Ironweed Films Guest Blog

An Interview with Steve Kroschel about his film "The Beautiful Truth" and the politics of curing cancer

2011-10-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

(re-printed from the NYC Movie Guru)

NYC MOVIE GURU: What kind of experience do you have in health activism?

SK: I’ve never been an activist in the health field, although I've always been steadfast about supporting any environmental cause that makes this world a better, healthier place. Since I was a small child, I did appearances with wild animals, even in New York on The Today Show and on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. As I got older, I started to make the connection between human health and the environment. That, I thought, would be a huge thread that could tie in a wide audience. That’s where Dr. Max Gerson came into play.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Which distributors did you approach before The Beautiful Truth ended up at Cinema Libre Studio? How did they respond to you?

SK: Paramount Vantage, Fox and Sony saw it and said that this was such a liability [to them] that they don’t even want to consider it. They didn’t quite know where to put the film because it was just in a class of its own. Then you’ve got this brave, dynamic little distributor, Cinema Libre, and they just loved it. We had an instantly positive relationship once they saw the film.

NYC MOVIE GURU: How did you manage to find the right balance between entertaining the audience and provoking them intellectually?

SK: I’ve been a filmmaker for 20 years, mainly for the BBC and National Geographic, and that’s like preaching to the choir. That’s a limited audience. I have been involved with several major studios in films that went wide, but they weren’t about health. I did learn over time that a film about cancer and chronic disease could be very dry and unsatisfying to an audience unless you had a good story. That’s why I would try that angle, especially since my 15-year-old son was so doubtful about this message being truly real.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Why do you think the majority of the American public has so much apathy toward their own health?

SK: Dr. Max Gerson said himself that, “Cancer is easy to cure. The problem is that it’s in people.” He also went on to say that, unless the surgeon’s knife is at their throat, they will not follow his message. It’s just something innate in us, I think, that we want to self-destruct. I think people are their own worst enemies. You can take someone to court if they spit on your shoe, but [yet], if we eat the wrong [food] every day, it’s like we’re stabbing ourselves with our spoons and forks and knives that we have at the kitchen table. It’s still a bit mystifying to me why people remained unconcerned. Also, so many in the past “claimed” that they have a cure and can defeat cancer and chronic disease because, after all, some of those that have tried it in the past, were just a big joke and were called quacks. Then you have the trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry that is always updating their progress in curing diseases. There’s an incredulous nature in us, too, and that just drives me more to make this film attractive to everybody.

NYC MOVIE GURU: How do you respond to the common public response that “everything should be in moderation”?

SK: The way our bodies are designed are for us to eat in a certain way. We have violated that time and time again. What is so extreme about eating a baked potato and drinking a glass of vegetable juice when you compare it to the orthodox, conventional treatment of breast cancer by cutting a woman’s breast off the save her from cancer? Which one is extreme? Dr. Max Gerson was all about the baked potato and the vegetable juice; conventional medicine and Big Pharma are about drugs that are completely unnatural [and] as we’ve discovered, i.e. Vioxx it sometimes kills 50,000 people, or about taking out people’s organs while still not curing their disease.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Why don’t mainstream media help to expose such important cover-ups?

SK: Look at the nightly news, for example. It’s supported by corporations that are promoting drugs. I don’t have a television up here in my Alaskan cabin, but the last time I looked at a TV at an airport in Juneau, the advertisements were all about drugs. Most of the drugs advertised in these commercials are promoting an answer for something, whether it be a headache or insomnia, with a drug. Dr. Max Gerson’s therapy alone would cure that and you wouldn’t have to buy anything. The only way that the mainstream media will be finding something like this attractive is if the people vote. [Democracy] would be [occurring] by going to see this film and examining it for yourself. You just have to dig under all the crud of everyday media and find the real truth, the beautiful truth. The science is there. The facts are there. It’s undeniable and can be scrutinized right down to the letter. It is a real thing that’s never really been picked up.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Are food, beverage, hygiene and drug corporations as well as the FDA and other agencies, such as the American Dietetic Association, part of a cover-up of crucial information that’s relevant to consumer health?

SK: There’s absolutely a cover-up. They don’t want to talk. We contacted Monsanto, ConAgra and a number of food companies. Most of them wouldn’t even return our calls and when we repeatedly went after ConAgra and Monsanto, they just bullied us. It was nothing that I had expected otherwise, but I lived it out. We went to the ConAgra facility as a last effort, but we were pushed away right at the gate. If they do talk, they have prepared statements. It’s nothing off-the-cuff. They won’t tell you the truth, but I wanted them to. I wanted them to speak. I tried to make it a balanced film. What you see in this documentary is the truth. It’s Garrett’s journey. Garrett still today can’t believe what he saw with his own eyes.

NYC MOVIE GURU: How did the FDA respond to you?

SK: They didn’t give us any response. We had to go with the printed word that was available in libraries and various other sources. We did include, at one point, a comparison between Monsanto’s explanation of genetically modified food and their position on it that the FDA is supposed to determine what’s healthy and safe to eat. Garrett showed that statement from the head of Monsanto and then we also had a statement directly from the FDA which stated that ultimately it is the food producer who is responsible for the safety of food. Those two statements side-to-side should pretty much erase the confidence of the general public that the FDA is looking out for their health.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Who should ultimately be held accountable? The cheaters or the administration(s) that allow them to cheat?

SK: They all have to be held accountable, but maybe that’s hoping for a perfect world. In reality, we have to hold up the hope that the public can put enough pressure on government agencies to reexamine their policies and to take a different path. Ten years ago, this might not have been so urgent, but at this stage of history, with the degradation of the environment, we have to move fast now because we have reached a milestone in human history. If we do not pay attention to these “tiny” details of what we eat everyday, we are not going to leave a healthy legacy for our children. What kind of a future do we have for them? I have a very difficult time keeping a positive message for young people. When I presentations about the natural world at schools, it’s becoming increasingly harder to convince young people that they have a future. Many think that there’s not going to be any clean air to breathe or clean water to drink and they’re 25-years-old. It goes on and on. You can see clearly in the last ten years, that what we have taken for granted in the food we eat and the water we drink, that so much has changed. There are so many toxins everywhere now that we have to make a change whether we like it or not.

NYC MOVIE GURU: How do you expect the public to react to the exposures of all these health cover-ups?

SK: Enraged to the point of action and not just talking about it. Write letters to congress, vote in the right way and get educated and learn about these things. With the advent of the internet now, there’s so much information and disinformation out there. You’ve got to do the homework. Your health and life depends on it. We have no time to waste. Things have reached a crescendo. That’s why I made this film, virtually, singlehandedly because I want to get the public aware of what’s going on. Dr. Max Gerson warned about this 80 years ago. He said that the soil is our external metabolism. What’s happening to our soil and our farmlands? There’s nothing left in the soil that grows our food. When you add all the chemicals and everything else to it, no wonder everybody’s sick. No wonder that every one out of two people get cancer.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Do you think that history is repeating itself like what happened during the cigarette and tobacco industry cover-up?

SK: History is repeating itself because we are just too complacent to a fault.

NYC MOVIE GURU: What agencies can the public truly rely on to protect their health?

SK: One of the best ones is The Natural Resource and Defense Council which has attorneys that leverage our basic rights to put pressure on these companies, including Monsanto. Then, you can go to the Sierra Club, The World Wildlife Foundation, The National Health Federation and National Health Freedom. If you go onto any of those links, then you can start to network, learn the truth and get yourself educated.

NYC MOVIE GURU: What does the word “Natural” mean when stated on a product?

SK: Natural doesn’t mean anything anymore. It has to be organic. Natural popcorn can have arsenic dust on it, but it’s still natural [based on the FDA’s definition of natural]. Organic popcorn is free of chemical sprays and poisons. Natural, conventionally grown vegetables would not be that way. Organic crops have all of the nutritional minerals thought our body needs. Also, [the term] “natural” could include genetically modified foods, which are far from natural, but they still fall under the [FDA’s definition] of being natural. It’s a very misleading term and it has worn out its welcome. No one is really following it. Virtually all food manufacturers know better, but they still print out their promotional ads with a straight face and that’s very, very sad. There’s a few [manufacturers] that try [to be honest], but, [again], “natural” is a very misleading term.

NYC MOVIE GURU: What’s stopping the FDA from directly answering questions about such important health matters?

SK: The FDA is owned by food and pharmaceutical companies. As a matter of fact, in the The Beautiful Truth, we show you names of people who have worked on both sides. Some who have worked for the FDA also have worked for Monsanto. It goes back and forth, so you have what’s called a “revolving door”. Garrett just touched on it in his homework lesson, [but] it’s so pathetic and shocking that people won’t be able to believe it [even though] it is the truth. Do the research that Garrett did. He’s 15-years-old. If he could do it, then most of us could do it.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Should the American public trust the FDA?

SK: No. There’s this inside pressure from the corporate giants who control and the FDA is merely a puppet. Herbert Lay, the former Commissioner of the FDA, himself said, “The thing that bugs me is that people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it’s doing are as different as night and day.”

NYC MOVIE GURU: What will it take for the FDA to finally face the music about all the health cover-ups?

SK: The only thing is going to make a difference is public pressure, to stop buying those kinds of products, and to refuse to accept drugs as a treatment for our chronic diseases. [We should] refuse the various kinds of foods that are truly poisoning us and [should] buy whole foods that are organic and healthy. We should look seriously at alternative forms of treatment for cancer and chronic disease. There are a number of them and they have been ignored. The Gerson Therapy is one of the main ones, it has been tried and proved for eight decades.

NYC MOVIE GURU: What will it take for corporations to truly listen to the public?

SK: If money is the bottom line, then money is what speaks, apparently. When they start to lose it and people start to get educated about it and demand a change, then it can happen. We’re at a very great turning point where we have the internet and we’re able to communicate very rapidly. It worked so fantastically in our latest elections, for example.

NYC MOVIE GURU: How could doctors, employees of corporations and of government agencies live with themselves and behave in such an amoral way yet still have a conscience? Don’t they care about their family and friends?

SK: Some of them do [have a conscience]. Doctors and their families, [though], [rarely serve as] participants in using chemotherapy to treat [their own] cancer. They know better than that. There’s an example of the industry saying one thing, but doing another. Many of those who work for Monsanto don’t have that information. If they do, then they’re blind and can’t believe it themselves. Money speaks, so they’re willing to work there. It’s their living and that’s that. Do any of us really know how the executives of these companies truly live? Adolf Hitler, for example, kidnapped Dr. Max Gerson and followed The Gerson Therapy himself. He did not want the rest of the people to eat that way because they couldn’t control them. These are historical facts. What the general public does is different from the way that the heads and families of these corporations do themselves. There has been a great deal of inquiry and investigation into that and we’re learning things about. Coca-Cola and some of these soft drinks, for example, are not really part of the lunch period for some of the employees at various soft drink factories. They know that it’s not good for you.

NYC MOVIE GURU: In her response to inquiries about what she products she asked from the Republican National Committee, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin replied that, “I only asked for a Diet Dr. Pepper once in a while.” Does her consumption of that diet pop soda have any harmful effects on her health?

SK: Yes, it does because drinking those kinds of fluids clouds our minds, so we can’t respond right, because they have excitotoxins that destroy our brain cells. A simple act of drinking a Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke or Diet Dr. Pepper, which is one of the worst, can actually make us dumber. We’re getting dumbed down by the food and beverages that we eat and drink. So, we’re turning into a bunch of sheep. Adolf Hitler tried to do that with fluoride. He tried to control and sterilize the public by putting fluoride in their water, and [a similar thing] is happening right now.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Dr. Robert Atkins once said that “There have been many cancer cures and all have been ruthlessly and systematically suppressed with a Gestapo-like thoroughness by the cancer establishment”. Do you think that government agencies along with food, beverage and drug corporations are truly Gestapo-like?

SK: It’s even a soft word for what it actually is. Look at what’s happening to our healthcare. People are being killed [by drugs and diseases] needlessly, and there’s the suppression of natural treatments and answers, like The Gerson Therapy, to cancer and chronic diseases. Charlotte Gerson lived through the Holocaust and Dr. Max Gerson’s siblings were all killed in the Holocaust while she fled Nazi persecution. According to her, what’s happening now is worse than the Holocaust. She compares the whole healthcare system. It’s such a big issue in our world as to who’s going to pay for the drugs and surgery, but, basically, if you eat right, that is your healthcare. Doing something as simple and innocent as that can be your healthcare, so that, biologically, you cannot get cancer. Let’s say you were in fallout from a nuclear explosion, you will not be able to get cancer. Charlotte Gerson does not even have health insurance because she’s afraid that if she goes to a hospital, they’ll kill her. The errors that have been done by physicians every day in America alone is equivalent to three jumbo jets full of people crashing every day. Consumer health advocate and author Kevin Trudeau has done a lot of good to expose that. He’s exploiting all of that for great advantage.

NYC MOVIE GURU: How would you reform the FDA if you were its Commissioner?

SK: They shouldn’t be allowed to work for the corporations that they’re supposed to regulate at one time or another, for starters. They should be just, blind and holding the scale. The evidence needs to speak for itself. There needs to be independent research done that does not have the residue of any kind of drug, food or beverage companies. It should be done with true science and true testing, where science is living up to what it’s supposed to be. That’s long gone, so we need to come back to that.

NYC MOVIE GURU: Have there been any talks to make a narrative feature film about The Gerson Therapy?

SK: Firefly Productions in the UK is making a $40 million movie [about it]. They want Daniel Craig to play Dr. Max Gerson, they’re approaching Rachel Weisz to play Charlotte Gerson and they’re pushing Ron Howard to direct it. The production company is so afraid that they’re going to be accused of bias by contacting the Gerson family or giving us a single penny. The Gerson family has warned them that they are in for quite the ride if they tackle this movie.

Zakary Zide talks about his inspiration for the "EarthDance Short Attention Span Environmental Film Festival"

2011-09-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

The EarthDance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Collection features an award-winning collection of the most inspiring, provocative, passionate, playful and funny environmental stories this side of a three-toed sloth.  Complete with hand drawn and computer animations, documentaries, action adventures and comedies, the EarthDance Films Collection is both a serious and light-hearted exploration of nature, culture and environmental design. EarthDance is not your average film festival. I like that. And fortunately, it seems that other people like our quirkiness too! We've always believed that you shouldn't have to sacrifice entertainment for ecology. Our films are selected on the basis of being both entertaining and informative.

People like good stories, for good reason. I'm not a fan of sensationalism, but I do appreciate an entertaining story that has a meaningful message. I think this explains the popularity of such films as Super Size Me, and Michael Moore's documentaries. I think too many TV shows and films with important messages to tell get caught up in a scripted narrative, or else frighten or bore their audiences to death. There are so many different ways that people relate to the natural world - from the hunter or the vegetarian. I'm interested in telling everyone's story.

We intentionally cast a wide net. This is another reason why I felt like the Short-Attention-Span nature of the film fest was essential - variety. People's time is short and as great of a film as Who Killed the Electric Car is, not everyone wants to sit through 90 minutes of one eco-themed story. We wanted to include more people and expand the conversation. We've found that people really appreciate our variety. We often hear that our collection is "not what we expected, and that's a good thing." We look for personal stories that have not been told before; quirky, inspirational, and generally non-political. And of course, they have to be 30 seconds to 30 minutes in length.

EarthDance Films has been a real gift in my life. It has given me a chance to meet and work with incredibly talented people and interesting audiences from all over the world. It has also made me a better curator and editor. I am grateful for the opportunity to help build community and (hopefully) inspire some people along the way!

--Zak Zide

Director's Statement from Singeli Agnew and Joshua Fisher about "Pollen Nation"

2011-08-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

From the beginning, we were interested in the idea of a science film that felt more like an American road movie. It was also clear to us that this was not just a story about bees and a little known migratory subculture, but a much larger tale about agriculture, and the human relationship with the natural world.

