Films that bring previously obscured truths about the political process to the attention of the public, showing for example how offices of public trust are used for private purposes.
MOUNTAIN PATROL EXPOSES THE ROLE OF A FREE PRESS IN PRE-TIANANMEN CHINA Kekexili (Mountain Patrol), directed by Chuan Lu, is based on a true story about a volunteer group of Chinese who are trying to stop poachers from illegally harvesting antelope skin in Kekexili, a remote part of China on the Tibetan border where the […]
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SOPHIE SCHOLL CELEBRATES UNDERGROUND ANTI-NAZI GERMAN MARTYRS Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a docudrama of the last five days of a member of White Rose, a German underground organization of college students who distributed leaflets with anti-Nazi information and propaganda. The film begins on February 18, 1943. Sophie Magdalena Scholl (played by Julia Jentsch),
THE FIRST COLLEGE BASKETBALL LINEUP ENTIRELY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS STARS IN GLORY ROAD Glory Road, directed by James Gartner, is well timed both for the holiday recognizing Martin Luther King, Jr., and the beginning of college basketball season. The movie is based on the 1979 book (by Robert A. Heinlein) and true story of a
MUNICH DEPICTS THE NEVER-ENDING UPWARD SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE In Munich, director Steven Spielberg appears to agree with Saverio Costanzo, whose recent film Private shows that Israelis are losing the fight against the indefatigable Palestinians. When Munich begins, nine Palestinians kidnap and execute eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympiad in 1972 but escape justice. Israel’s
Before the Fall, directed by Dennis Gansel, is a German film entitled Napola, which translates “National Police Institutes of Learning,” with the subtitle Elite für den Führer. Titles at the end indicate that there were forty Napolas, where teenagers were trained to become SS officers. The movie focuses on the fate of Friedrich Weimer (played
NORTH COUNTRY PORTRAYS THE ROSA PARKS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT North Country, directed by Niki Caro, begins with titles that inform filmviewers that 1975 was the year when the first woman was hired in the coal mines of the Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota, and that by 1989 the ratio of men to women was 30:1. The
INNOCENT VOICES INDICTS THE USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS Titles at the beginning of Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes), directed by Luis Mandoki, inform filmviewers of the civil war in El Salvador from 1980-1992 that began when peasants under the banner of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front organized opposition to the dispossession of their lands. Titles
PARADISE NOW LOOKS INTO THE SOUL OF PALESTINIANS Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, is a Palestinian-Dutch film that seeks to acquaint filmviewers with the everyday life at Nablus and the views of certain residents toward Israeli occupation. The facts presented are stark. Many residences have been destroyed, mostly by Israeli firepower but some even
Anti-Communist crusader Senator Joseph McCarthy rose to prominence in the early 1950s with the accusation that some 200 Communist Party members were employed in the United States government, though he never presented evidence or names. When attacked for his methods of badgering witnesses, making false statements, and promoting hysteria, he responded that his attackers were
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THE TITLE ROLE IN LORD OF WAR DARES INTERPOL, “CATCH ME IF YOU CAN” When a film ends with the title “Based on True Events,” the impact is much more profound than if the title appears in the beginning. Lord of War, directed and written by Andrew Niccol, is indeed an exposé of major significance.