POLITICAL FILM SOCIETY CELEBRATES 10TH YEAR
Ten years ago, the Political Film Society began at the first meeting of the Hawai`i Political Studies Association. Today, PFS has members in almost every state in the United States and is recognized as a Related Group by the American Political Science Association.
BEST POLITICAL FILMS OF 1995 SELECTED
Members of the Political Film Society selected six films that best raised political consciousness during 1995 in six categories:
DEMOCRACY: Beyond Rangoon won handily by portraying the bankruptcy of opponents of democracy in Burma.
PEACE: Beyond Rangoon also won by showing the superiority of peaceful methods for re- solving conflicts.
EXPOSÉ: The inner conflicts in Nixon garnered yet another award for Oliver Stone, whose film outshined Beyond Rangoon and Panther.
HUMAN RIGHTS: Murder in the First, which showed how a young lawyer ended the barbarity of Alcatraz prison, outpolled the other nominees–Beyond Rangoon, Picture Bride, and The Scarlet Letter.
HAWAI`I: Picture Bride became the first film ever to win an award for raising political consciousness about Hawai`i, focusing on the racist plantation past.
HAWAI`I INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: Bombay, which showed how Hindu-Muslim prejudice ruined the lives of a couple whose love overcame their religious differences, got more votes than nominees Father, Son, and Holy War, Islands on the Edge of Time, Once upon a Time When We Were Colored, and Picture Bride.
FIRST NOMINEE FOR A 1996 PFS AWARD
Sister Helen Prejean’s moving experience with a death row inmate and families of victims of a dual murder became a powerful editorial against the death penalty in the film Dead Man Walking, which has been nominated for an award in the category of Human Rights. Claims that death by lethal injection are more humane than other forms of capital punishment were clearly belied in a film that showed that “an eye for an eye” justice produced tears over the barbarity of using state-approved murder as a penalty.
PANELS SLATED FOR THE APSA MEETING IN SAN FRANCISCO
For a second year, the Political Film Society will sponsor panels at the annual convention of the American Political Science Association, to be held during Labor Day weekend in San Francisco. More details will appear in the next PFS newsletter.
PFS PUBLISHES WORKING PAPERS & SYLLABI
Five Working Papers are available for purchase:
#1 Genovese, “Art & Politics: The Political Film as a Pedagogical Tool”
#2 Morlan, “Pre-World War II Propaganda: Film as Controversy”
#3 Giglio, “From Riefenstahl to the Three Stooges: Defining the Political Film”
#4 Williams, “The Real Oliver North Loses: The Reel Bob Roberts Wins”
#5 Savage, “Popular Film & Popular Communication.”
Politics & Film Syllabi are also available:
#1 John Williams
#2 Ernest Giglio
#3 Henry Kariel (revised!).
To obtain copies, send a $1 donation per item requested to PFS, with a check payable to the “University of Hawai`i Foundation” to the above address.