Peace and Human Security Media Festival

Announcing the first annual…

Peace and Human Security Media Festival

Now through Sunday, September 15 in New York

Of particular interest to the Rhizome community is the following program on Thursday, September 12, at 2:00 PM:

Interactive Media Programs for Peace and Human Security in Israel/Palestine

Panelists/presenters include:
Direct Action Palestine, "The Freedom Summer Campaign"
Enda Murray and Monique Potts, Virus Media, "The Virtual Palestine Project and the Role of Arts Projects in Reconciliation–An Australian Perspective"

For complete festival information, please visit:
http://www.peaceandhumansecurity.org/festival-about.htm

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Wednesday September, 11 2002

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM

Special Presentation: "Ground Zero Point One: On the Cinematics of History and Trauma"

Location: RAW SPACE Theatre, 543 West 42nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues

Allen Feldman, of the International Trauma Studies Program at New York University, will make a presentation regarding the how the media and trauma are interwoven.

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11:00 AM - 6:00 PM

Special Screenings and Exhibitions to Commemorate the First Anniversary of the 9/11/01 Attacks

Features screening and discussion of the following 9/11 related films:

Human Rights: Our Side of the Story. Downtown Community Television
Three Nights at Ground Zero. Matt Siegel.
Life or Liberty. Konrad Aderer with the Third World Newsreel and the Asian American Filmmakers Collaborative.
Great Balls of Fire. Leon Grodski and Pearl Gluck.
Peace Not War: New York After 9-11. Video Juku.
Turning Tragedy Into War. Paper Tiger.
The Brick and the Seed. TRUCE.
Afghanistan: Ground Zero to Ground Zero. Jon Alpert/Downtown Community Television.

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7:00 PM

9-11 and the War on Terror: Selected Films

Location: Tribeca Film Center, 375 Greenwich at North Moore Street
Suggested Donation: $5

"Great Balls of Fire." Leon Grodski and Pearl Gluck, 2002. 6 minutes. In a mad monologue, shirtless, in song and spirit, a man speaks out about the World Trade Center like a barometer of the times.

"Three Nights at Ground Zero." Matt Siegel, 2002. 31 minutes. This film is based on the personal experiences of two volunteer rescue workers at Ground Zero during the week of 9/11. As the experience becomes more and more real, the film transitions from still images to moving pictures, culminating in a video shot underneath the ruins of the World Trade Center by an anonymous firefighter.

"Peace Not War: New York After 9-11." Video Juku, 2002. 19 minutes. One Japanese woman, Mieka Aono, happened to be in New York on September 11, 2001. After the terrorist attacks, people gathered to share their sorrows, sadness, grief, and also hopes for peace with each other. Mieko Aono was one of these people and recorded others’ emotions and words in support of peace with her video camera. This film shares people’s voices and hopes for peace, which weren’t covered in the mass media at all.

"Turning Tragedy Into War." Paper Tiger, 2001. 29 minutes. This short documentary counteracts the corporate media’s driven and racist spin on recent events. The show critiques the media’s coverage while providing a background of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. "Turning Tragedy Into War" uncovers the ways that the media takes advantage of the fear and confusion in U.S. public opinion and offers a look at the anti-war movement.

"Life or Liberty." Konrad Aderer with the Third World Newsreel and the Asian American Filmmakers Collaborative, 2002. 13 minutes. "Life or Liberty" confronts the issue of racial profiling in the wake of 9-11 and examines the ways America has reacted to attacks by targeting ethnic groups within its own borders. Recent anti-terrorist measures include the detention of more than 1,000 visa holders from certain Middle Eastern and South Asian countries and an FBI effort to interview 8,000 more, provoking comparisons to the mass-internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In this short documentary, legal experts and individuals affected by profiling respond to the questions: Is the targeting of an ethnic group justified in a time of crisis? How has the U.S. Patriot Act affected the rights of immigrants and citizens?

