Moving Images: New Films Available
Penny Adams is a social worker and a volunteer with the AFSC film and video library.
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The AFSC film library ships videos to all 50 states. To see our entire collection of 1,300 videos, DVDs, films, and slide shows, visit www.afsc.org/resources/video-film.htm. Just call 617/497-5273 to put in your order (small donations will be requested). The following represent a few of the important new films you can now borrow.
Voices of Cuba, video 1996 (52 mins.). This film presents a brief history of Cuba since the Spanish American war, focusing on the US as colonizer, the US embargo since the revolution, Cuba’s dependence on the USSR until it withdrew in 1989, and the subsequent economic desperation. Since 1989 Cuba has been developing “free” enterprise and allowing foreign investments, and now there is both a dollar-rich and peso-poor economy. The Cubans interviewed discuss these changes. In general, the interviewees love US culture, but hate US policies.
The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror. Video, 2004 (93 mins.). The threat of terrorism is being used by the US in an attempt to justify building permanent military bases for protection of oil routes throughout the globe. The film portrays the devastating impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Land of the Settlers: A Journey Log. DVD 2004 (25 mins.). This composite DVD condenses five other DVD’s digesting lengthy interviews conducted by a well-known Israeli newscaster with Palestinians, Israeli settlers, and soldiers in the West Bank. Can the cycle of violence be broken? What are the Jewish settlers terms for reconciliation, and can they partner with Palestinians by recognizing Palestinian national rights? The film shows soldiers patrolling the empty streets of Hebron on Passover during a curfew and what happens to those Palestinians who try to break it. We see check points where sick Palestinians are not permitted to proceed to medical facilities. An Israeli rabbi claims ownership of wheat fields, chasing Palestinians away as soldiers intervene.
The Last Abortion Clinic, video, 2005 (60 mins.). The film reviews the recent moves by Mississippi to restrict abortion availability and restrict access to birth control information. The vulnerable abortion clinic in Jackson is featured as the state legislature considers new laws to prohibit abortions outside a hospital. Already, because of existing state restrictions, pregnant women, in order to exercise their right to an abortion, need to risk their health and face the difficulties of traveling to an out-of-state clinic.
The Education of Shelby Knox, DVD, 2005, (76 mins). Shelby Knox, a high school student from Lubbox, Texas, advocates sex education in a conservative, evangelical-Christian-dominated town that preaches abstinence. The town faces, or more accurately tries to ignore, soaring rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Shelby Knox is filmed over the course of three years as she talks with her parents, peers, her pastor, other sex education advocates, and the school committee. She undertakes a lonely struggle to advocate for real sex education, a high school gay-straight alliance, and a religiosity that rejects bigotry.
For more films for social change, please see ScreenPeace, the War Resisters League Calendar, 2007, available in the fall, 339 Lafayette, NY, NY 10012, 212/228-0450, www.warresisters.org.
