Britain's News 4 Channel interviewed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Human Rights Attorney Shirin Ebadi.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Film: Seasons in the Valley (Adam Matalon, 2008, Chatsby Films)
I love films about relationships between men. I love films about how men think about their work. The lyrical Seasons in the Valley is both: a feature-length documentary that chronicles the journeys of highly-skilled Jamaican migrant workers (with full support of the US and Jamaican government), the plight of the New York Apple Farmers who have been employing them for decades, and the bonds that have formed between these men as the fiercely competitive, global economy for fruit squeezes the Hudson Valley apple growing businesses. This is a human film, with a background of economics, but is not directly a political film.
Film: USA vs. Al-Arian (Line Halvorsen, 2007, Dalchows verden Films)
The US Government has held former University of South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian under arrest since February 2003. Dr. Al-Arian, who was born in Kuwait to parents who were refugees from Palestine, and has spent all his adult life in the United States, has been an outspoken political advocate for Palestinians, and a severe critic of Israel, but the US Government thinks he may have been doing something much more sinister. This is in part because of his association with a former US academic who returned to Palestine and founded the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, an organization the US Government classifies as a Terrorist organization. The US would like to convict him and continue to imprison him; his family's hope right now is that he would be deported and perhaps start a new life with his mother who lives in Egypt.
Norwegian filmmaker Line Halvorsen was able to spend much of 2003-2006 with Dr. Al-Arian's wife and children and his attorneys, as well as with the US Prosecutor, and also interviewed Dr. Al-Arian in prison, and she has made an amazing, and disturbing film. If you can see this film, which has won a number of film festival awards, I think you will find it amazing. Otherwise see the 12-page Overview prepared for the press.
Information about the film, where it will be shown, where it can be obtained on DVD, is at USAvsAlArian.com.
Norwegian filmmaker Line Halvorsen was able to spend much of 2003-2006 with Dr. Al-Arian's wife and children and his attorneys, as well as with the US Prosecutor, and also interviewed Dr. Al-Arian in prison, and she has made an amazing, and disturbing film. If you can see this film, which has won a number of film festival awards, I think you will find it amazing. Otherwise see the 12-page Overview prepared for the press.
Information about the film, where it will be shown, where it can be obtained on DVD, is at USAvsAlArian.com.
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