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.
VIETNAMESE REFUGEES FIND HOPE OUT OF TURMOIL IN GREEN DRAGON Refugees generally leave a country in turmoil without a clear idea of what comes next other than a prolongation of their lives. In Green Dragon, the experience of some 134,000 Vietnamese refugees is condensed into short cuts of a few characters with myriad adjustment problems […]
THE CONTRIBUTION OF CRYPTOGRAPHERS IS DECODED IN ENIGMA During World War II British cryptographers at Blentchly Park, a manorial estate some sixty miles north of London, decoded German communications and saved thousands of lives, though their efforts were kept secret until 1975. In Enigma, directed by Michael Apted, those involved in codebreaking are honored through
JOHN Q. ENCOUNTERS SICKNESS IN THE HEALTH INDUSTRY John Q. is an exposé about the 40 million Americans who have no health insurance and millions more who belong to health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that provide phony health insurance. The hero, John Qunicy Archibald (played by Denzel Washington), is a family man, a churchgoer, and a
How does a white slavery ring work? The Uruguayan film Tricky Life (En la Puta Vida), an obvious pun in the translation from Spanish, demonstrates exactly how, using a fictional heroine Elisa (played by Mariana Santángelo) as a victim to expose a scam involving Uruguayans in Spain. The story is based on Maria Urruzola’s novel
KANDAHAR RECEIVES THE FIRST AWARD NOMINATION OF 2002 Kandahar (Safar e Ghandehar) is an Iranian film, with a lot of spoken English, which proceeds as if a documentary because the conditions portrayed are real. Nafas (played by Nelofer Pazira), an Afghani refugee who fled to Canada when the Taliban came to power, receives word in
Our Lady of the Assassins (La Virgen de los Sicarios) focuses on Fernando (played by Germán Jaramillo) , who was born in Medellín, Colombia, when it was a peaceful if boring farming community. His literary talents took him to Europe, where presumably he lived a full life but we are left to infer that he contracted
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ALI DELIVERS A KNOCKOUT PUNCH TO HIS CRITICS & APPLAUSE TO HOWARD KOSELL Of all the boxers, Muhammad Ali was perhaps the most politically savvy. The film Ali attempts to weave politics into what might otherwise seem a conventional biopic, with many minutes of fight scenes, love stories, and musical interludes. Directed by Michael Mann,
UPRISING IN THE WARSAW GHETTO SHOWS HOW TO RESPOND TO BARBARITY WITH HONOR In 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto, created by the occupying Germans to contain the Jewish population of the city, erupted in guerrilla warfare against the Nazis. In Uprising, director Jon Avnet provides a docudrama of the era, from prewar Warsaw to the end
AN AMERICAN SOLDIER SEES THE EVILS OF THE BOSNIAN WAR WHILE AWAITING RESCUE In the midst of the Bosnian War, American naval aircraft in the Adriatic Sea were assigned by NATO command to conduct aerial surveillance of the combat while negotiations to end the conflict were in progress. On one such mission in 1995, a
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THAI VOLLEYBALL TEAM TRIUMPHS IN THE IRON LADIES In 1996 a mostly gay Thai volleyball team, the first of its kind, won the national amateur championship. The Iron Ladies (Sa-ree-lex), a film based on the story with clips from some of the games as credits roll, won Audience Awards for best feature film in the