TWO FAMOUS TRIALS ARE PORTRAYED Some of the most famous trials in American history are portrayed as biopics: MIRANDA’S VICTIM FOCUSES ON WOMAN RAPED BY MIRANDA A lawyer for Ernesto Miranda (Sebastian Quinn) successfully argued that his kidnapping and rape confession was coerced because he was denied an attorney before and during interrogation. The case […]

GOLDA TRIES TO REDEEM GOLDA MEIR’S REPUTATION Israel’s prime minister Golda Meir, sometimes known as the “Iron Lady,” has been blamed for unnecessary deaths in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, but when her conduct before, during, and after the war are examined in Golda, filmviewers may make a very different assessment. Directed by Guy

AURORA’S SUNSHINE Graphically Explains the Armenian Genocide A biopic about Arshaluys Mardiganian, Aurora’s Sunrise is also a biopic and mini-critique of the previously forgotten film Auction of Souls (1919). The latter film is a story (though she was renamed Aurora to sell to an American audience), of a 14-year-old who is evicted from her home

Oppenheimer Tries to Restore a Reputation A biopic about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), scenes shift back and forth throughout his life, with particular attention to those trying to destroy his reputation after his face appears on Time magazine as the father of the atomic bomb. Although he mostly speaks softly in

WE SAID NO! NO! A STORY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE FOCUSES ON JAPANESE Although most Japanese sent to ‘internment camps’ during World War II appeared compliant, some were not. We Said No! No! A Story of Civil Disobedience, a re-enactment with historical film footage and interviews with participants, is the story of those who resisted. The

THE WIND AND THE RECKONING DESCRIBES AN ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLE IN HAWAIʽI After titles inform filmviewers that the Kingdom of Hawaiʽi was overthrown in 1893, the context is on a new law of the Republic of Hawaiʽi that required all persons with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) to be rounded up and sent to a “leper colony” on