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Thursday September, 12 2002

9:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Panel Discussion: Peace and Human Security Journalism

Location: RAW SPACE Theatre, 543 West 42nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues

Panelists include:
Radhika Subramaniam, CONNECT, "Dying by Numbers"
A representative from Free Speech TV
Moderator: Eva Kuras

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2:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Panel Discussion/Presentation: Interactive Media Programs for Peace and Human Security in Israel/Palestine

Location: RAW SPACE Theatre, 543 West 42nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues

Panelists/presenters include:
Direct Action Palestine, "The Freedom Summer Campaign"
Enda Murray and Monique Potts, Virus Media, "The Virtual Palestine Project and the Role of Arts Projects in Reconciliation–An Australian Perspective"

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6:30 PM

Media Programs on Israel and Palestine: Peace or Propaganda?

Location: Millennium Theater, 66 East Fourth Street
Ticket Prices: $7 regular, $4 student/low-income
Box office opens at 6:00p.m.

"Only Sleeping." Sandra Binion. Video installation.

"Jewish Women for Peace in Israel." WINGS/National Radio Project. 29 minutes. Amid growing violence, some Israeli Jewish women demand justice, peace, and an end to occupation of Palestinian land. This radio program features an address at the San Francisco Jewish film festival by Terry Greenblatt, director of Bat Shalom [Daughter of Peace] – an Israeli national women's peace organization, and part of the coalition Women for a Just Peace. The program also features interviews with Marcia Freedman, Penny Rosenwasser, and Kate Raphael. Freedman, a former member of the Knesset [Israeli Parliament], works with Women for a Just Peace. She decries what she terms the severely neurotic militarization of Israeli masculinity. Rosenwasser works with U.S.-based Middle East Children's Alliance, and Jews for Justice. She recounts protests in Israel. Raphael is a member of Women in Black, an international peace activist movement that was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize this year. She demonstrated in the San Francisco gay pride parade with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT).

"Rock, Paper, Missiles." Paper Tiger TV/Media Accuracy Project Middle East. 17 minutes. The conflicts between Palestinians and Israelis, as reported in the U.S. media, confound many Americans as they seem to raise the emotions of those involved. Many of us, with little information to go on, are led to believe that the conflict is one of religious or ethnic hatreds – but is this true? What is the basis and history of the conflict in Palestine/Israel? Why is Israel the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world? What are Palestinians throwing ROCKS at Israeli soldiers armed with bullets and MISSILES? Are we getting the full picture from the U.S. mainstream PAPERS?

"Judgement Day". Kevin Harris. Filmed over the past two years in South Africa, and in Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine in June 2001, this hour-long documentary conveys the harsh day-to-day life-experience of the Palestinian people living under the siege conditions of closure and collective punishment enforced by Israeli security forces of occupation.

Panelists:
- Sandra Binion, artist: Only Sleeping
- Moderator: Kira Goldstein, Center for Peace and Human Security

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Friday September, 13 2002

6:00 PM

International Women's Rights

Location: McNally Amphitheatre, Fordham Law School, 140 West 62nd Street
Co-Sponsored by the Conflict Resolution and ADR Program and Joseph R. Crowley Program in International Human Rights, Fordham Law School.
Tickets: $9, $5 students/low-income. Free to students, staff, and faculty of Fordham Law School.
Box office opens immediately before screening at 5:45 p.m.

"Rape Is…" Margaret Lazarus, 2002. 34 minutes. This new documentary explores the meaning, severity, and consequences of rape. It looks at rape from a global and historical perspective but focuses mainly on the domestic cultural conditions that make this human rights outrage the most underreported crime in America.

"If Hope Were Enough." Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, 2000. 35 minutes. This film documents how women victims and survivors of egregious crimes have suffered in conflict and non-conflict situations around the world and examines the options available to women for justice. It presents the imminent International Criminal Court as one of the promising avenues of justice that women can access in the future and the exciting possibility of bringing changes at the national and international levels.

"Operation Fine Girl: Rape Used as a Weapon of War in Sierra Leone." Women’s Commission/WITNESS. This feature-length documentary is an intimate story about the tragic use of rape as a weapon of war told through the personal stories of three young girls who were abducted, taken to be rebel wives, sex slaves, domestic servants, and combatants and held for many years against their will, and one boy abducted to be a child combatant.

