The following films have been given awards (or a nonaward) for 1996:
Nominees for Human Rights Awards
o The Crucible (Salem’s persecution of witches)
o Dead Man Walking (the effort of a nun on behalf of the soul of a murderer on death row)
o Get on the Bus (Spike Lee’s spin on the Million Man March)
x The Ghosts of Mississippi (successful 1989 retrial & conviction of Medgar Evers’s assassin)
o The People vs. Larry Flynt (extending the boundaries of free speech, esp. to cover Hustler magazine’s admittedly tasteless satire of Rev. Jerry Falwell, who sued unsuccessfully for “emotional distress”)
Nominees for Exposé Awards
o Basquiat (exposes how a Black artist was discovered & exploited by Andy Warhol)
x Dead Man Walking (exposes the brutality of death by lethal injection)
o The People vs. Larry Flynt (extending the boundaries of free speech, esp. to cover Hustler magazine’s admittedly tasteless satire of Rev. Jerry Falwell, who sued unsuccessfully for “emotional distress”)
Nominee for the Best Film on Peace
Michael Collins (the hero of Irish independence, who was driven to use violence because British authorities would not listen to peaceful methods)
o Yes
x No
Nominees for the Best Political Film at the Hawai`i International Film Festival
o Buddha Bless America (shows how the U.S. military treated local residents in Taiwan in a cavalier manner while undertaking military exercises)
o The Flor Contemplacion Story (examines the tragic circumstances of the Filipina who left for Singapore to make money for her family and then was executed for allegedly killing a fellow domestic and her charge)
o Hawai`i‘s Last Queen (tells the tragic life story of Lili`uokalani)
o A Single Spark (depicts governmental repression of complaints against substandard labor conditions rather than enforcement of the law in South Korea)
x Six O’Clock News (a documentary about the adverse consequences of violence on television within the USA)
ROSEWOOD IS THE FIRST NOMINATED FILM OF 1997
Meanwhile, Rosewood has been nominated for the best political film in the categories of Expose and Human Rights for 1997. Directed by John Singleton (of Boyz N the Hood fame), the film portrays the massacre of 50-60 Blacks in a Florida town just after World War I, an event that only recently came to light. In 1993, the Florida legislature voted reparations to the survivors and their heirs.