We started Pollen Nation in the fall of 2006, well before the news of a great bee die-off swept through the media. In the middle of production, two of our characters - Jeff Anderson and Dave Hackenberg - lost a substantial number of hives to what later became known as colony collapse disorder. We were suddenly in the midst of a national story, one which had been developing for years but which most people thought was brand new. Meanwhile the beekeepers had their heads in their hives simply trying to keep themselves in business. For many, this was just another setback in a long string of troubles.

What struck us about the news, and the public anxiety that followed, is that there was a great focus on finding a single culprit. After delving into the issues it was clear that there was not an isolated solution – identifying a pest, eliminating GM crops or a specific pesticide. This was a chronic problem, intimately connected to the demands of industrial agriculture that sustain our food economy. The beekeepers, in their struggle to keep their businesses alive, are caught in a cycle of short-term fixes that is leading to the long-term collapse of the honeybee. And modern agriculture, with its emphasis on efficiency and profit, has exploited the natural interactions that sustain it to the breaking point.

We've drawn inspiration from the ancient tragedies; the archetype of the tragic Greek hero and structural elements such as the Greek chorus. The beekeepers, like Aristotle's tragic heroes, are trying to do the right thing in a situation where the right thing cannot be done. Their livelihood is linked to an agricultural system that places unsustainable demands on the creatures in their care. Our relationship with the bee – one that once was revered as sacred – has become one of dominion and exploitation.

Pollen Nation is the first film to delve into the issues behind the bee die-off that plagued beekeepers this year, but it goes way beyond the headlines (this year’s problems were simply a crisis on top of a crisis, as May Berenbaum puts it) to deliver a clear-eyed message about the fragility and hubris of this industrialized food system. The beekeepers speak for themselves, painfully aware of their reliance on an agricultural system that is faltering at its base.

We hope that after watching Pollen Nation, our audience will not only better understand the honeybee problem, but also the importance of supporting farming and land use that works with - rather than against – natural systems: it's not just the bees or the beekeepers who caught up in this flawed cycle, but all of us.

Director's Statement from Robert Greenwald about "Rethink Afghanistan"

2011-07-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

It started with a holiday trip to Vietnam, in December of 2008.

As I usually do, I spent hours deciding which books to take. Among the first to make the cut was The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam’s 1969 bestseller about the folly of our military action there.

As our family traveled through Vietnam and saw the sights, we talked to the people and began to understand, viscerally, the impact our war and policy had on the Vietnamese people and culture. It was surreal for the adults among us to be visiting, as tourists, places whose names we remembered from nightly newscasts that featured military pronouncements and body counts: Saigon, Da Nang, Hanoi. In Hanoi, we celebrated Christmas Eve among thousands of locals on motor bikes, shouting, singing, waving flags and generally embracing the “Santa Claus” consumerism of our holiday.

It felt surreal as well to be reading Halberstam’s book, which, despite its publication date, began to seem frighteningly prescient about our country’s current military involvements. The Best and the Brightest details the mistakes made by smart leaders who failed to consider history, overestimated our supposed military superiority, and stubbornly insisted on strategies and tactics that failed to take into account how the people of an invaded country view the occupiers—A policy that was guided by a mistaken notion about international communism and the Domino Theory.

When I returned to Los Angeles with page after page of the book underlined, I began to read the stories about Afghanistan in a new light. I began to worry, deeply, about our new administration’s plan to send more troops to that country, to escalate the war and “finish the job” that had been sidetracked by the “wrong war” in Iraq.

This was not the policy of a “change” administration.

This was not the policy that would lead to the better and more hopeful world we wanted.

This was NOT going to make us safer and more secure.

My colleagues at Brave New Films and I began extended debates and conversations. We were not getting fundamental questions answered, such as: How many troops? How long? At what cost? How do we get out? What is the end game? Is this really the way to deal with terrorists? Why invade the sovereign country of Afghanistan when the enemy is Al-Qaeda?

We came to believe very strongly that these questions had to be asked, and they had to be asked of this president, Barack Obama, whom so many had worked so hard to put into office. And they had to be asked now.

Our way to raise questions and raise issues is through our work in media. So, Rethink Afghanistan was born. We wanted to raise the key conceptual questions. We wanted to activate people. We wanted to provide information.

And we wanted to do this with Afghan people–Afghan experts who are on the ground, in country–in the film. One of the many tragedies of the Iraq War was the fact that Iraqis themselves were often invisible to us Americans. We vowed not to let that happen.

Almost as soon as we began, we were attacked by friends and allies. No one wanted to question the new administration’s plans. Many people still believed the war in Afghanistan was a just war, the right war. We lost funding. But we continued.

My trip to Afghanistan in March further reinforced our concerns about the advisability of our country’s military strategy. It was more than obvious to me, bumping over the dirt roads of Kabul in the third poorest country in the world, that the solutions to social, political and economic problems are not military solutions.

We pushed ahead without funding. We could not afford to wait until a full-length film was finished. We were simultaneously fundraising, filming, interviewing and editing. We then posted sections online as soon as we could finish them.

We built each section of the film around key issues:

1. The Troops – We laid out the arguments and information to make clear that more troops would not solve the deep-seated problems of Afghanistan.

2. Pakistan – We needed people to understand the critical role of Pakistan to everything in the region. It was important to gain a sense of Pakistan’s views of its own national interest. The world can’t only be seen through United States eyes.

3. Cost – As the economy got worse, the economic arguments against the escalating costs of war got stronger and more potent.

4. Women – Many strong progressive allies were so blindsided by the awful things the Taliban were doing to women; they were missing the large picture that this was not (in the words of Tom Hayden) “a war to protect feminists.” The Karzai government and its warlord allies were responsible for terrible attacks and destruction, and the many women in Afghanistan we interviewed made this very clear. They wanted the troops out.

5. Civilian Casualties – A young Afghan man tracked me down through Facebook and insisted on meeting me at the airport as I was about to fly out of Kabul. He gave me devastating video footage of a refugee father offering to sell his young daughter because he couldn’t care for her. There was much more similar footage. Between my interviews, the news footage, and this footage, we created another section.

6. Security – National security is the core fundamental argument for the war among those who support it. As Halberstam says over and over, Vietnam was a tragedy both militarily and politically because people didn’t challenge the assumption that “all communists are the same.” All communists are not the same, and all so-called “terrorists” are not the same. We missed numerous opportunities in Vietnam to negotiate peace because of our simple minded view of communism. In this section seasoned former CIA experts challenge the notion that this war for national security is making us safer. They argue that our fundamental misreading of terrorism is making us less secure as we create more people willing to attack us every day.

7. Solutions – We wanted to provide some simple, common sense stories of people doing what is really needed in Afghanistan: creating jobs, running schools, and providing medical care. We chose the few that we could quickly get on camera, but there are still many more.

Thank you for supporting Brave New Foundation and thank you for your efforts in spreading the word to Rethink Afghanistan.

Robert Greenwald

Q and A with Andrew Nisker, Director of Chemerical

2011-06-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

Q: What inspired you to make this film?

A: “The inspiration for Chemerical came from research I did during the production of Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home. In that film I had a family keep their waste for three months to connect the dots between the pollution we create at home and to show how their lifestyle affects
the environment.”

“One of the areas we explored, for Garbage!, was the effects that cleaning products have on our water and the environment. Through that analysis we discovered that waste water and air quality in the family home are affected by cleaning and personal care products. I thought this subject alone was worthy of further examination and I came up with the idea to have another family rid their home of all toxic cleaners and personal care products and figure out how to live without them or make their own.”

Q: What are some of the issues you discovered with these products?

A: “Well, I just looked at the labels. I saw what was in these products and I started to do research on all the common ingredients. Why are they in there? What do they do? However, the majority of the products don’t list their ingredients so I had dig elsewhere to find most of that information.”

“One of the great resources I found was the cosmetics database (www.cosmeticsdatabase.com) online, which is an incredible web resource. It goes behind the scenes to explore the ingredients in your personal care products.”

“In the process of doing the research, we discovered a tremendous amount of these chemicals are rushed to market and they’re self regulated, which means the government doesn’t require corporations to submit the chemicals for testing. In our society, it’s good enough for these companies to just say that these chemicals are safe for human use. We tend not to ask questions.”

“Some of these chemicals, such as ammonia and chlorine, were initially developed for industrial purposes. Chlorine and Ammonia were mixed together to form Chlormine Gas as a chemical weapon used in the First World War. After the war there were stockpiles of these chemicals and scientists had to figure out ways to repurpose them so they started infusing them in cleaning products.”

“Before the introduction of these chemicals in our homes we used simple products like vinegar, water, lemon, baking soda and salt.”

Q: How hard was it to find a family to volunteer for three months and rid themselves of all their cleaners?

A: “It wasn’t that hard at all actually. We were on TV promoting Garbage! and mentioned that our next film was going to be focused on chemicals in the home. We had hundreds of families respond to us, via email so we put on Craigslist to find families. These families submitted video auditions to showcase all of the toxic products they keep in their homes, and we ended up choosing the Goode’s because that had a tremendous amount of these products and were also a fun group of people.”

Q: Were there any exceptions on what sort of chemicals they had to remove from their home?

A: “We didn’t go hardcore. Chemicals are good and bad, so we like to say they removed “toxins” from their home. When it came to personal care and cleaning products, we got rid of everything. We introduced them to people who could help them replace the products with natural and homemade alternatives. At the end of the process the family felt better physically, and were happy with the money they saved.”

“They made their own dishwashing and laundry soap, window cleaner, deodorant, toothpaste and shampoo. Strangely enough, the majority of these things were all made with the same ingredients.”

“- And guess what, they didn’t lose any friends in the process. They smelled good and felt good!”

“It’s a funny thing, and we talk about this in the movie, but we’ve become accustomed to smelling like things we actually aren’t. A couple hundred years ago people would rarely take baths. They’d wash their hands and in order to look clean and neat they’d wear pressed, clean, white linen and change their clothes when they got dirty. They were afraid to take baths because they though the hot water would open their pores and let in diseases and germs. Our natural smells were common back then but today we’ve gotten used to smelling like something from another planet. We don’t smell like human beings as Katherine Ashenberg tells us in the movie.”

Q: What did the family do after filming finished?

A: “They’ve stuck with it, but it’s only been a few months. Time will tell.”

Q: What sort of devices do you use in the film to get your message across?

A: “We created the Chemerical brand, which is a combination of the words chemical, America, and miracle. We thought this film would be an opportunity for people to re-think the way they clean their homes, and it would be our opportunity to re-brand the way we all clean. After all, the way we clean and learn to clean has been shaped by how everything is marketed, which started in the 1940s.”

“The creation of the soap opera brought an avalanche of cleaning ads into the home, targeted at housewives.”

“We have animation in the film, and what we’ve done is gone back to the old cartoon ads, that used to pitch cleaning products in the home, and we’ve given them a fresh look. We’ve created a new Chemerical family with a new pitch person, and we’re re-defining clean for a new generation throughout the film.”

“These ads are a tongue-in-cheek ode to the way we clean. For example, the revolutionary new Chemerical air freshener is called OTW, which simply stands for Open The Window.”

“There are other products we’re pitching throughout the film that are just as simple, oldfashioned ways of cleaning: vinegar, water, baking soda and essential oils. That’s it. That’s the way Chemerical cleans.”

“It’s a counter-reaction to the over-saturation of the cleaning market, to which we’ve been subjected to for the past 60 years.”

Q: What’s the target audience for Chemerical?

A: “Similar to Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home, we feel Chemerical will appeal to a broad audience, especially those of us who take care of the cleaning in our homes, and all of us who use some sort of commercialized form of personal care product.”

“Chemerical makes you question the usefulness of the ingredients inside your products and how at the end of the day using these products 24/7 could have an adverse effect on your health. So I concluded, why take the chance and use products full of toxic ingredients when it’s far safer for you and your family to go natural. It does the same job yet it doesn’t hurt you or the environment.”

Q: Do you show how to make these natural cleaners in the film?

A: “Yes. As I mentioned earlier, the Goode family made all their own personal cleaning products, and we follow along as they do it, to see how it turns out.” “We’re also going to be releasing a Chemerical cookbook. I know it sounds strange, but yes, making cleaning products is kind of like cooking. You add a dash of lemon and some water and vinegar and it’s as simple of making a jug of lemonade, or in the case of making lipstick, like mixing up a batch of caramel or cookies. For example all that’s really in lipstick is wax, oil and natural coloring.”

“The cookbook will be offered with the film, and it’ll show you how to make these products.”

Q: What’s next for you?

A: “Hopefully a vacation!”

Director's Statement from Mark Achbar about "The Corporation"

2011-05-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

My father was a successful small businessman, so I personally have had a life of relative privilege because of the financial circumstances of my family. I've always felt an obligation to try to use that privilege responsibly. In addition, filmmakers are very fortunate here in Canada, with (diminishing) public funding available to us and editorial freedom.

My overriding objective in making The Corporation was to challenge conventional wisdom about the role of the corporation in society, to make the commonplace seem strange, to alienate viewers from the normalcy of the dominant culture, allowing them to gain a critical distance on the corporations and the corporate culture that envelop us all.

When it comes to the fate of the Earth, I don't believe in legitimizing destructive forces by validating their perspective in a "balanced" TV-style journalism format. But I am interested in and, frankly, fascinated by the advocates of economic globalization and corporate dominance. It is essential, in a program of corporate literacy, to hear from them, and to understand their perspective. Reform comes from within as well as without, which is why The Corporation also tries to expose the institutional constraints many good people working inside big corporations struggle with.

-- Mark Achbar

Director's Statement from Philippe Diaz about "The End of Poverty"

2011-04-20T13:16:00.000-07:00

When we were contacted by a member of the board of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation and asked about our interest in making a film on poverty, several questions rushed to my mind. First, could it be more than simply "a" film on poverty? Could it be a film which would explain the true causes of poverty and moreover, the true historical and political causes of poverty?

The second question was: Are we ready to invest time, money and years of our lives to such a noble but seemingly impossible cause? This answer came quickly: 'yes' on all fronts. We created Cinema Libre Studio with the idea that movies can make a difference. And for the last six years we have produced and distributed movies to that effect.

On a personal level it was the same: I had started making movies when I was 13 and then studied the philosophy of art as well as political philosophy at La Sorbonne in Paris, instilling in me the belief that movies could make a difference in the world. As a young producer in Paris, most of the 25+ feature films I had made tackled world issues in one way or another. In 1999, I had returned to directing for Nouvel Ordre Mondial (Quelque Part en Afrique)( The Empire in Africa) a feature-length documentary that explains that famine and hunger are not a natural phenomenon, as many people believe, but rather a political one. We chose to film in Sierra Leone, which had been embroiled in a terrible civil war for nine years. We were there for a month. (Even if it was the most difficult experience in my life, it prepared me for this new assignment.) The success and impact of this film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 and went on to garner many awards around the world, encouraged me to use documentaries as tools to make a difference.

So of course the answer was, 'yes'. I had spent most of my life using movies to try to make a difference in the world. After the screening of The Empire in Africa during the Cannes Film Festival a journalist asked me: "Why would you take so much risk to make a film?" I answered: because I am probably not courageous enough to take a weapon and fight against injustice like many people do, so I take a camera, it feels safer!

And of course this film is about injustice…and inequalities which grow wider and wider every year, and about answering the daunting question: Why, in a world of so much wealth, do we still have so much poverty, where billions of people live on less than one dollar a day? (This is also the introduction to the film as narrated by the wonderful Martin Sheen.)

In developing the concept for a poverty film, many other questions came to mind: Why is it that when we make all these technological advancements the poor grow poorer? Why, if we find more and more wealth every year, do the poor grow poorer? Why, when a company makes huge profits that their shareholders pocket, do the employees pay the price when that company fails yet the shareholders retain their profits? Why are the natural resources given to us by nature exploited -- to the extent of destroying the planet - by only a few people who reap the benefits while millions of others suffer as a consequence? It was clear to me that making this film would be a wonderful opportunity to dig deep into a system that has created so much suffering, a system which is still almost deified by so many.

