Films that demonstrate the folly of political violence as a means for resolving conflict and/or show the superiority of nonviolent political conflict resolution.
SHOSHANA DESCRIBES A TURNING POINT IN ISRAEL’S DEVELOPMENT For several minutes, titles explain the historical background of the founding of the state of Israel. Much of the film is about life during the 1930s in Tel Aviv, a city carved out by Jewish refugees, featuring lavish restaurants and entertainment soirees, as major events unravel under […]
NO OTHER LAND PHOTOGRAPHS ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS A docudrama, No Other Land films Israelis as they forcibly take over land in the West Bank occupied by Palestinians for centuries. Filming starts in 2019 by showing how 1,000 Palestinians live in standard housing within Masafer Yatta, a group of 20 Palestinian villages in the mountainous
GOLDA TRIES TO REDEEM THE REPUTATION OF GOLDA MEIR 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
AURORA’S SUNRISE 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
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT PROVIDES A GERMAN PERSPECTIVE The 1928 novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front, has now been made a third time. The actual German title is Im Westen Nichts Neues, translated as “In the West Nothing New.” An anti-war
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DONBASS SHOWS LIFE IN EASTERN UKRAINE BEFORE 2022 Before the Russian offensive against Ukraine in 2022, a chuck of Eastern Ukraine had been seized by Russians in 2014 and governed as “New Russia.” Donbass, directed by Sergey Loznitsa, provides slices of life in that region in about 2015. Each of thirteen scenes is self-contained but
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
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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
THE COURIER IS NOT JUST ANOTHER SPY MOVIE Directed by Dominic Cooke, The Courier is the story of how the gravity of the Russian threat came to the attention of President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missiles Crisis of 1962. The basic facts are quite simple: In 1960, the Kremlin discovers that Major Pyotr