white neighbors. The choice was simply get out or die. More than a century later these towns remain all white. Filmmaker Marco Williams (Two Towns of Jasper) brings this shameful legacy to light, as he investigates three such towns, addressing questions of racism, truth, and reparations. In Forsyth County, Georgia, he follows reporter Elliot Jaspin as he uncovers what happened to the property of African Americans who were driven out. In Pierce City, Missouri, two brothers try to persuade the town to relocate their ancestor’s remains to a more hospitable location. In Harrison, Arkansas—the current headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan—a group of white citizens try to find ways to overcome the town’s racist past, but, with no Blacks involved, how can they understand the damage done and what would constitute moral reparations? Many questions are raised in this powerful film, but Williams leaves it to the viewers—and the American people as a nation—to come up with answers that respond to this overwhelming historical American tragedy. *Nominee, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2007 Banished opens at Film Forum this fall.
Film’s website: http://banishedthefilm.com/

Wednesday, November 14th, 7pm | Thursday, November 15th, 3pm
THE UNFORSEEN
Sponsored by Videoport
Laura Dunn | USA | 2007 | 93m
In English

Laura Dunn’s beautifully crafted documentary, (Executive Producers Terrence Malick and Robert Redford), The Unforeseen, follows the career of Gary Bradley, an ambitious west Texas farm boy who went to Austin and became one of the state’s most powerful real estate developers, capitalizing on Austin’s boomtown growth beginning in the 1970s. At the peak of his powers, Bradley transformed 4000 acres of pristine Hill Country into one of the state's largest and fastest-selling subdivisions. When the development threatened a local treasure, “Barton Springs”—a natural spring-fed swimming hole—the community fought back and the subdivision became a lightning rod for environmental activism of the kind that flourished under Governor Ann Richards. However, when George W. Bush became governor, development laws change, and the water quality at Barton Springs, as well as the surrounding landscape of Austin, was irreversibly altered. The Unforeseen is a powerful meditation on the destruction of the natural world and the American Dream as it falls victim to the cannibalizing forces of unchecked development. It is an intricate tale of personal hopes, victories, and failures, and debates over land, economics, property rights, and the public good.
Film's website: http://www.theunforeseenfilm.com

Thursday, November 15th, 7pm | Friday, November 16th, 3pm
ELECTION DAY Sponsored by Waynflete Human Rights Organization
Katy Chevigny | USA | 2007 | 84m
In English

Ambitious in scope and emotionally resonant, filmmaker Katy Chevigny’s (Deadline) latest film, Election Day, crisscrosses a large swathe of the US, from the plains of South Dakota to the muggy Florida panhandle, to tell the remarkable story of twelve Americans determined to make their votes, and the votes of others, count on election day 2004. In Shaker Heights, Ohio, a woman waits on line for hours in the rain with her infant child, only to discover her name is not on the voter list and she must travel to another polling place to vote. In New York City, a 50-year-old ex-felon is able to vote for the first time, but will his affidavit ballot be counted? Meanwhile, in Stockholm Wisconsin, community members register on the spot, vote with paper and pencil, and know each other by first name. With the next presidential election race already in full swing, Election Day is a call to action for all who value their right to vote. *Official Selection, South by Southwest Film Festival 2007, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival 2007
Film's Website: http://www.electiondaythemovie.com

Friday, November 16th, 7pm | Saturday, November 17th, 3pm
ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS and SARI'S MOTHER
Sponsored by
Eva Mulvad, Director | Anja Al-Erhayem, Co-Director | Denmark | 2006 | 58m
In English, Farsi and Pashto with English subtitles

Enemies of Happiness is a film about personal courage and conviction. It centers on Malalai Joya, who became one of Afghanistan’s most famous and infamous women in 2003 when she challenged the power of warlords in the country’s new government. Two years later, the 28-year-old ran in her country’s first democratic parliamentary election in over 30 years. A survivor of repeated assassination attempts, she campaigned surrounded by armed guards. How do you introduce democracy in a country where a majority of the people are illiterate, votes are for sale, and warlords use threats and bribes to control the ballots, and many women cannot leave their children to vote? As the film eloquently illustrates, it takes more than Western soldiers and diplomats. Joya is a controversial voice for a nation ruined by war, still ruled by fear, but desperate for a change for the better. * Winner of the 2007 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize and the Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Prize: Documentary
Film's website: http://www.enemiesofhappiness.com/

SARI'S MOTHER
James Longley | USA | 2006 | 21m
In Arabic with English subtitles

In Sari’s Mother, filmed in Iraq over a period of one year, filmmaker James Longley (Gaza Strip; Iraq in Fragments) follows a courageous mother as she struggles to get proper medical help for her 10-year-old son, Sari, who is dying of AIDS. An intimate, revealing portrait, uncovering a side of life in Iraq that few outside the country have witnessed. *Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival 2006
Film's website: http://www.daylightfactory.com/sarismother/

Saturday, November 17th, 7pm | Sunday, November 18th, 3pm
STRANGE CULTURE
Sponsored by the Maine Civil Liberties Union
Lynn Hershman Leeson | USA | 2007 | 76m
In English

Strange Culture chronicles the breathtaking miscarriage of justice that has befallen Steve Kurtz, a college professor, artist, and member of the politically charged art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble. In 2004 as Kurtz was preparing an interactive exhibition for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art that would have allowed participants to test food labeled “organic” for the presence of genetically modified organisms, his wife tragically died from heart failure. Distraught, Kurtz called 911, but when the police arrived and saw the scientific materials for the exhibition-all legally purchased-they called the FBI. Dozens of agents in haz-mat suits searched his home, impounded his computers, books, cat, and even his wife's body, and held Kurtz as a suspected bio-terrorist. Three years later, he faces up to 20 years in prison on mail and wire fraud charges relating to his acquisition of materials for the art exhibit. Filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson creatively enlists actors Thomas Jay Ryan, Tilda Swinton, Josh Kornbluth, and Peter Coyote to dramatize part of the story that Kurtz cannot legally discuss, while skillfully interweaving news footage, animation, testimonials, and footage of Kurtz himself-creating a fascinating, highly provocative documentary about post-9/11 paranoia and the risks artists face when their work questions government policies. *Official Selection, Berlin International Film Festival 2007
Film's website: http://www.strangeculture.net