After months of research, discussions and several proposals, the Foundation allowed me to expand the scope of the film beyond a narrow Georgist perspective, in order to explain the true historical and political causes of poverty in the world. Ultimately the goal of the film was to change the dialogue around the poverty debate from "poverty is a shame," to "poverty exists for a reason."

When we finalized the budget, it was clear that we would have to limit our travel to a few countries. That coupled with the fact that the issue of poverty is remarkably complex, meant we also had to limit the scope of our investigation to a few specific topics.

The production would eventually entail over one hundred hours of interviews and bring us to four different continents: South America (Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia), Africa (Kenya and Tanzania), Europe and North America. The criteria for the countries we chose were: countries with governments that were open to acknowledging and talking about the poverty challenges they faced; and secondly, countries that represented a specific issue in the thesis we were developing, such as land rights in Kenya. As absurd as it sounds, many Third World governments facing dire poverty are still ready to deny this even though one can see evidence on every street.

Originally I wanted to show both sides of the poverty debate. We even filmed several experts who were proponents of the "progress and technology will solve everything" mindset supporting the notion that mosquito nets and bags of fertilizer could solve the poverty conundrum. This is the theory that Bono's economic sidekick, Jeffrey Sachs, has touted all around the world. But the first cut of the film was more than three hours long, so many of these interviews were left on the hard drive of the editing system.

We decided to make the film with a small crew since we would be going into slums and the homes of poor people, which we knew to be small and crowded. Our itinerary was punishing and we planned to move fast and visit multiple cities in several countries, which required mobility.

The form of the documentary was of particular importance to me, not as much as the content of course, but we were going with a mission to change people's perception of the true causes of poverty. It was essential nevertheless because I saw too many documentaries ruined by their lack of form or too much of it. The stars of the film had to be the poor. And I knew that I couldn’t turn such a devastating subject into "cinema." I would therefore have to refrain from using zooms and any other effects unless they were absolutely necessary to the context of the scene. The camera would be mostly fixed on a tripod or handheld when necessary. I would create a totally different feel for the experts who would be interviewed in natural settings: it is easier to fight poverty from a comfortable office in a university or an international organization – which doesn't diminish the importance of what these experts who do – but it is another to live it on a day-to-day basis. To wake up hungry everyday without knowing where you can find enough money during the day to feed your family is simply not the same thing.

I decided early on that lighting choices would be my ally in this complex cinematic question. I would install my experts in a comfortable setting and light them with three to four light sources, ultimately using diffusion and colored gels. When filming those living in poverty we would use natural light, which very often, was almost non-existent. I also decided to shoot the poor subjects with a handheld camera, allowing me to follow behind them when they were showing us their miserable living conditions – unless the subject was seated. Our experts would be shot with a fixed and immobile camera.

Our experience in working with these poor people brought us to a level of understanding I never thought possible. Many of them had an understanding of their situations and of its causes that most experts would find accurate beyond belief. But the experts opened our minds in a no less interesting way. We started shooting in 2006 and most of the experts predicted an imminent financial crisis which would engulf the world, while most of our politicians and our media were glorifying the prowess of capitalism. One of the experts, Serge Latouche, put it in very simple words: Today 20% of the planet uses more than 80% of its resources. Moreover, every year we are consuming 30% more than what the planet can regenerate, therefore digging a giant hole under our feet and making it bigger every year. And of course, these resources come primarily from the countries of the (global) South. And the most condemning part is that in order to maintain our lifestyle in the North, we have to keep these countries at a level of dire poverty. Even worse, because the world's population continues to increase in order to maintain our lifestyle we have to plunge more and more people into poverty every year. Latouche makes the point that if everybody had the same lifestyle as the people in North America, we would need six planets.

I summarize here the main points made in the film. The question is: how did this catch all of our top economists by surprise last October (2008) when the global economy imploded? They had no idea and no way to predict. Funny isn't it?

Ironically, in the last year our movie became the film to explain the current economic crisis while it was touring the festivals. The Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival, selected the film when it was not even finished which started an international festival tour that has passed the 25 mark and is still counting. I've been invited around the world to present the film and explain why we have to change our understanding and our perception of poor people and of poverty. Because at the end of the day, as long as we remain rich, they will remain poor and we'll keep digging the gigantic hole under our feet… which one day, without a doubt, will swallow us all.

But we have to hope that we are more intelligent than to let that happen.

Interview with Tim DePaepe, Director of Shades of Gray

2011-03-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

Gray Matter

March 30, 2000
by Dan Lybarger
Originally appeared in the March 30-April 5, 2000 issue of Pitch Weekly.

"There were always eyebrows that went up when they said, 'What's your film about?' I'd say, 'Gay life in Kansas,'" recalls Shades of Gray director Tim DePaepe during a recent interview in Lawrence, Kan. "Three years ago, when I was in South By Southwest (a film festival in Austin, Texas) pitching this thing, showing the demo around, I remember one response I got from somebody was, 'How many gay people are there in Kansas? Three?' I hope that by making this film ... we would be showing the world that this is part of the Kansas landscape."

Shades of Gray, which debuts at the Tivoli Manor Square Theatre at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 1, with another showing at 11:30 the next morning, depicts the state as an eclectic place and includes a wide variety of narratives. There are intimate talking-head interviews with three gay men and two lesbians, re-enactments of their personal stories, news footage, and comments from the vehemently homophobic Topeka pastor Fred Phelps. It also looks at Kansas' long history of civil rights struggles.

DePaepe explains, "We were a free state (during the Civil War), but at the same time we are the state that recently tried to repeal the teaching of evolution. Kansas is a dichotomy. It's always been a conflicted state. Look at what Janet (one of the featured subjects) says in the movie. When people think about Kansas, they think about Bob Dole. They don't think about gays, lesbians, or bisexuals. Anywhere but Kansas. That's how a lot (of Kansas) gays and lesbians grew up. It's a great conflict for this story."

DePaepe frames the elements of the film around the successful 1994 proposal to add the words "sexual orientation" to Lawrence's discrimination policies and the disputes it generated. "I just lucked out. It started around the time I started to make the film," he says. "You can't sit on the fence on this issue. There are no shades of gray in terms of tolerance or intolerance. The gray area is created by fear. I call the film Shades of Gray because you can see all the levels of this fear. You have Bob Moody (a Lawrence city council member) saying that you can't legislate tolerance; you can only educate against intolerance, and he's right. But yet at the same time, he's voting in opposition. Figure that one out."

Although Shades of Gray has yet to be shown to the general public, it has already attracted controversy. After receiving a thank-you letter and a tape of the film from DePaepe, Phelps sent a vitriolic fax threatening to picket the Tivoli screening. In the message the pastor calls DePaepe "a mendacious little pervert" and "a theologian come lately." DePaepe takes out the message, points to a grotesque cartoon of a bandaged man with swollen eyelids, and says, "That's (hate crime murder victim) Matthew Shepard. Honestly, I don't care what Fred thinks. But it wasn't until I got this (fax) in my hands that I said, 'Oh, my God. He's really going to be there.' I honestly thought he was going to ignore me and that I was too small-time for him. His ego's just tremendous. He's been interviewed all over the world (by people like) Dan Rather and Hugh Downs on 20/20. He's been featured in other national documentaries on hate groups. I think he is taking this personally.

"He's extremely intelligent and very articulate, very much a Southern gentleman. My mother's from the South, and I grew up a Southern Baptist too. It's something he and I had in common. In all reality, I have more in common with Fred, as a white, heterosexual man in Kansas who grew up as a Southern Baptist, than I do with (the film's gay subjects) Janet, Lea, Michael, Bill, or Ben. Ben's Jewish, and Janet and Michael are Catholic. The difference between me and Fred is that I don't hate people," DePaepe says.

If DePaepe's work has incurred Phelps' wrath, it also has received some prominent support. Michael Moore, the director of Roger and Me and The Big One and the host of the television programs TV Nation and The Awful Truth, helped finance the film. DePaepe recalls, "He was in (Lawrence) giving a lecture. They had a receiving line, and I walked up and got him to sign a poster, and I just said, 'Hi, my name's Tim, and I'm an independent filmmaker.' He said, 'What are you doing?' He had just talked about the banned segment of TV Nation on Fred Phelps. I said, 'I'm doing this film about gay life in Kansas.' His eyes kind of perked up, and he said, 'Really?' He stopped the line of people behind us. I gave him the quick one-minute pitch, and he said, 'What do you need? What can I do to help?' I said, 'I need $75,000 to finish the movie.' He said, 'Do you really need $75,000?'"

After telling Moore about how much he had shot and the equipment he was using, DePaepe recalls, "(Moore) said, 'Yeah, you'll need $75,000. I'll buy your next 20 rolls of film.' He's that cool. I've corresponded with him (but) I haven't heard what he thinks of the film."

DePaepe has devoted much of the past few years to Shades of Gray. He estimates that he shot approximately 52 hours of footage and can recite and imitate many of the comments from the film with eerie accuracy. "I can almost channel Ben," he chuckles. Still, DePaepe credits his fellow Midwesterners (particularly the Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City) for inspiration and support.

"A film is never one person's film, even though it says, 'A film by Tim DePaepe.' The only reason we do that is because one person has to sell the film." In addition to his work on Shades of Gray, DePaepe, who graduated from KU's Film Studies Program in 1990, has worked on projects as diverse as the movie Kansas and the television series Rescue 911. He also made the short documentary Quiet Passages and contributed an episode of the cable series Split Screen, which dealt with the banning of the movie The Tin Drum in Oklahoma. "It's enough to make some people return my phone calls," he says.

Production Notes from Simon Burrow, Producer of Beyond Borders

2011-02-16T15:53:00.000-08:00

I have been interested in immigration since the 1980’s when I first had factories in Mexico. But I was busy with other things, like making money, and didn’t do much about it except argue until a series of unlikely unrelated events happened in the first few years of the 2000’s. Some of them were books, some were observations and they all culminated in what I have to call an epiphany in the spring of 2005. I’ll write about the various roots first and them the epiphany.

• In 2003 I sold my business for enough money that I never had to work for money again. I was 56 years old.
• I heard Warren Buffett talk at Caltech. In his speech he mentioned the “ovarian lottery.” According to his idea, the way your life turns out is mostly a result of where you are born.
• I read Fewer a book about population trends by Ben Wattenberg that showed that the worlds population is stabilizing.
• I noticed that there were more stories in the US press about obesity than about starvation.
• I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and realized that the immigration debate was reaching a tipping point.
• I heard Angelica Salas speak on the Al Rantel show on talk radio and was deeply moved by her calm assertion of the rights of migrants.
• I read Strangers No Longer a booklet written by the Catholic Church that stated “persons have the right to live where they choose..”
• I read in a novel by Alexander McCall Smith an idea that the ethics of a society adjust to the needs of the society.
• I read the story of the SS St Louis and the refugees from the Nazis who were not allowed into Cuba and the United States and
• I saw the movie Amazing Grace and saw the parallel between slavery in the 18th century and the right to migrate today.

All of these ideas were bashing around in my head in the May of 2005. I was driving through the desert near the Salton Sea and they synthesized.
• The worlds view on immigrants was based on a paradyme of shortages. We are entering an unprecedented time of prosperity and the rules will need to change.
• In a world of material surplus where people are in short supply we will adjust our ethics away from tribal xenophobia and toward welcoming.
• The ethic that says it is okay to discriminate against people based on where they were born is morally bankrupt.
• The world will be a better fairer place when people can vote with their feet and governments are forced to compete.
• There are ways that the settled people in an area can accept new settlers without slamming the door completely or being overwhelmed.

These ideas made me so excited I gave up my other avocations, teaching and sculpting, and began learning everything I could about the current immigration debate in the USA and around the world. By December of 2005 after struggling for a few months with how to promote my new idea I saw Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore and thought I could make a documentary. And so I did.

The Story Evolves

When I set out to make this documentary I envisioned a story telling the history of human migration:
This is the original treatment:

Scene One ”It is the Right of the State”

In this scene it is 1730 in central Europe. There are two families huddled on the village green. A man in an official looking uniform is speaking to them “I’m sorry” he says “the King has ruled that you will not be allowed to settle in the kingdom. You will have to leave.”

Should be clearly wrong, ugly but not violent.

Scene Two “The SS St Louis Story”

The SS St Louis left Nazi Germany with 1000 passengers mostly Jewish women and children. It was bound for Cuba but was denied entry there and then in the USA and other nations. Finally it was forced to return to Europe where hundreds of the passengers died at the hands of the Nazis.

There is a independent film about this story. Get one of the survivors to speak.

Scene Three “Free to Live”

It is Detroit and a black family is being kept from living in an all white suburb.

There is an important movie and or book about this story.

Scene Four “Dying at Borders”

Black Africa. This scene shows the misery of the camps on the Rwanda border. Perhaps with voice over from an aid worker talking about how people were turned back to their deaths.

Scene Five “Dying in the Desert”

Perhaps a series of interviews with survivors of the US/Mexico crossing saying how risky the crossing was is and why they attempted it. Show video and stills of the death

Scene Six “A Call to Action”

Oppose vigilanties (show Minuteman videos)

The underground railroad analogy?

Civil Disobedience. Stop the Wall!

What we actually made was completely different. Part of that was a result of events. Who would have guessed that 1,000,000 people would march in the streets of Los Angeles in the spring of 2006 and that we would be able to film it. And part of it was a result of the people I hired to direct the film. The first paid professional I hired was Dave Szamet. His first task was to put together a budget for filming the treatment shown above. Dave made it sound possible and I plunged ahead we hired Justin Daniels to be the director for a test of the concept. With Seth Orozco behind the camera Dave and Justin shot local scenes for a few months and made a five minute short out of it.

It now was the summer of 2006 and it looked possible that we could make the film and the political climate made it urgent. Dave dug into his bag of contacts and we interviewed several potential directors with experience. We settled on Brian Ging and after Brian wrote a revised script we started shooting again in September. For the next year the shooting went on intermittently all of the crew had other jobs or school or both and everything we did was the first time we did it. We fought, we argued, we complained about money, the schedule, the content and the methodology. But finally it was finished. We were able to interview lots of very smart people for the film and to get them to talk about whether there is a basic human right to migrate. The “B roll” was collected in three countries and six states and was a constant source of friction.

Q&A WITH FILMMAKER JOSH TICKELL OF FUEL

2011-01-26T13:09:00.000-08:00

Q: What inspired you to make FUEL?

A: I made FUEL to show that there is a way for us to have all the energy we need without compromising peace and freedom.

Q: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

A: Ten years ago, when I set out to make this film, the biggest challenge I had was getting people to buy into the idea that a movie could make a significant contribution to the world. But my green community saw the validity of these ideas, and with their encouragement I have overcome many obstacles along the way. Until recently, documentaries weren’t seen as vehicles for social change. That rapidly changed with Fahrenheit 9/11, Supersize Me, Born into Brothels and especially with An Inconvenient Truth. Suddenly, the little energy documentary I’d been working on for a decade became hot. By the end of this year when the film will be presented in theaters all over the country, the ideas and concepts in FUEL will become mainstream. That’s a powerful shift.

Q: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

A: I wanted to make a film about the serious challenges we face and ultimately about the power of every individual to make a difference. The biggest challenge came after we won the audience award at Sundance. It was at that time that two camps emerged - those that loved biofuels and those that thought biofuels were awful. I made the difficult choice to re-cut the movie to incorporate not just the controversy around biofuels, but also the other energy solutions that exist. Like any renovation, we started re-cutting with an eye toward repairing a few flaws and ended up knee deep in a complete re-edit. The film that emerged kept the heart of the original movie, but was different enough in content and scope that it merited a new name and a new launch. Hence FUEL was born. Everyone who has seen both films agrees that it was worth the risk, the time and the energy to make the new movie.

Q: What is next for you?

A: My team and I are taking the film on a 25-city tour across the United States this year. We will travel in a convoy of biodiesel vehicles that will go to universities, schools, town halls and political events. Our goal is to “green the vote” of America by getting everyday people, along with politicians and energy companies, to sign onto a 10-year plan that will transition America to renewable energy.