***U.S. Premiere*** "Don't Become a Commodity." Internews, 2001. 1 minute. This one minute public service announcement illustrates the emotional history of a typical trafficking victim who leaves her home in Ukraine for what she hopes will be a better life and means of support for her child. Instead, like other trafficking victims, she is trapped in a web of lies and deceit. The launch of this PSA, produced by Internews Ukraine with support from the International Organization for Migration, coincided with the global action, "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence."

Panel discussion, moderated by Shana Fried (Director of Research and Development, Center for Peace and Human Security), to follow.

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6:30 PM

Environmental Justice: Communities vs. Corporations

Location: Millennium Theater, 66 East Fourth Street
Ticket Prices: $7 regular, $4 student/low-income
Box office opens at 6:00 p.m.

***New York City Premiere*** "Razing Appalachia". Sasha Waters. In March 1998, Arch Coal, Inc. announced it would expand its Dal-Tex mountaintop removal mine just above the small town of Blair, West Virginia. Had they succeeded, the rock and soil debris from the strip mine stretching five square miles would have buried Pidgeonroost Hollow and Creek, but lifetime residents said that too many in their community had already been bought out or chased away by the gigantic mine, and that Arch Coal’s planned expansion was the final threat to their once tranquil way of life. This documentary feature film is the story of their remarkable fight against the second largest coal company in America, against the know-nothing state political leaders, and, unhappily, against the 400 union miners whose jobs were on the line.

"Fenceline: A Company Town Divided". LogTV with Independent Television Services. This short documentary film follows the struggle of an African American community to be relocated by the Royal Dutch/Shell Oil Company who purchased part of their neighborhood in the 1940s and built a petrochemical company in their backyard. Sixty years later, this company town is racially divided, consisting of white Norco, the majority of whom work for Shell, and the all-black Diamond community with only one resident currently employed by the industry. Debates over the growth of polluting industries have become flash points for civil rights confrontations, exposing a stark racial and economic fault-line running under the surface of opposing sides. A clear-cut example of this phenomenon, Fenceline depicts the struggle for environmental equality.

Discussion with Slawomir Grunberg, filmmaker: Fenceline, to follow.

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Saturday September, 14 2002

6:00 PM

Film Screening: Rushing to Sunshine

Location: American Indian Community House, 404 Lafayette Street at E. 4th Street
Tickets: $5, $3students/low-income
Box office opens at 5:30 p.m.

***New York Premiere*** "Rushing to Sunshine." Solrun Hoaas, 2001. 73minutes. South Korea's "Sunshine Policy" under President Kim Dae-Jung's presidency has opened up unprecedented business and cultural contact with the communist North. From March 1998 to October 2000, the film follows this process and its many paradoxes, including the anachronistic National Security Law, which prohibits 'praising and encouraging' North Korea, still defined as an 'enemy country.' Yet South Koreans flock to North Korea on tourist cruises. The documentary film also gives voice to hopes and aspirations for reunification, as well as anxiety and resistance in a range of people in the South and reveals changes in attitudes in post-summit Korea. "Rushing to Sunshine," is a timely film that avoids simplistic definitions.

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7:30 PM

Film Screening: Ralph Bunche, An American Odyssey

Location: American Indian Community House, 404 Lafayette Street at E. 4th Street
Tickets: $5, $3students/low-income
Box office opens at 5:30 p.m.

"Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey." William Greaves Productions. This feature documentary tells the story of one of the world’s most successful peacemakers. It chronicles, for the first time on film, the life and legacy of Ralph Johnson Bunche, the African American scholar, statesman, and civil and human rights activist who, in 1950, became the first person of color in the world to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace. This award-winning film reexamines Bunche’s life, ideas, and extraordinary contributions to humanity at a time when his legacy of peace, justice and tolerance is perhaps more crucially needed than ever.

Discussion with William Greaves, filmmaker, to follow.

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The Peace and Human Security Media Festival is a program of the Center for Peace and Human Security (CPHS). For more information about CPHS or the Peace and Human Security Media Festival, please contact the Festival Secretariat:

Center for Peace and Human Security (CPHS)
Columbia University Station
Post Office Box 250308
New York, New York 10025 USA
Tel: (646) 342-0099
Fax: (212) 281-9269
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.peaceandhumansecurity.org