Newsletter

PRESIDENT DEMONSTRATES WHY AUTOCRACIES PERSIST Imagine that Donald Trump has won the 2024 election but resigns due to poor health in 2027 and his vice president becomes president. Then in 2028 his Republican successor runs against the Democratic presidential candidate. The latter runs a popular campaign, with large mass rallies, to return to office in […]

MARGRETE: QUEEN OF THE NORTH CELEBRATES HOW PEACE IS MADE Directed by Charlotte Sieling, Margrete: Queen of the North, is a biopic of the one who brought peace to Scandinavia in the fifteenth century. As queen of Denmark, she married the king of Norway, but became regent of both countries when both kings died. She

FLEE TRACES THE PERILS OF REFUGEE SEEKERS What is it like to be a refugee seeking a new life, coping with the need for self-preservation while confronting horrors along with way? Directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Flee is a docudrama of the actul life of a fictionalized Amin Nawabi (voiced by Daniel Karimyar at ages

BETRAYED REVEALS THE FATE OF JEWS IN NAZI-CONTROLLED NORWAY Directed by Eirik Svensson, Betrayed begins with a Nazi roundup of Jews in 1942 and quickly reverts to 1939, when Charles Braude (played by Jakob Oftebro) wins against a Swedish opponent in a boxing match. Afterward, he celebrates with many friends, including a girlfriend, Ragnhild Boyesen

HOUSE OF GUCCI REVEALS LIFE AMONG THE ULTRARICH Directed by Ridley Scott, House of Gucci is a window into the rise and fall of the Gucci “dynasty,” based on the 2001 book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden. Guccio, the founder of the company,

THE UNFORGIVABLE TRACKS UNPLEASANT POST-PRISON LIFE Many long-time prisoners have recently been freed because they were victims of police and prosecutorial rush to judgment. Just how they adjust to life after prison is the focus of The Unforgivable, directed by Nora Fingscheid. Based on a 2009 TV miniseries in Britain that has been redesigned for

HIVE DEPICTS HOW WIVES OF MIAS CAN BEST SURVIVE Directed by Blerta Bashollim, Hive reminds filmviewers that during 1999 Serbian forces slaughtered about 100 Albanian residents of the town of Krusha in Kosovo. Their remains are a mystery, especially to wives who were therefore impoverished. Two decades have passed, and the women stand in front

GIFT OF FIRE REVEALS THE KYOTO PROJECT The recent film Adventures of a Mathematician provides a window into the life of one researcher on the Manhattan Project, which sought to develop an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany. He was obviously unaware that Japan was trying to do the same. Gift of Fire, directed by Hiroshi

COMING-OF-AGE FILMS DURING CRISES Many young people grow up in times of civil strife. Two recent films deal with that issue: Beans, directed by Tracey Deer, focuses on a young teenager nicknamed Beans (played by Kiawentiio), who has a delicate appearance early in the story and grows into a much stronger person due to the

THE LAST FOREST PREDICTS AN END TO THE AMAZON FOREST The point of The Last Forest (Ostatnia Puszcza) appears in titles at the end, which point out that gold prospecting and ore mining are driving the Indigenous population from ancestral lands in Brazil near the border with Venezuela. Although their land was protected by the