Beth Murphy talks about making "Beyond Belief"

2010-12-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

In July 2000 I was teaching a journalism class at American University Paris and brought my students to Amnesty International for a conversation about genocide. As we were wrapping up, the Amnesty representative ushered us into a room and over to a large cardboard box with a bright blue fabric peeking out. Have you ever worn a burqa before? she asked. As I pulled the tent-like garment over my head and imagined being forced to wear it, I thought about what it would be like to be invisible to the world. That’s when I knew I wanted to produce a film about Afghanistan and help Afghan women to become visible again. The challenge was finding a way for the film to resonate with an American audience.

A year later, after the attacks of September 11th, the ability to draw the connection between Afghanistan and us seemed obvious. Three months later, I traveled to Afghanistan to film the growing humanitarian crisis and the aid workers who were struggling to respond to it. I was looking forward to seeing women shedding their burqas, liberated from the medieval laws of the Taliban. But when I arrived, all the women I encountered were still covered head-to-toe, allowed only a small mesh patch for their window to the world. When the documentary I was working on failed to sell, I vowed to return to this place that captured a piece of me with its beauty, isolation and sorrow.

What I could never have imagined then is that as I was filming in Afghanistan, there were two women living in my own backyard who were opening their eyes to the world in new and profound ways after losing their husbands on September 11th. Four years later I would return to Afghanistan with Susan Retik and Patti Quigley, whose loss gave them permission to shut out the world, but whose compassion forced them to have a leadership role in it.

It was important to me to tell their story because as the world has become increasingly divided by politics, ethnicity and religion, Susan and Patti affirm a common humanity that we all share. From the beginning, they recognize their Afghan counterparts as individuals—women they identify with and feel a connection to—rather than a monolithic, nameless, faceless group, as often happens during the world’s tragedies.

I was struck by Susan and Patti’s ability to recognize Afghanistan for all of its complexities. True, it is the country in which the terrorists trained to kill their husbands, but it is also a place that had been used as a pawn during the Cold War, only to then be abandoned by the international community – sparking a civil war that would last another decade. The effects were especially cruel for women. Banished from public life by the Taliban, they’ve suffered staggering declines in health. (Afghanistan is still one of the only countries in the world where women have a shorter life expectancy than men.) And when we arrived in Kabul in May 2006, the burqa still defined public life for most
women.

Susan and Patti’s mission is simple: to make life better for these women. And so is their message: hatred is the root of terrorism. They aren’t naïve enough—nor do they have enough hubris—to think they can stop terrorism in its tracks. But they do have enough optimism—and enough faith in humanity—to believe that the War on Terror cannot be fought with bombs and bullets alone.

Geralyn Pezanoski talks about the experience of making "Mine"

2010-11-18T09:02:00.000-08:00

Like millions across the country I was profoundly affected by the startling images I witnessed during coverage of Hurricane Katrina: people stranded on rooftops, suffering crowds at the Super Dome, and the decimation of one of America’s most culturally vibrant and diverse cities. And like millions of others I was devastated as well by images of the thousands of animals in distress – their helplessness bringing into even greater relief the chaos and overwhelming scope of the tragedy. So when I read about a nascent but quickly growing rescue effort being carried out by animal lovers from across the country and the world, I decided to go to New Orleans to document this incredible undertaking.

During the ensuing six weeks I filmed dozens of intrepid rescue workers, devoted animal rights advocates, and thousands of animals in need of saving - even after they were ‘rescued’. While a few residents trickled back into New Orleans and managed to reclaim their pets, most were displaced and barred from entering the city, so I watched day after day as these unclaimed animals were loaded onto trucks and planes and sent to shelters across the country, their fates uncertain. While the hope was that many of these animals would either be fostered until their owners claimed them, or adopted into new homes, the reality was that many of them would meet the same fate as millions of other animals around the country: being euthanized before the year’s end. It was this horrific thought that lead to my decision to foster (and eventually adopt) a Katrina dog, a pointer mix I called Nola. She was skin and bones when I met her, and she refused to leave my side for more than a couple of seconds. It didn’t take either of us long to bond.

As the months went on, my crew and I began to see an increasing number of residents returning to New Orleans to try to rebuild their lives. It became apparent that legions of them - people who had lost everything – were desperate to find their pets. We heard about hundreds of other cases across the county: people who were still displaced but on the hunt for their animals. But as broad and deep as the story went, there seemed to be strangely little information about it in mainstream media. I had many questions: Why hadn’t people been allowed to evacuate with their animals? Now that these animals were adopted into new homes, who had the authority to decide whether they should be left where they were or returned to their previous owners? Why were original owners running into such resistance in trying to find and reclaim their pets? What would I do if someone came looking for Nola, to whom I had become so attached?

I explored these questions and many more during the three years I spent making MINE. My primary focus was on a handful of extraordinary Katrina victims committed to finding their animals even years after the disaster, but the story extends to rescue workers and new adoptive guardians, who, like me, decided to take in pets left behind and care for them as their own. We met and interviewed hundreds of people over the years, and what emerged was a profound story of the bond between humans and animals, and the power of that bond to ameliorate human suffering. Equally striking, however, were stories both of the continuing prevalence of racism and classism in America, and the incredible power of compassion in the wake of tragedy. All of these stories become one in MINE.

I hope that MINE puts a human face on issues that may seem far removed from the lives of most Americans, but in fact affect us all - and that the film will promote much needed dialogue not just about how we treat our animals, but how we treat each other.

Johan Norberg, Author of "Financial Fiasco", on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

2010-10-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

The Mysterious Ways Of Fannie And Freddie

Johan Norberg, 01.15.10, 05:10 PM EST (re-printed from Forbes.com)

Why aren't any of the companies' agents at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission?

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has started its work with a highly publicized two-day hearing in Washington, D.C. The Commission is supposed to find out what caused the financial crisis, but it seems like they are trying to enact Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Among all the bankers and regulators on stage during the hearings, there was not a single representative of the government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were major causes of the housing bubble.

The reason for the omission is disturbingly obvious. When Congress created the Commission they wanted a crisis narrative of greedy bankers and passive regulators. In other words, they wanted to put the blame somewhere else. Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) are creatures of Congress and it was Congress that pushed them to undermine underwriting standards and increase lending to low-income households while stalling reform.

Fannie and Freddie regularly let members of Congress announce large housing developments for low-income earners in exchange for political and financial support; over the past decade the two GSEs spent almost $200 million on lobbying and contributions to both parties, but most of all to Democrats, the present majority. Politicians wanted scapegoats on stage--Fannie and Freddie representatives would have functioned as a mirror.

Fannie and Freddie had an implicit government guarantee that made it possible for them to borrow cheaper than other financial institutions, and with those thousands of billions of dollars they bought mortgages from primary lenders, so that these got their money back and could lend even more to other prospective homebuyers.

In 2004, almost at the peak of the bubble, the Bush administration increased the ambitious targets for GSE lending of the Clinton Administration. It said that within four years, 56% of Fannie's and Freddie's mortgages should go to low-income households and 28% of the mortgages to those with a "very-low income." In plain English this means households that could not afford that mortgage the moment the interest rate returned to a more realistic level. The only thing we ever heard from Congress were demands to increase lending even more aggressively.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pioneered securitization of mortgages, whereby they re-packaged loans and sold them to investors. Increased political pressure to serve low-income households meant that they soon began to buy mortgage-backed securities on an enormous scale themselves. After 2004 the market could make almost any kind of loans, knowing that the government-sponsored enterprises would buy them. About 40% of the loans were junk. "We didn't really know what we were buying," admits a former director at Fannie Mae.

Investment bankers have been publicly scolded by the Commission for taking on so much risk, with leverage ratios around 30 to 1. Shouldn't they ask how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended up with a leverage ratio closer to 60 to 1?

As a result of their losses, Fannie and Freddie blew up in September 2008 and were in effect nationalized. The Treasury Department implemented $200 billion caps on government aid to each company, which have just been removed. The worst consequence of removing caps is not potential cost of hundreds of billions to taxpayer, but the effect on the rest of the market. The GSEs showed Wall Street that subprime lending was encouraged by the government; they made it profitable for lenders to make bad loans to sell them; and they pushed up house prices by opening up the market for owning homes to people who had previously rented.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission couldn't care less. Granted, government-sponsored enterprises are mentioned in the 21st of 22 areas of inquiry for the Commission, but even there it is an afterthought: "financial institutions" in general is the object of study in No 21. And, as previously mentioned, no representative from Fannie or Freddie was invited to the hearing.

Today, former executives at the two GSEs say that the firms made so many bad loans because Congress constantly leaned on them to buy more mortgages from low-income borrowers. It is no surprise that Congress does not want anyone to hear that message. But it makes a mockery of their pretention to examine all possible causes of the crisis in an even-handed and objective way.

A former GSE employee recently said, self-critically: "It didn't take a lot of sophistication to notice what was happening to the quality of the loans. Anybody could have seen it. But nobody on the outside was even questioning us about it."

Apparently the outside world still isn't.

Johan Norberg is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Financial Fiasco: How America's Infatuation with Home Ownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis.

Director Kevin Tomlinson talks about his film "Back to the Garden"

2010-09-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Back in 1988 I took a road trip that led me on a strange journey. By chance, I saw a funky poster advertising a Healing Gathering in rural Washington State. Curious to meet this community of backcountry hippies twenty years after Woodstock, I decided to go.

Upon arrival, I felt transported, finding myself among magic buses and tepees in a meadow filled with beaded flower children communing with nature. I shot hours of dancing, drumming, singing and celebration. I recorded extensive interviews with some of the most genuine, sincere beings I’d ever met.

With no plans for the material at the time and skeptical how it would be received during the Reagan/Bush years, the project was shelved. But it didn’t sit quietly. The images wouldn’t let go. 18 years later I asked myself, where have all the “flowers” gone?

So I began a new journey, a journey to find what had happened to all the dreams of getting back to the land, setting one’s soul free and environmental utopia. How had they survived living off-grid and below the poverty level for years? Had anyone changed course and gone mainstream? What had become of their dreams of self-reliance, simplicity, and freedom? And how did their children (now in their twenties) feel about their own “Hippie Kid” upbringings?

Not so long ago, those “Hippie” communities and their values were considered way too radical and fringe by the mainstream. Today, the Green Movement, looking to protect the earth for future generations, is wholeheartedly embracing them.

Back to the Garden presents a time-lapse view—twenty years in the lives of a group of idealist baby boomers who rejected and dropped out of the mainstream, who went back to the land, overcoming many personal sacrifices In pursuit of their dreams. It’s also a story about the personal consequences of those radical dreams and choices. Not only is this their story, but ours too, because the counterculture of the sixties affected all of us and forever changed our ideas about how we define love, wealth, spirituality and freedom.

Kevin Tomlinson
Healing Gathering (1988)

Filmmaker David M. Edwards talks about his film Sprawling from Grace

2010-08-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

Sprawling From Grace; Driven To Madness is a documentary feature film about the unintended consequences of suburban sprawl. It illustrates the importance of altering the course of how we develop our nation’s cities. It communicates the dangers of continuing to invest in the inefficient horizontal growth patterns of suburban communities, and details how they threaten to bankrupt the remaining wealth of our nation. It explores how the depletion of fossil fuels will impact this living arrangement, and investigates the viability of alternative energies that are currently available. This film sounds the alarm that the cheap fossil-fuel-dependant suburban American way of life is not just at risk. It is in peril!.

After interviewing close to thirty experts on the subject, one reoccurring theme has revealed itself. We can no longer continue building our cities in the same way we have over the last half-century. The suburbs, while being an integral part of our nation’s maturation, contribute substantially to our problems of air and water pollution, increasing our health risks, and decreasing our quality of life. Suburbia has trapped Americans behind the wheels of their automobiles, as they commute further and further distances to find good paying jobs. Given the inevitable depletion of non-renewable fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, it’s clear that this 50 year suburban experiment has created a host of unintended, unlivable consequences. Consequences we will have to find solutions for if we want a sustainable future in a post-fossil-fuel world.

This nation and its citizens have been lulled into a false sense of security. We are blissfully unaware of the impending ramifications of continuing the patterns of growth that have locked us behind the wheels of our cars. Like Nero, we are fiddling away, confident that tomorrow will be as promising as today. We don’t realize that with each new suburban subdivision, with each new strip-mall, each new corporate office park, that promise slips further and further away.

Wrestling with these emerging realities, state and city governments are finding that they can no longer encourage these patterns of growth by further investing in highway and utility infrastructures. They are now forced to find viable alternatives by investing in public transit in the form of BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), commuter rail, and light rail to serve their community’s transportation needs. Through this process they are gaining an historical understanding of the relationship between land use and transportation. They are rediscovering how well designed, walkable, mixed-use communities, that are served by transit can build and support local economies, aid in defining and creating communities, provide for diversity, improve accessibility, provide transit choices, reduce pollution, and improve health. These many benefits ensure a successful and sustainable solution to the problems associated with their growing populations. In our interview with former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, he quoted Albert Einstein saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and each time expecting a different result." He clarified this quote by adding, "Continuing to develop our cities in these ever increasing suburban sprawl patterns will increasingly diminish our quality of life, both physically and mentally. We simply have to stop building more highways!"

How we build our cities will determine the future of how we live our lives, how we form our values, and will determine what we leave for our next generation. It’s time we answer the wake up call.

Director Paul Lynch comments on the making of his film "Birth of a Movement"

2010-07-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

On January 28th 1969, just off the coast of Santa Barbara, oil burst out of the ocean like a black artesian well. The fallout and mishap were disheartening to say the least as residents gathered on the beaches to witness the oil slick coming to shore; there was nothing to stop it.

The Birth of a Movement is a documentary film investigating the 1969 oil blow out in Santa Barbara, which is considered by many to be the birth of the “modern environmental movement.” The activism inspired by this disaster quickly spread across the country and spawned landmark legislation, the first Earth Day, and the Environmental Studies program at UCSB.

The film aims to educate viewers about this important piece of history and motivate present and future generations alike to become good environmental stewards. Yet, this goal is unachievable without drawing connections between oil-development and the global financial crisis, climate change, and social injustice. Here we look 40 years back so as to look 40 years forward.

One of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century is how to deal with the dual-threat of global climate change and the inequities created by a capitalist dominated economy. We believe the solution is in merging the movements. Increased consumption, peak oil, polar caps melting, wars, pollution, and inequality reveal only one side of the story. The other side is the rise of grassroots movements redefining environmentalism in the 21st Century; it is The Birth of a Movement.

Board of Advisors

Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club
Marc McGinnes, J.D., Senior Lecturer Emeritus Environmental Studies, UCSB
Prof. Richard Appelbaum, Director MA Global & International Studies, UCSB
Paul Relis, Founding Director CEC, Executive Vice President for CR&R, Inc.
Monique Sonoquie, Founder, Indigenous Youth Foundation
Charlie Eckberg, Environmental Consultant & SB Environmental Leader

Patty Greer talks about the experience of making "The Wake Up Call"

2010-06-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

Re-printed from pattygreer.com:

I entered my first Crop Circle in Wiltshire England in 2006 and my life hasn’t been the same since. There’s no doubt in my mind that I experienced a DNA shift that day. As I walked up the tram lines (tractor tracks) toward the Crop Circle my heart was pounding and goosebumps rose all over my body. The energy was something I had never felt before. I was totally drawn in. It was raining pretty hard that day and the wet wheat was up to my thighs. It got pretty cold after a while but it didn’t seem to matter. The formation was precise and immaculate, breathtaking really. I felt my body light up and re-align energetically, it was the strangest feeling. I rarely talk about that first year because it wasn’t until 2007 that I returned to Europe on a Crop Circle mission. For 9 weeks I entrenched myself in the Crop Circle mystery.

Beginning in Italy I carried 14 photos of Italian Crop Circles that I had found on the internet. I mapped out the train routes and went for it. I spoke some Spanish but it was a challenge to find specific farm fields in remote villages in Italy on my own. I found 3 Italian Crop Circles in different areas and sadly they were all dry, dead, unattended and buzz free. Even my pendulum went limp. I was exhausted and disappointed by my Italian Crop Circle experience.
Arriving in England, the farm fields were strewn with exquisite Crop Circles. They had been appearing almost every day since late April. I spent 8 weeks in the UK Crop Circles studying the wheat for signs of unusual activity made apparent by the blown nodes (bubbles) in the stalks of the grain, and just ‘Being’ in the fields. I spent late nights on the hillsides with my hard core Croppie buddies, watching the skies for the anomalous Balls of Light. We had some amazing sightings….

I went back to the UK in 2008 and filmed 2 more movies in the Crop Circles, Stone circles and Faerie glens. These two movies, “2012-We’re Already In It” and “Crop Circles-2010 Update-The Wake Up Call” both won the 2009 and 2010 EBE Awards for ‘Best Feature Film-UFO or Related’ at the prestigious International UFO Congress Convention. They are Ascension based movies richly loaded with beautiful Crop Circle, Orb and UFO visuals.

I interviewed fascinating people from all over the world and hiked into places most film makers would never haul their gear. Always outdoors, keeping it real. Wearing the movie camera around my neck I shot from under a hooded plastic tarp if it was raining. Nothing stopped me.

The military helicopters hovered 50′ above as I conducted interviews in the Crop Circles a few times. It became annoying after 20 minutes or so…

Still I kept my focus on the true majesty of the Crop Circles and waited patiently. They are one of the greatest gifts today and they are accessible to everyone wanting to see them.

I came home with a complete documentary and had no previous interest, training or experience whatsoever in film making. The first movie made itself through me! I feature devoted Croppies who had muddy boots and dirty knees, the passionate folks who were in the fields day after day like me. This is intense ART spoken through Nature. Important messages perhaps?

When I brought the footage back to America, I completed the movie in no time. While editing I made an incredible discovery within the famous footage of 2 Balls of Light creating a Crop Circle in seconds. For no apparent reason I asked my editor to slow the footage down and play it backward. What we found was a direct and visible line of communication between the 2 Balls of Light just before the wheat lays down! This discovery is featured in “Crop Circles-2010 Update-The Wake Up Call” and “The Wake Up Call-Anybody Listening?”

“The Wake Up Call-Anybody Listening?” premiered at the 2008 International UFO Congress Convention a month after completion and was well received. As I headed to the convention my editor handed me his movie camera and said, “Do it by yourself!” So I shot my second documentary that week, “UFOs-ETs-Abductees and Brilliant Minds” which features 29 brilliant speakers at the UFO Congress Convention, up close, back stage and personal. It brings the viewer the best of this 10 day (14 hours per day) event with the brightest minds in the world on the subjects of UFOs and advanced technologies. I was blown away by what I heard. It was a crash course in UFO realities!

With all the changes happening in the world today and energies shifting as they are, movies that are POSITIVE and UPLIFTING are more important than ever. Our thoughts, feelings, words and actions ripple out across the world, so watch your thoughts.

I have great hopes for the shift we are Already In.

Enjoy the ride!

From the makers of 'What Babies Want' and 'Water Baby"

2010-05-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Debby Takikawa reveals her motivations for making the film What Babies Want:

"I have always been fond of children and as I was growing up I was a willing babysitter of any little creature who needed company, help or protection. It was natural for me then professionally as a chiropractor to be interested in children. I ran a process-oriented practice that included the body mind and emotions equally in healing. However I was completely taken by surprise when a woman with a chronic whiplash neck injury spontaneously remembered her birth as I was gently holding her head at the end of a session. Over a period of a few years, there were other unexpected and amazing memories that seemed to surface from the very tissue essence of my patients, and I became more intrigued by the phenomena of body memory.

At the same time it seemed natural that my practice should be filled with babies and children. Over the years I developed my practice into work with attachment therapy with mothers and babies to support them to deepen their connection and overcome stresses and traumas that interfered with that connection. In 2000 I opened a nonprofit public clinic (Beginnings Inc.), took on interns and developed a public outreach program. The film What Babies Want is part of that outreach. It started out to be a short educational video and ended up with a creative life of its own, becoming an award winning documentary film, with Best Documentary, Audience Choice and Special Recognition from various film festivals. It has been shown in many countries and in many theaters as well as in homes, offices and in a variety of centers for healthy birth. I have since written a book and am developing a What Babies Want Parenting Series TM of films and books."

From Karil Daniels, regarding WATER BABY: EXPERIENCES OF WATER BIRTH:

"I've always been motivated by balance, fairness, sensitivity and the personal empowerment of individuals. Yet, I've noted that American culture fails us in many of these, and childbirth is especially problematic. As I've observed how traumatized women and babies often are at birth, I was troubled by the lack of control by, or respect for, the mother's wishes, which has been too common. I've also been concerned about the exclusion or minimization of the father's role at one of the most important events in his life. I knew a great deal of improvement was needed, and I wanted to contribute to it.

As an independent filmmaker interested in health subjects, cutting edge topics and social issues, when the opportunity to film a waterbirth presented itself, I happily took it. The things I learned in the course of filming amazed me, and I knew I had to make a film for expectant parents and healthcare providers, to teach them what I'd learned. That led to expanding the filming of just one waterbirth, initially for curiosity, to producing an in-depth feature documentary, and to following the story to France and Russia to film with the world's leading waterbirth pioneers. Ultimately, by bringing this vital information out, WATER BABY catalyzed the waterbirth method in the USA, and the families who have experienced waterbirth have been greatly enriched by it."

Farm Facts

2010-04-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

Farm Facts
Re-printed from Miranda Productions.com

Only 0.2% of U.S. population is producing most of its food. The average age of U.S. farmers is currently fifty-six.
US Census Bureau

We suffer a net loss of 32,500 farms a year. 88% of average farm household income is derived from off-farm.
PrairieFire for Rural Action

U.S. farmers apply nearly 45 billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers each year. From 1990-1994, food processors and manufacturers showed an annual average return on their investment of 17.9%. Farmers during the same period showed a 1.98% return on their investment.
PrairieFire for Rural Action

In 1971 a new tractor cost $20,000 and wheat was $1.71 a bushel. In 1994 a new tractor of the same horsepower cost $100,000 and a bushel of wheat was $2.66.
Des Moines Register 7/16/94

Soil loss costs the U.S. economy around $44 billion a year. Worldwide, the number is well over $200 billion.
Dr. David Pimentel, Science magazine

Every pregnant woman in the world today has chemicals in her body that disrupt the endocrine system. These are transferred to the fetus as it grows. She also has measurable concentrations of endocrine disruptors in her milk that are transferred to the infant.
ERICE Statement 5/30/96

The World Resources Institute reports that, measured by traditional methods, the average farm shows an $80 per acre profit. If we calculate in all the costs of soil loss, water contamination, and environmental degradation caused by conventional farming practices, the average farm would show a $29 per acre loss.

Food in supermarkets travels an average of 1300 miles between production and consumption.

Out of every dollar Americans spend for food, ten cents goes to Phillip Morris, and six cents goes to Conagra.
PrairieFire for Rural Action

In a USDA study of twelve common food crops, from 35% to 80% of all samples tested had residues from one or more pesticides. This was after the samples had been washed, peeled and cored. In these residues were 12 different carcinogens, 17 different neurotoxins, and 11 different endocrine disruptors.
Environmental Working Group

Tree bark gathered from ninety sites around the world, from the tropics to the treeline, bears traces of chemicals related to DDT, lindane, chlordane, aldrin, and to 18 other pesticides and fungicides. Some chemicals used decades ago are still affecting the environment, often thousands of miles from where they were sprayed.
Associated Press 9/30/95

4.7 billion pounds of pesticides are annually applied to food crops worldwide. 1.25 billion pounds of pesticides were used in the U.S. in 1995, an all-time high.
EPA draft document June 1996

Assault rifles kill an estimated 250 people each year and pesticides kill an estimated 10,400 people each year, yet assault rifles have been banned while the use of pesticides is expanding.
Environmental News Weekly

Every spring, 18,000 pounds per day of herbicides wash down the Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico.
Environmental Working Group

Between 1950 (the beginning of the Chemical Age) and 1988, the incidence of all forms of cancer increased by 43.5%, adjusted for age. Mortality rates from cancer rose by 2.9%.
Environmental News Weekly

In the United States, despite the use of pesticides, 35% of potential crops are lost to insects, diseases, and weeds. In 1945, before synthetic pesticides came into use, crop losses were 33%.
Dr. David Pimentel, Cornell University

Sales of U.S. organic products increased from $2.31 billion in 1994 to $2.8 billion in 1995. This is a 22% increase, and the sixth year in which sales have grown by more than 20%.
Natural Foods Merchandiser survey, June 1996

The USDA states that total organic cropland is approximately 1,127,000 acres in 1996, up from an estimated 550,267 acres in 1991. The number of organic farmers almost doubled between 1991 and 1994, increasing from 2,841 to 4,060.

Interview with Evgeny Morozov about Twitter and the Iran elections

2010-03-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

Iran elections: A Twitter Revolution?
(Re-posted from washingtonpost.com)

Evgeny Morozov

Blogger, Foreign Policy Magazine and Fellow, Open Society Institute
Wednesday, June 17, 2009; 3:00 PM

Evgeny Morozov: It's very hard to say with absolute certainty if the government is trying to ban certain Web sites, Twitter included. The problem is that Iran's Internet infrastructure is not very advanced to start with; the connection could often be slow, even in normal times. When millions of people are suddenly trying to get online at the same time, it's logical that resources may simply become unavailable or take too much to load. On top of that, some Web sites are under server cyber-attacks, which slows down access to them as well; cyber-attacks also slow down the Iranian internet in general. So, when a Web site doesn't load, it can mean quite a lot of things, and it might take us some time to have conclusive answers as to whether there has been any manipulation/censorship.

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Fairfax, Va.: There's been a lot written about the coverage in Iran this past weekend and that the U.S. news organizations didn't really carry their weight but that Twitter and other similar Web sites did spread news and let people know around the world what was going on in Iran. Comments?

Evgeny Morozov: We saw quite a few citizen journalists doing an excellent job of taking photos and videos of protests in Tehran almost in real-time. They have, indeed, filled an important niche. Networks like Twitter, similarly, have played a great role in attracting people's attention to this user-generated content. So, Flickr provided great photos -- and Twitter provided great attention to these photos. There has, indeed, been a lot of criticism of the lack of Iran-related coverage on CNN; Twitter users have even organized an entire campaign to deal with this called #cnnfail. I think they have been successful: CNN executives/reporters eventually had to answer questions about it.

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Washington, D.C.: It seems like this is maybe the first time that technology has played such a role, with text messages and pictures on Twitter and other sites plus the use of cell phone cameras too. Is it a first? What is the Iranian government doing to try to stop information from coming out?

Evgeny Morozov: It's definitely not a first time. Technology has traditionally played a very important role in facilitating protest; remember that the early anti-communist protests in Poland were facilitated with the help of the Xerox machines! In the last decade, we have seen technology play a crucial role in helping people gather and, most importantly, get heard. Some of it was with the help of SMS technology; some -- with the help of blogs. You can look at the protests in the Philippines, Ukraine, Belarus, Burma, Moldova in the last decade and see that technology has been playing a very strong role in all of them! This, however, doesn't mean that the authoritarian governments themselves would not be exploring this technology for their own benefits; we have seen examples of that in Russia and China, to name only a few. I fundamentally disagree with the argument that technology favors only pro-Western and pro-democracy activists; it could easily favor the extremists too. Remember that the 1979 Iranian revolution was facilitated and brought about by tape recorders and video cassettes. So we definitely need to keep a sense of historical perspective here.

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Bel Air, Md.: Is there a danger with the new technology of unqualified people "reporting" the news? Citizen journalists? Is there value in this? It's a Web generation that's out there doing reporting skills, etc. Is this where the world should get its news?

Evgeny Morozov: There are definitely dangers involved and we have to be very careful about what we read on blogs and Twitter. I know of many efforts where platforms like these have been deliberately abused to spread misinformation and cause panic. There are, however, also some very interesting new initiatives that can help us separate trustworthy content from what seems like government propaganda. In the case of Iran, for example, there have been several initiatives to compile the online names of Twitter users who appear to be working for the government or spreading misinformation. One such list is available at a Web site called TwitSpam. While their data is definitely not very authoritative, it could still helps us navigate this brave new world of user-generated content. I think we are at a point where we don't really have a choice: if the Iran succeeds in banning foreign reporters from doing any real work in the country, all we'll be left with would be Twitter and blog reports, so we'd better figure out ways in which we can prioritize and authenticate this information.

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Chantilly, Va.: Social media is really stepping out. Technology is king. Voices are being heard. What's next?

Evgeny Morozov: I would caution against such an openly cyber-utopian perspective. As we have seen in the last few days, cyber activism without context could actually be extremely harmful as well. For example, we saw a lot of calls for Twitter users to participate in cyber-attacks on pro-government Web sites in Iran. While this seems nice in theory -- wouldn't it be nice to help the opposition there by shutting down government's propaganda channels? -- it also has had a negative effect on the overall Internet connectivity in the country. Simply put, attacking the Web sites of Ahmadinejad supporters has made life worse for everyone else, including their opponents. This is the kind of cyber-activism we'd rather avoid.

Another similar instance has been a campaign to publicize lists of so-called "proxy servers" that could help bypass some of the restrictions imposed by the government. Many Twitter users were posting links to them. However, by publicizing them too much, they also destroyed the value of such proxy servers, simply because the government and its loyalists also obtained access to them and proceeded to ban them.

So, it's very important not to get too starry-eyed about it and try to be as strategic as possible. Also, if you are not fully sure about the impact that your act of online support might have on the situation on the ground, you'd better think twice about engaging in it.

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New York, N.Y.: How do we know that what winterers in Iran write is true? How do we know that the regime is not having "hired winterers" to spread confusing info?

Even Morose: See my earlier response about lists prepared by Twit Spam. In most cases, we don't know who is who and we should be extremely cautious. Many other governments have already developed capabilities to manipulate new media space; they have created their own "spinneret" -- an Internet full of spin and propaganda. They have also learned how to do it in ways that would not be easily detectable. Even in the case of the much-discussed "Twitter revolution" in Moldova in April, we saw attempts to spread misinformation and lies -- and most of these lies came from newly created accounts on Twitter. Thus, we have to be extremely careful and apply our best judgment. If we are not entirely sure about the truth of the information we are reading, we'd better not spread it around by reposting it to Face book, emailing it to our friends, etc

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Minsk: What's the advantage of using Twitter for Iranians? Why not use "safer" channels (e.g., closed discussion groups, etc.)? Is Twitter so popular among Iranian youth, in other words, to be actually useful for mobilization and broadcasting purposes?

Evgeny Morozov: You are right: in my opinion, there are VERY FEW advantages of using Twitter in Iran in order to plan protests (or even the revolution itself, if it's in the plans). The key thing to understand about successful political protests is that they rarely succeed if the government has the ability to monitor them from the very beginning. By discussing the organization of such protests on Twitter and other public forums, young Iranians probably hurt their effectiveness. I am yet to see evidence that Twitter is, indeed, being used on a mass scale to plan protests.

What IS definitely happening is that Twitter is used to publicize protests that are already going on -- and bring the world's attention to the acts of violence committed by the regime. Twitter's open platform and excellent ability to quickly spread information in decentralized fashion are perfect for this; this is why we see so many references to Iran there at the moment.

Another problem is that we don't really know how many people ARE actually using Twitter in Iran today. This has to do with the fact that many Twitter users who are not in Iran decided to set their online location to Tehran in order to protect those who are twittering locally. This may have helped some of Iranian Twitter users avoid persecution but it has made it impossible for us to find out the real impact of Twitter on the situation on the ground. My hunch is that this impact could be much more limited than we expect.

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Washington, D.C.: Do we know anything about the extent to which the authorities have sought to interfere with mobile telephony in Iran?

Evgeny Morozov: Once again, we can't tell it for sure. If we look at other similar protests outside of Iran, yes, authorities have been quite eager to turn off mobile coverage, particularly in areas where protesters are likely to congregate (this happened in Belarus and Moldova in the last few years, for example). I have seen reports that mobile networks were down in Iran too, but it's very hard to say whether it was due to interference by the government or by simply because of heavier-than-usual use by mobile phone users. Logically, during times of turmoil, there is always more demand for the scarce mobile resource as people start checking in on their friends and beloved ones. So, not every network outage is necessarily an act of the government, even though there are good reasons to suspect them of intervention.

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Arlington, Va. : What is the risk like for false information being spread and picked up by the media through this cyberweb of news?

Evgeny Morozov: The risks are certainly great and Twitter's 140-character-only environment makes them even greater. While Twitter may be great for sharing links to Web sites, articles, and blog posts that may be very long and elaborate, it's very hard to make a good argument in 140 characters or less. Thus, there is a very big risk of someone misinterpreting of what you are trying to say -- after all, there is very little room for context. Similarly, there is a lot of confusion about the authorship and, thus, the credibility of some reports: if I repost someone else's update from Tehran, but remove that person's name for space considerations, are my Twitter "followers" likely to understand that this is NOT me reporting it? Those are all questions that we need to answer before we jump to conclusions about "Twitter" reports from Tehran.

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Washington, D.C.: Some reports have said that not that many people in Iran were twittering, that it came from outside the country and the internal numbers were negligent. Do you have any proof of this?

Evgeny Morozov: See my earlier response to a similar question. I am afraid we are not going to find out an answer to this question any time soon. In addition to thousands of people who have now listed their location at Tehran as an act of solidarity/support to the protesting Iranians, there is a huge Iranian diaspora that, in my understanding at least, is using social media even more actively than their peers back in Iran. So, if the person's name sounds Iranian, they have some content in Farsi on their blog, and are posting a lot about events in Tehran - how do we know if they are in Tehran or, say, Los Angeles? This might take quite a lot of time to investigate and figure out for sure, and I am afraid that we are jumping to conclusions too soon.

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Wilmington, N.C.: Has anyone interviewed the founders of Twitter? I bet they had no idea their seemingly frivolous site would amount to such an important role in the almost violent-free changing of an authoritarian government. I'm almost disappointed, though, that the State Department had to ask them not to do maintenance work on a crucial daytime hour. But all in all it is still really great . Thank you for taking my comment and question.

Evgeny Morozov: I think we should give more credit to Twitter's founders (who have, indeed, been interviewed on the matter). As they said -- and I have no idea to doubt their words -- they would have postponed the maintenance even if the State Department didn't contact them. This was a very easy decision to make, as the Twitter community was really ready for a rebellion if there was no postponement. Yes, I think they may not have expected how Twitter would be used in places like Iran or Moldova. However, I think this only highlights how good this service is; most great technologies have several uses -- and the most interesting uses are never anticipated by their founders.

However, I think we should also be a bit critical of the State Department. Instead of just going after Twitter for wanting to carry out maintenance, they may have as well gone after their colleagues in the U.S. Treasury who have instituted some draconian measures on the export of U.S. software to Iran. Instant messaging software like MSN Messenger, for example, is no longer available in Iran, since Iran is on the list of embargoed states. The Twitter Revolution in Iran could have been much different if the U.S. government was not taking away with one hand what they give with another: allowing Iranians to access all reasonable online and offline tools should be the objective of the U.S. government policy here.

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Potomac, Md.: Has all the tweeting and blogging mostly been from the opposition side of Mousavi supporters? Have there been tweets from the Ahmadinejad side of things? Whose hands is the technology in, just the university students?

Evgeny Morozov: There have definitely been blogs posts and tweets from both sides. However, if you look only at English-language content on Twitter, you may get a different impression -- most of the posts there look as if they have been posted only by supporters of Mousavi. This, however, is only because they do so in English and have a much bigger support base among English-speakers.

However, we should also understand that there are few incentives for supporters of Ahmadinejad to use Twitter; they would not succeed in converting most American or European users of Twitter to their side. Thus, I assume they are relying on other online platforms that may actually help them reach out the local population -- and it's the local population that is going to determine the outcome of this battle. So, to really understand how new media tools have been used by both sides, we need to look at Farsi-language Internet forums and blogs-- something that is simply beyond most Twitter users at the moment, for language reasons. I suspect that if we carried out a full analysis of all content, we would see a very different picture.

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D.C.: Sorry to post this late and without reading the rest of the chat. I don't know if you've responded to this question yet. If you haven't -- a friend recommended changing Twitter settings to location = Tehran and time zone for Tehran. I did this, but is that effective for confusing Iranian "security" types? Meaningful? Widespread?

Evgeny Morozov: I mentioned this in passing while responding to an earlier question but let me elaborate. I think it's not going to confuse the Iranian authorities. Nor do I think that they are going to lock up the entire Twitter population of Iran. They will most likely go after very visible and high-profile Twitter users; those, I think, are already well-known to them and they certainly keep an eye on what those are writing. We have seen that the Iranian authorities are capable of jailing bloggers - they have do so many times in the past. I think they may eventually start intimidating bloggers and Twitter users once the protests quiet down (if they do). In other words, I don't think it's the lack of candidates for arrest that stops them from doing this at the moment.

One inadvertent consequence of this cyber-campaign to change users' location settings to Tehran was to inflate the number of real Twitter users in Iran. Right now, it's impossible to tell for sure how many users Twitter really has in the country; consequently, we can only speculate about the real role that it played. The documented low number of Twitter users in Moldova (i.e. those who chose Moldova as their location), for example, was one of the arguments against calling those events a "Twitter revolution". I am not sure we would be able to make the same argument with Iran anymore.

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Santa Barbara, Calif.: Is the Iranian government aware that outsiders have launched DDOS (denial of service) attacks on their servers? If so, do you think there will be any repercussions either domestically or internationally because of such attacks?

Evgeny Morozov: It's very ironic but I think the Iranian government hugely benefited from these DDOS attacks. I've already explained this in an earlier answer, but, in short, these DDOS attacks have made Internet in Iran very slow, thus thwarting people's ability to get pictures and videos and even blog post out of the country. I am not sure that the Iranian government really needed much of a Web presence; they, after all, control much of television and radio and can influence their domestic audience through those (much more powerful) means. Thwarting their citizens' the ability to communicate to the outside world, however, has been one of their key objectives -- and I think that DDOS attacks have inadvertently helped them achieve it.

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Evgeny Morozov: Thank you all very much for very informed and challenging questions. I've enjoyed responding to them. I'll continue blogging about the role of social media in Iran on my Foreign Policy blog, so please tune in!

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washingtonpost.com: Foreign Policy: Evgeny Morozov's Blog

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Chantilly, Va.: Social media is really stepping out. Technology is king. Voices are being heard. What's next?

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New York, N.Y.: How do we know that what winterers in Iran write is true? How do we know that the regime is not having "hired winterers" to spread confusing info?

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Washington, D.C.: Do we know anything about the extent to which the authorities have sought to interfere with mobile telephony in Iran?

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Arlington, Va. : What is the risk like for false information being spread and picked up by the media through this cyberweb of news?

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washingtonpost.com: Foreign Policy: Evgeny Morozov's Blog

Interview with James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch, the directors of Food Matters

2010-01-18T11:42:00.000-08:00

(Re-printed from an article in Common Ground Magazine)

Food Matters
documentary inspired by love of family
interview by Joseph Roberts
October 2008

Joseph Roberts: What inspired you to produce Food Matters?

James Colquhoun: The biggest single motivator for us was personal experience. My father was quite unwell at the time. He was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety and depression and not responding well to a raft of medications. He was suffering quite severely from the side effects. That spurred our personal interest in sourcing alternatives for healing and looking at the source of the problem, as opposed to masking symptoms which medications often do.

That led us to study at the Global College of Natural Medicine. We were quite surprised that many others are familiar with the concept that you can eat well to prevent illness. We also discovered that nutritional therapy and detoxification processes can reverse illness – heart disease, diabetes, depression, cancer and mental illness. That was a really big turning point for us and we were quite motivated to inform as wide a population as possible.

JR: Which basic principles did you discover?

JC: Metabolic illnesses play a part in just about every illness that exists – you have an over-toxicity and a lack of nutrients. These can be caused by any number of things, but in order to reverse these illnesses, we need to look at detoxifying the body and replenishing nutrients. Those concepts basically facilitate our bodies to create balance and self-heal. Everyone is familiar with how your body heals itself when you cut yourself or if you have some sort of scar. It’s not such a different concept whether you have a cut on your arm or heart disease or diabetes and so forth. Once you restore balance to the body and give it the environment that creates optimum health and balance, it will regenerate and self-heal.

James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch

Laurentine ten Bosch: Our society has become so used to instant gratification as a way of life that we always look at the symptoms first – how we can tackle them and the quickest way to overcome them. The pharmaceutical industry knows how to approach the instant gratification society very well. Many of the teachers in our film, however, are looking at how we can resolve the underlying cause, rather than just fixing the symptoms.

JR: How did you get interested in these issues?

LB: A lot of our family was overcome by illness and we’d both been working in fields where we regularly dealt with a lot of people. I was working in the food service industry and we realized that we weren’t really looking at what we were putting into people’s mouths.

JR: In 2000, Studio D of the National Film Board produced the documentary The Genetic Takeover. Common Ground rented a theatre and showed the film to hundreds of people. Following the film, we had a Q & A with a panel of spokespeople from Greenpeace, the Society Preventing Environmental Conservation, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club and others.

LB: People are hosting screenings of our film all over the world through the Brave New Theatre platform. We’ve teamed up with this company and people everywhere can register to host a screening, anywhere – in their living rooms or a community centre or a cinema or a church. [See www.foodmatters.tv/]

JR: That helps build community too.

LB: We’ve got a lot of screenings in America – all over the East and West coasts –in Canada, even Australia and New Zealand are really coming along. Even places we haven’t marketed to like Norway and Tel Aviv and Israel.

JR: What do you feel passionate about nowadays?

JC: We’re as passionate as ever about having this message heard by as many people as possible. We believe that if one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population watch this film, we can create a shift in conscious awareness surrounding nutrition and natural healing. We would really love our message to be so widely heard that it can create that shift. We’d love to see our film used in conjunction with other media and information sources as a means to shift regulatory bodies and governments. If individuals demand nutritional therapy and ask for these approaches to healing, we can essentially shift the industry away from a sickness-based model to a wellness-based model. It’s extremely fulfilling for us to be a part of that process and that message.

JR: Why did you call the film Food Matters?

JC: We had a number of other titles for the film, but it actually originated with a comment from David Wolfe, the raw food commentator in the film. During our interview with him, he said that we now realize that food does matter; food matters.

JR: What is your position on Frankenfoods?

JC: Our stance on genetically modified foods is similar to that of Arnaud Apoteker, the head of the anti-genetically modified foods campaign for Greenpeace. He says that this manipulation of the environment and of food is a huge biological experiment on a global scale that cannot be controlled and is extremely dangerous. It’s a risk we should not be taking. The single most important thing that each country should adhere to is the clear labelling of genetically modified foods. If people had the choice of organic, all-natural foods versus genetically engineered, heavily processed foods and the labels delineated the two, I’m certain they would veer away from Frankenfoods.

LB: We have the same issue in Australia. We’ve just been notified that our country is now more open to genetically modified foods, which is a big shame for the farmers who are growing organic food and trying to promote it. Although we would have loved to, we weren’t able to focus on it in our film; it would have made for a very long film.

JR: Is the government in Australia similar to Canada, in that it is run by very large corporations with a lot of clout?

JC: Every governmental body globally is lobbied by interest groups and the more effective they are, the more they can change legislation in their favour. The most effective ones are those with the biggest pockets, and the companies with the biggest pockets seem to be the agro-chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies. That’s why the decisions that are made predominantly support the multi-nationals, whose interests are not necessarily for the health of the general public.

As individuals, we have an opportunity to shift consumer choices. Laurentine and I like to talk about “flirting with your shopping trolley.” If people support sustainability, organics, biodynamics, sustainable farming and foods that support health, corporations will quickly shift to make sure there’s enough supply. Hopefully, we can create change from the bottom up instead of from the governmental level down. Our focus is on intellectual distribution. We’re concerned with distributing good, solid information to as wide an audience as possible. People contact us every day saying this has changed their lives or they’ve used the information in conjunction with a holistic practitioner to be able to correct their depression or their other illnesses. These sorts of responses are very gratifying.

JR: You provide a forum for many different groups in the film with various approaches to diet – vegetarians and non-vegetarians, vegans, people into raw food. The common thread is that people can improve their health and recover from diseases caused by poor food and lifestyle choices or toxic, environmental poisoning.

JC: Our message is to spread the good news that there are other opportunities for healing outside of the conventional realm for people who are suffering from illness or pain. The more this knowledge spreads, the more people will have access to life-saving information, which is the most fulfilling role we can play.

We’re really excited about people taking our message to the world through the platforms we’ve set up on our website; people can purchase a copy of the film and hold screenings in their local communities. They can also purchase wholesale copies for families or friends. We’ve had so many wonderful people step up and help with this. We really hope this will continue to create a shift in consciousness about how we interact with nutrition and wellness.

LB: I’d like to add that we started from a grave concern for people who are ill and who don’t know where to turn. In America, you get bombarded by advertising. It’s a capitalist society and marketing goes on everywhere. We were quite concerned for people who are ill. Doctors don’t have time to talk about nutrition and opportunities. They don’t have enough time to teach and hold hands.

We looked at the opportunities for people from a truth-seeking perspective – what really works and which modalities are getting results. That’s why we’re very lucky to have studied at the Global College of Natural Medicine, an independent organization with no government funding so you don’t see the influences of the meat and dairy boards and pharmaceutical companies. We were lucky to have these teachers speak to us through the college.

JR: How do people find out about the college?

LB: It’s online at www.gcnm.com, based out of Santa Cruz, California. You can study their programs from all over the world. We were fortunate to be able to learn from them. It was these teachers who inspired us.

________________________________________________________________________

Also check out the official Food Matters film blog at:

http://www.foodmattersblog.com/

Director Rod Mann talks about his film “Entheo:Genesis”

2009-12-16T15:00:00.000-08:00

ROD MANN: AWAKENING THE DIVINE WITHIN
by Elise McDonough
(excerpted from High Times October 2007)

Let's talk about the beginning of this project, before you even started
shooting. Why did you decide to make this type of movie?

It grew out of a class on altered states of consciousness I took at CIIS [California Institute of Integrated Studies] taught by Ralph Metzner. I was inspired by an interview he'd done with Peter Jennings involving a report on MDMA debunking the Ricaurte study. It was proven that MDMA was not actually tested in a study that showed brain damage as the result of Ecstasy use; instead, it was methamphetamine that produced these harmful results.

It was a very powerful piece, and it inspired us to start work on this movie that we had been talking about for a long time.

The film started out as a cataloging of the contemporary studies at UCLA, Harvard and around the world that are using entheogenic and psychedelic compounds as adjuncts to psychotherapy. We began unfolding the origins of shamanic use and added a chapter on shamanism, and then got into the use of psychedelics in indigenous cultures as rites of passage. Then we had to explain the importance of rites of passage, and then the focus of the film changed: It became more about this cycle of what went wrong in the 60s and 70s -- and
now this renaissance in psychedelic use, this resurgence.

What do you hope people will take away from this movie after they see it?

I hope there will be an experience of understanding the many ways that we all find to participate with some form of expression, whether it be poetry, hip -hop, trance dancing, surfing, race-car driving -- any of the various ways in which you can interact with the edge of tension and transcend the internal chatter. It's about honoring the many ways that we find flow, which is about being able to improvise and react in the moment, because through flow we find balance in our lives.

In many ways, this film tells the collective visions and stories of that which is ineffable to the one but tangible through the eyes of the many. So you have many different, beautifully passionate and inspiring individuals, all talking towards this same collective psyche, and about patterns in the evolution of consciousness through the origins of indigenous cultures practicing animism and shamanism, and how that influenced Western thought.

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Click here to listen to an audio podcast interview with Rod Mann on In a Perfect World

John Marks talks about his film "Shape of the Future"

2009-11-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

Middle East Peace Documentary Airs Simultaneously to Israelis, Palestinians
August 8, 2005

(Re-Printed from Voice of America news.com)

"The convention is that when you make a documentary about the Middle East conflict, it's full of bloodshed and historical footage. We've made a documentary series that has neither blood nor historical footage," says writer-producer John Marks. “In other words, we're trying to talk about the future. We're trying to show people that peace is possible, that it can be achieved, and that people really don't have to live in a conflict for their entire life."

Mr. Marks is founder and president of Search for Common Ground, a 23-year-old conflict resolution organization that creates media to solve problems that most people might think of as impossible: problems like the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. The group’s latest production, The Shape of the Future, is the first program ever broadcast simultaneously by Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab television.

"We were on the ground in Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank, shooting this for a year,” Mr. Marks said. “And we spent a lot of time talking to people about the future. We asked them, for example, what kind of future did they want, what would a normal life be for them, that was an important question."

Interviewed in their homes, Israelis and Palestinians expressed similar yearnings. "A normal life in this country, here in Jerusalem, is the kind of life where you do not have to be afraid,” says Israeli Riki Amedi.

“A normal life, in my opinion," says Palestinian Neveen-Abu-Rumeil, "is when every woman, her husband and children, are able to live in a home where they do not need to lock the doors -- where you do not fear there are military raids outside."

The series, which aired in both Hebrew and Arabic versions, interviewed people on both sides of the divide about how to solve the four basic issues: Jerusalem, security, Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements and borders.

“We used people's stories and their lives as a way of going through it,” Mr. Marks said. “And in each one of the programs, we would have a pair, several pairs of Palestinians and Israelis, people who were roughly the equivalent of each other."

"I prefer to see Jerusalem unified,” an Israeli journalist says in the film. “That means one city in terms of running the place and taking care of the population, while we are also talking about two capitals."

A Palestinian counterpart agrees: “I am convinced that Jerusalem could be the capital of two states and an open and joint city. That would solve the problem of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and also solve the problem of the city as a whole."

"We also tried to speak as much as possible to the center and to the right,” John Marks said. “We avoided what you would call the usual suspects for peace, who could be wonderful people, it wasn't a question of that, but we felt that we would have much more impact if we could get people who were more conservative to talk about what needed to happen."

And so, the Israelis who speak about compromising on settlements include a brigadier general, Dov Sedaka, and a former head of the settlers' council, Otniel Schneller:

"Under certain circumstances,” Mr. Schneller says at one point, “I would agree, for the sake of peace, to give up part of my land."

General Sedaka contends, “The dismantlement of settlements will not decrease the security of the state of Israel. I think that the state of Israel will be more secure if there is a Palestinian state."

Among the Palestinians who speak about the refugee issue is a former minister of prisoner affairs for the Palestinians, Hisham Abdel Razeq, who spent 20 years in Israeli prisons. He notes, "A political solution would deny both the Israeli grand dream and the Palestinian grand dream. It would require an agreement between the two sides to live in peace and to end the state of war and conflict."

“We cannot live on our swords forever. To kill and be killed,” the Israeli journalist says towards the end of the film. A Palestinian broadcaster puts it poetically: "Each side was brought up on dreams. Both parties should perhaps reach a truce with dreams.”

The Shape of the Future will have a second life after broadcast. John Marks says one Palestinian organization has already created an educational curriculum based on the film and trained 150 teachers. And an accompanying music video, by popular Israeli and Palestinian musicians David Broza and Wisam Murad, singing the same words in Hebrew and Arabic, is reaching many more people, appealing to the hopes of many Israelis and Palestinians for a peaceful settlement.

Sundance Film Festival: The rebel and the Empress

2009-10-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

Thirty years after being forced into exile with her husband, the Shah of Iran, Queen Farah explains to Geoffrey Macnab why she agreed to a documentary on her life

Empress Farah, the widow of the Shah of Iran, is set to be an unlikely star of the Sundance Film Festival.

After repeated requests, she has agreed to speak to me about a new documentary, The Queen and I, in which she is the subject. The film – which has been chosen for the Sundance Festival – was directed by the Iranian-born film-maker Nahid Persson, a former communist who spent much of her early life trying to topple the Shah's regime. In theory, the two women – the deposed monarch and the revolutionary – should detest one another. In practice, when they came face to face, they discovered they have more in common than either anticipated.

Both are mothers. Both are exiles (Empress Farah in Paris, Persson in Sweden). Both have suffered bereavement. (Persson's teenage brother was executed in the early days of the Khomeni regime.) Both feel the same nostalgia for the homeland they left behind. Both are dismayed at the course of Iranian society, 30 years after the revolution, as an Islamic republic, under the current President, Ahmadinejad.

"She [Nahid Persson] was an Iranian and she was a woman. Although I knew that she held a different political opinion, I thought at some point we had to have a dialogue and that we should not keep our animosity and bitterness forever. That is why I accepted," the Empress says to explain her decision to take part in the documentary.

Since leaving Iran in 1979 with the Shah, who died in 1980, the Empress has had plentiful experience in the glare of Western media. To many, she is a symbol of a regime guilty of human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech. To her supporters, she is a link with an old order that they hope will one day be restored.

At times, Persson's documentary makes the deposed queen seem like a modern-day Marie Antoinette. With its archive footage of the Empress in her crown at her coronation ceremony shown next to old newsreel material of her forced into exile after the revolution as street protesters burned her image, it highlights the extreme contrasts in her life. One moment, she is living an existence of fairy tale-style opulence. The next, she's a pariah. Old friends melted away as she and her husband looked for sanctuary after the revolution.

The Empress knew that once she agreed to participate in Persson's film, she would have little control over how she was portrayed. "She [Persson] had the camera and had the editing power. It's like interviews you do. You say what you do but you are not in control of the ideas of the person who is making the film about you or interviewing you."

Even after shooting had begun, she had reservations. There are moments caught on camera when she seems on the verge of backing out: "You never know after all these years, and all the ups and downs of my life and all my interviews, I wasn't quite sure what would be the result of the film," the Empress explains. "At one point, as you saw in the film, I was tired and I was not sure I was doing the right thing. But then I decided I should continue. After all, I have been the queen of my country for 20 years. Even if I have been outside the country for 30 years, I still have feelings for my country."

She knew Persson was bitterly opposed to the Shah's regime but says that the film-maker was only a teenager at the time of the revolution. "She came from a very poor family. At that age, they believe communism can give them happiness and equality. That's why I still have a feeling for the young people in Iran."

The Empress is loyal to her husband's memory. She isn't about to apologise for the perceived excesses of the Shah's regime. In the documentary, just in case the portrait offered of her is too sentimental, Persson includes a harrowing interview with a man tortured under the Shah. "All these people who say 'Long Live Farah', if they hear the truth and if they have a conscience, they would stop saying that," he says.

The director also films a press conference in Berlin where the Empress is asked about the poverty that existed at the time of the Shah. She acknowledges that life "wasn't perfect" but that is as close as she comes to contrition. The get-out clause, for both film-maker and subject, is that the situation in Iran today in terms of human rights is worse than it was under the Shah.

There is also the sense that during the time of the Shah, the Empress and the film-maker lived – as Farah puts it – "in two different worlds". Behind the palace walls, Farah had little sense of the daily problems of working-class families like Persson's.

What makes The Queen and I moving and disorienting is the unlikely friendship that springs up between the two women. The film-maker is clearly wary about being seduced by the charm of the Empress. The Empress, for her part, knew that the documentary could easily turn into a hatchet job. However, both the director and her subject eventually rise above their suspicions of one another. When they come face to face, they can't help but like one another.

Persson discovered that the Empress knew about her previous work (including such documentaries as Prostitution Behind the Veil and Four Wives – One Man. "When I met her, I saw her as a normal person," the director says. "When I saw her first, I thought 'strange woman'. She is very beautiful now but I remembered her as very young, very charismatic, with all clothes and a crown and everything. Now I was standing in her apartment alone."

"I think it is a new idea and, above all, I think in the end, it has a positive message," the Empress replies when I ask if she is impressed with the documentary. "I think it is fair. [But] Nahid spoke and expressed her opinions [in the documentary] when she was alone. I was not given the chance to do the same thing the other way."

The Queen and I is bound to polarise opinion. Supporters of the Empress will be deeply suspicious that their figurehead agreed to appear in a documentary made by a former communist. Colleagues of Persson may well question why she has made such a sympathetic film about a woman who symbolised a regime they detested. The Empress seems philosophical about these conflicting responses. "I have to listen to my compatriots' opinions. I can't give an opinion on their behalf. I once heard someone asked what is the secret of success. He said, 'I don't know what the secret of success is but the secret of failure is trying to please everybody'. I guess some will like the documentary and some will dislike it. It's like anything else. The supporters who know me and who understand me will agree with what I have done. But as I say, you can't please everyone."

No, The Empress is unlikely to be going on the festival circuit to accompany screenings of The Queen and I at Sundance and elsewhere. "It is Nahid's film. I frankly don't think that I could go to attend these festivals ... but I wish Nahid success."

--Re-printed from an article on the Sundance Film Festival in UK publication The Independent, originally published Friday, 9 January 2009

Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival

2009-09-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

Exerpts from an Article in SF 360:
By Robert Avila

Who says it’s not easy being green? If you ask the folks behind the Bay Area-based Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival, engaging films with positive and eye-opening ecological themes can not only be easy but high fun. And they’ve been proving it since 2004, with an annual spate of short films covering a gamut of environmental subjects and stylistic approaches while studiously avoiding the doomy.
“We’re living at a time when we need stories that connect people, bring them together and inspire hope,” explains festival director and founder Zakary Zide. “We wanted to reach out and be more inclusive.” Doing so meant highlighting the humor, adventure and sheer wonder of the natural environment and the place of human beings in it. Rather than targeting single issues like global warming or the coming water crisis, EarthDance aims to be a bridge between art, nature and science. In that sense, says Zide, “It’s not even political.”

Neither is it (entirely) frivolous. Zide has a background in ecology and art and he’s even dabbled in filmmaking, documenting his own environmental sculptures à la Andy Goldsworthy and Rivers and Tides. The impetus behind founding an environmentally themed film festival had as much to do with what he and his colleagues at the Oakland Museum weren’t seeing in media representations of the natural world. “Too much gloom and doom,” he says. “Where was the fun? The weird? The quirky? And we didn’t want to be preached to.”

Over the past five years, unlike some of the more soused members of the animal kingdom (Oh, bee hive!), EarthDance has remained clear-headed and on the move. It’s reached out to audiences internationally, traveling thus far to Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Denmark and Israel and becoming in Zide’s words “a mobile, global event,” screening in 35 cities and venues worldwide. But it continues to premiere every year here in the Bay Area at the Oakland Museum, where it’s found a receptive home from the beginning. “We got our start at the Oakland Museum, and the museum continues to be the lead sponsor,” says Zide. Meanwhile, “the quality of the films has increased tremendously, as well as the number of international entries.”

It may look deceptively pint-sized, but with dozens of film festivals annually in the Bay Area’s teeming cinema ecosystem, EarthDance’s ability to succeed on its own modest but popular terms is no small achievement. “EarthDance sets itself apart by not taking itself too seriously,” explains Zide. “And that’s why I think it appeals to a broad audience. We’re like the SF International Film Festival on Ritalin meets Spike & Mike with a green, jet-age twist.”

Soldiers of Conscience filmmakers invite you to join the discussion!

2009-08-17T16:50:00.000-07:00

SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE is a thoughtful and respectful documentary film about killing in war, about conscience, and about morality.
It is a film that is meant to provoke reflection and dialogue and action. And, because this is a film about a taboo topic – killing – the first step is to break the taboo and talk about it.

Click here to bring your thoughts and questions to this conversation >>

- Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan
Directors, SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE

Warchild Song Lyrics and Emmanuel Jal Bio

2009-07-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

Warchild by Emmanuel Jal

i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
all the people struggling down there
storms only come for a while
then after a while they'll be gone
blessed, blessed

my father was working for the government as a police man
few years later a hardy joined a rebel movement that was formed to fight for freedom
i didn't understand the politics behind all this 'cause i was only a child
after a while i saw the tension rising high between the christian and the muslim regime
we lost our possesion
my mothers, my mothers mothers suffered depression
and because of this...i was forced to be a war child

i'm a war child
i'm a war child
i believe i've survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives (touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives)

i lost my father in this battle
my brothers
all my life i've been hiding in the jungle
the pain i'm cutting is too much to handle
whose there please tell i....my candle
whose there anyone to hear my cry

Emmanuel Jal Bio

Emmanuel Jal is a soft-spoken young man with a lilt in his voice and a warmth in his manner; so friendly and so engaging it's difficult to imagine him toting a machine gun. Yet the reality is that, in the war-torn African country of Sudan, Emmanuel Jal learned to fire a machine gun before he could ride a bicycle.

It is not a difficult subject to broach for the young rapper, but it is a difficult story; one which reflects the horrors of subjugation of a people to a foreign ideology, and the blood spilled in the name of freedom. The guns in his life story were not expensive video props for cavalier (and perhaps dubious) rap stars and their boastfulness; they were real and they were a way of life as a means to survival. This story is real; set to music and told eloquently by Emmanuel Jal. This is his story, a coming-of-age amidst rebellion, famine and global apathy; a story of a child born into war who preaches the way of peace.

"The whole Sudan is my country... where I came from. When I was just a boy, the British left and religion was the main problem. It is called Sharia law; the law of Muslims. When the Arabs came into Sudan, they brought Sharia law and they did not let anyone practice other religions; the people in my village, in other villages... fought back."

During this time of intense conflict, famine raged across the nation as the war displaced thousands. People fled their homes to avoid being killed only to die of starvation. He had watched while strangers beat his mother, his grandmother was arrested and his aunt was raped by government forces. As one of the many young boys growing up in such abject turmoil, Emmanuel was embittered.

When he was about six years old, Emmanuel’s father, a commander with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), gave his son up to the rebels to set an example for others. The SPLA sent him, along with hundreds of other young Sudanese children, to a school in Ethopia. The children were forced to walk from their villages to Ethopia; many died on the way, eaten by wild animals, falling into rivers and getting lost. Once at the school, the children were trained in discipline and in the basic skills of killing.

"There was anger in my heart. I became a soldier very young; like many other children. I think it was '92. I wanted to help the fight; I thought I could go away and learn how to fly a plane, a jet plane to bomb them. At that time, all I thought about was killing. I trained; learned how to fire a gun. We practiced on killing animals. We would kill the animal and then have to bury it; so the Arabs wouldn't find the body but also sometimes because we had killed a farmer's (animal). I just wanted to kill as many Arabs and Muslims as possible. They were killing us..."

Scared and exhausted from the killing, Emmanuel and some of the other children - the “lost boys,” as they came to be known - deserted the rebel lines. On foot, they trekked across Sudan’s cracked, barren badlands, its crocodile-infested rivers and snake-laced mud patches to flee the war and be with their own tribe, the Nuer. Four hundred began the trek, only 16 survived to find relative safety in a refugee camp in Waat, Southern Sudan.

It was around this time in his life that Emmanuel met Emma McCune, a British Foreign Aid/UNICEF worker who rescued him from the bloody conflict and spirited him to nearby Kenya, intent on giving him a new life and new opportunities.

"I went with Emma; I still wanted to help the fight, somehow. When I was first rescued, I still wanted to kill. I thought I might learn something that could help the fight and then go back as a soldier. But I'm alive because of Emma, and she deserves to be known. She tried to help other people like she helped me. She took me to school; she helped me with my English. For a while there weren't even clothes for me to wear, so I wore her clothes and her shoes to school in Kenya.

"Kenya was a model of peace for Africa. They had better schools and a thriving economy; but at first, education-wise... it was difficult for me to settle down in Kenya. I was always fighting; thinking of myself as a soldier and I was expelled all the time! I had to learn to humble myself in order to help my people. So during my time in Kenya, eventually I changed. I began reading the Koran, the Bible; I was in the church choir; singing... and this helped me heal. When I turned to God, it washed away bitterness, the anger in my heart... I changed.

"I would have liked to help my friends change in a different way; as hard as it was to live in Kenya with so much for me to learn, there was always music in my life. Always there was music: music for harvesting; music for family; music for war. In Kenya I began writing songs in the church to fit myself into the community and have a new beginning. I wrote songs with that in mind: music for peace."

"In Kenya I got into rap. I didn't understand the history, but I enjoyed listening to rap because it was shocking. The problems, the issues; I like the hip-hop that talked about the neighborhood going through issues; and I identified in a different way. Music is a form a communication..soul and heart and art. This is what spoke to me as a young man and what I am speaking of now. Musicians are prophets and music is the only thing that can speak to your soul without your permission."

"What I am doing with this album, the content, the message..." Jal pauses. "My country is at war. My people are dying. I want to create awareness... for my people, for the world. This is life, this album; and the issues - it's ready, it's powerful! I hope to inspire people and have fun as well. This album is serious about people's lives and this is why I have to talk about this. It's actually helpful because I feel better now."

Emmanuel began performing around Africa and eventually made his way to England where, following a number of notable live performances, he earned a record deal. His music can be heard alongside Coldplay, Gorillaz, and Radiohead on the fundraising ‘Warchild - Help a Day in the Life’ album, as well as in three ER episodes, the National Geographic documentary “God Grew Tired of Us,” and more recently in the feature film “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. As well as on John Lennons ‘Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur’ amongst the likes of U2, REM and Lenny Kravitz.

Jal recently performed at an exclusive gig for Oxfam with Fat Boy Slim as part of Oxjam 07; he also took part in his charity, Gua Africa’s, Mixed Jam event with Blak Twang amongst others in London [all footage can be found on www.youtube.com/emmanueljal ]. Jal has also performed with Razorlight, Supergrass, and Faithless in Europe. Last October he toured the United States as part of the “National Geographic All Roads Film Festival,” performing in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New Orleans. Jal also performed with Moby and Five for Fighting in the 2007 live concert film, The Concert To End Slavery [ www.concerttoendslavery.com/trailer ]. He is a spokesman for “Make Poverty History, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and the Control Arms campaign.

In addition to the release of his album “Warchild,” Emmanuel is the subject of a documentary on his life, also entitled “War Child.” The documentary had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008, receiving a rare standing ovation, and will appear at other prestigious film festivals this year. Emmanuel is also at work on his autobiography that St. Martin’s Press will release.

"Now I'm working on building a school, and we are trying to get people educated. This is what I've been able to achieve by leaving the anger behind and embracing music, and education. We're helping an orphanage in Nairobi; bringing aid to children in Africa. We are putting people in school and one person is in university..."

And while the future looks very promising for the young Jal, he remains steadfast in his soldier mentality. "Before I was focusing on making African sounds completely; but I stayed in England to improve my skills to get my message out. For me, home is where your love is. I still think like a soldier; I don't want to move to a place where something happens and I start missing people again. I'll get comfortable but I won't stick myself down. In my mind, I'm not yet settled. I just want to keep making my music, that's most important. But for right now... I'm cool!"

--re-printed from the website for Emmanuel Jal's record label Sonic 360

"Red Gold" by Co-Producer Lauren Oakes

2009-06-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

My inbox is flooded every day with emails that go like this: “I saw Red Gold… It made me cry [men, women, children all write this]…What’s going on with Pebble right now and can I help?”

Of course the answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!

On November 14, 2008, Ben and I stood before 500 people at the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to show Red Gold [what an honor]. On the very same day, just a block away from the theater in the Bureau of Land Management building, President’s Bush’s staff put out a Record of Decision for the Bristol Bay Area Management Plan. It opened nearly 2 million acres of federal land surrounding the Pebble Site to mining exploration. 2 million acres. So while citizens continue to battle development of the Pebble mine on Alaskan State land, we now face the worst – Pebble amidst a mining district in the heart of the world’s largest remaining sockeye salmon fishery. When the Obama administration comes into office, our leaders of change will have 30 days to reverse this decision.

State Land. Federal Land. To me, the land classifications are borders drawn for management purposes. But in reality Bristol Bay and its pristine waters, the abundant wild salmon runs, the life this watershed sustains are global resources we cannot replace. We need more people standing up saying “No – not here, not this place. Wrong location. A risk not worth taking.”

Support for gaining permanent legislative protection for the Bristol Bay watershed continues to grow. The Trout Unlimited Alaska program is currently engaged in a number of projects to stop development of the Pebble Mine. We are placing emphasis on necessary science research so we can understand more of the critical water and habitat issues. We are also working with state and federal policymakers to support legislative protection, and we are leading a nationwide campaign to educate and engage salmon consumers on the values of wild salmon conservation and cuisine (www.whywild.org).

We continue to raise state, national, and international support for protecting this world-renowned watershed, a mosaic of unconfined rivers supporting nearly a 1/3 of our wild salmon supply.

Yes! You can help.

Write members of congress today and express you support for protecting the watershed from mining development. Ask the new administration to keep BLM lands in Bristol Bay closed to mining.

Donate. To do more good work to protect Bristol Bay, we need more financial support. www.savebristolbay.org

Host a Red Gold screening. Contact Emily Long: emily@feltsoulmedia.com.

When you’re at the grocery, or at your favorite restaurant… please request wild salmon. You’ll be supporting sustainable, well-managed fisheries and increasing the demand for what Bristol Bay is famous for. Avoid the farmed stuff unless you have a thing for artificially colored dinner.
And then lastly I’d like just like to thank the people who believed in this project, Ben and Travis for asking questions and listening, and then all those who understand there are still some places left on this planet we must protect.

Please go flood the email boxes of your congressman and tell them they have a chance to save one of our last great salmon runs.

-- Lauren Oaks, Co-Producer, Red Gold (Ironweed Films: June 2009: Volume 43)

"Mission to Break up Pacific Island of Rubbish Twice the Size of Texas" by Frank Pope

2009-05-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

A high-seas mission departs from San Francisco next month to map and explore a sinister and shifting 21st-century continent: one twice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic.

Scientists and conservationists on the expedition will begin attempts to retrieve and recycle a monument to throwaway living in the middle of the North Pacific.

The toxic soup of refuse was discovered in 1997 when Charles Moore, an oceanographer, decided to travel through the centre of the North Pacific gyre (a vortex or circular ocean current). Navigators usually avoid oceanic gyres because persistent high-pressure systems — also known as the doldrums — lack the winds and currents to benefit sailors.

Mr Moore found bottle caps, plastic bags and polystyrene floating with tiny plastic chips. Worn down by sunlight and waves, discarded plastic disintegrates into smaller pieces. Suspended under the surface, these tiny fragments are invisible to ships and satellites trying to map the plastic continent, but in subsequent trawls Mr Moore discovered that the chips outnumbered plankton by six to one...

Full Article at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/02-3

Recently Heard on Our Community Site...

2009-04-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

Did you know Ironweed has an interactive community website located at http://www.ironweedfilms.com/community ?

Members and non-members alike may log in to browse recent films, make commentary, read news and much more.

Check out one of our latest community comments below:

"Finally! A film club that does not require wading through thousands ofdopeyaction movies.....and one that also provides incredibly powerful informationon a host of important issues in films that are thoughtful and well made!Thanks so much for all you do.....Ironweed is an essential resource in bothour lives and our work!" --Maureen F. of Essex, MA.

"Crips and Bloods" Film Screening

2009-04-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

A free monthly screening series, Community Cinema features films from the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. In over 50 cities nationwide, screenings are followed by lively panel discussions that bring together citizens, organizations and public television stations to encourage dialogue and action around important and timely social issues. Last season, over 30,000 people attended 400 events nationwide.

Crips and Bloods Film Screening:

It's a civil war that's lasted 40 years. Passed down from son to son. Fought eye for an eye. Over 15,000 dead and counting, while the world stands by. Welcome to South Central Los Angeles. But what's at the root of this long-standing battle? Filmmaker Stacy Peralta hits the streets of LA to find out, and speaks with former and current members of the Bloods and the Crips, two of the most notorious and violent street gangs in America. Please note: This film contains scenes of graphic violence.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Pacific Design Center - Silver Screen Theater
8687 Melrose Ave.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Light Reception 7:00 PM
RSVP Required at LACommunityCinema@gmail.com
Panel Discussion to Feature:
Stacy Peralta - Filmmaker
Skipp Townsend - Community Organizer Featured in Film
Shaka - Former Member of Bloods Featured in Film
Dr. La Tanya Skiffer - Professor and Expert on Female Violence and Incarceration
Dr. John Quicker - (Moderator) Professor and Expert on LA Gangs

To find a local screening in your area, visit: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/cripsandbloods/getinvolved.html

Filmmaker Chris Metzler Introduces "Greener-Schnitzels"

2009-04-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Ironweed filmmaker Chris Metzler (Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea, Long Division) announces the launch of GREENER-SCHNITZELS - a new series of environmental webisodes that blends sketch comedy and documentary filmmaking to deliver funny truths about our warming planet. With energetic irreverence, the short videos provide some informative comic relief amidst the more serious Green programming you'll find this Earth Day. Come watch the first episode here: www.greenerschnitzels.com

Filmmaker Jeremy Kaller on "The Recyclergy"

2009-04-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Ironweed Films for giving me this amazing opportunity to share my first documentary, The Recyclergy, with you. I hope you find it both enjoyable and inspiring.

The film was made under the assumption that you, the audience, had already heard several times in your life that “you should recycle.” For that reason, I tried my best to eliminate that direct message from the film. I’m hoping that I am correct, and you have been recycling for years, but have never met a professional recycler, nor heard about the porn found in recycling bins.

If you devote the 33 minutes to watch The Recyclergy, you will meet some real characters who have devoted their lives to diverting goods from landfills and hear their entertaining stories. I hope that their devotion is contagious.

I took on this challenge because I met these inspiring and hilarious individuals and recognized that they are leaders in the recycling movement. Berkeley was the first city to collect recycling at the curb. San Francisco was the first city in the nation to collect food scraps along with recycling and trash. Two local organizations, Building Resources and Urban Ore, both salvage tons of building materials that would otherwise get landfilled, making the materials available for the community to utilize. The list goes on.

Not until midway through conducting this series of interviews, did I learn about the history of scavengers, who were pre-World War II garbage collectors. I was shocked by my ignorance because I had worked in recycling for several years. Without giving too much away, recycling was a normal, behind the scenes, everyday occurrence before the United States’ post-WWII affluence. Recycling all but disappeared until the first Earth Day in 1970. Even in early 2006, when completing the film, I felt that recycling was still considered another component of tree-hugging. I’m relieved that again, recycling is getting the mainstream attention that it deserves.

The film’s website, www.recyclergy.com, contains links to most of the organizations in the film. If you live in the Bay Area, visit them! If you do not, please contact them for guidance in bringing more recycling into your community.

-- by Jeremy Kaller, Director, The Recyclergy (Ironweed Films: Volume 41: April 2009)
For more information, visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films

Water Crisis Hits Iraq

2009-03-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

This article has been re-posted from our friends at Huffington Post.

by Inter Press Service

BAGHDAD, Feb 12 (IPS) - There is less water now in the Tigris, and it is less clean. The river has fewer fish, and rising fuel and other costs mean they are more costly to catch. It's not, as Hamza Majit finds, a good time to be a fisher.

"It's getting worse everyday," Majit told IPS on board his fishing boat.

"You see the low water level," Majit said, touching the bottom of the river, just two metres down, with a wooden pole. "We need higher water to hold our nets up. And this is the deepest point in the Tigris in this area. With the water this low, it makes it difficult to catch any fish."
Plastic bottles, grocery bags and other garbage are now more commonly seen floating down the once clear river. "Fish are a treasure from God, but now so much is preventing us from reaping our treasure," said Majit.

Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Majit says, it was common to catch several dozen fish daily. Now, "we are lucky to catch ten." Now the government too is alarmed.

"The Tigris remains extremely polluted, and this situation continues to worsen," Minister for the Environment Narmin Othman told IPS. "So many Iraqis are suffering from this. We realise it is a crisis, and we are looking for more ways the government can actively begin to solve the problem."

The matter is being considered urgently, she said. "We have to do this, because if we don't, nobody else will, and the suffering will continue. The Tigris is one of Iraq's treasures, and we must safeguard our treasures."

The government has been before. "The situation is critical," Prof. Ratib Mufid, environment expert at Baghdad University, said back in 2007. "The river is gradually being destroyed, and there are no projects to prevent its destruction."

Since then it has only become worse. The new difficulties begin at the source, and multiply along the way.

"The problem of decreasing water flow starts in Turkey's Taurus mountains," Seif Barakah, media officer at the Ministry of Environment had warned, about the same time in 2007.

"Between there and Kurdistan, many dams have been built which reduce the water flow. The idea was to prevent floods which over the years affected northern communities, but the consequence can now be seen with nearly half the previous water flow."

The Tigris flows from the mountains of south-eastern Turkey through Iraq, where it ends up in the Persian Gulf.

Majit has been a fisher since he was 10, and like most fishers on the Tigris, inherited the family business of generations. Two of his children work with him.

Fishing is not just difficult now, but also unpleasant and hazardous. The smell of burning plastic, or at places of raw sewage, is overpowering. And, Majit says, he has been shot at by U.S. soldiers from the Green Zone, whose concrete walls line the banks along one stretch.

Iraqi environmentalists report that the river is contaminated with war waste, oil derivatives, industrial waste, and toxins. "Sometimes I find crude oil on my nets when I pull them up," Majit said. "The fish also sometimes taste like crude oil."

Big rubbish heaps have come up on the banks. Dumping garbage in the river was punishable during the days of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Today there is nothing to stop people.
The ripple effect of fish scarcity has inevitably hit the markets. The average cost of a fish has risen from two dollars to eight dollars (8,000 Iraqi Dinars).

"That is too expensive, so fewer people are buying," says Amar Hamsa, a 25- year-old fish seller. "Business is bad, it's not a good situation for us nowadays."

Roast fish was considered a treat once, says Ali Sabri, still in the business though with many empty fire pits around him of vendors who had to abandon business. "Few people in Baghdad can afford this now as they used to."

Read more from Inter Press Service

Is a 100% AIG Bonus Tax Legal?

2009-03-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

This article has been re-posted from our friends at Mother Jones.

Ex Post Punitive by Kevin Drum

Would it be legal to pass a law that retroactively taxed away the bonuses of all those AIG traders who destroyed the planet? The main constitutional objections are that such a law might be construed as either ex post facto or a bill of attainder. So what about that?

Well, Conor Clarke talked to certified expert Laurence Tribe, and he says not to worry about bill of attainder issues: "It would not be terribly difficult to structure a tax, even one that approached a rate of 100%, levied on some or all of the bonuses already handed out (or to be handed out in the future) by AIG and other recipients of federal bailout funds so that the tax would survive bill of attainder clause challenge."

Great! So what about the problem with it being retroactive? The Supreme Court has upheld retroactive taxes against ex post facto arguments before, and over at Interfluidity Steve Waldman quotes Daniel Troy, author of Retroactive Legislation, on a similar objection to the Superfund legislation: "Because the ex post facto clauses do not apply to civil laws, Superfund therefore would have to be characterized as punitive in nature to be classified as an ex post facto law. The current Court, though, has suggested that unless a law is exclusively punitive, it will not come within the scope of the ex post facto clauses."

Italics mine. So it looks like the answer here is simple: even though the purpose of this tax would pretty clearly be punitive with extreme prejudice, we need to carefully pretend that it's not. And we need to make sure the legislative history shows that it's not (it should be "manifestly regulatory and fiscal" Tribe says). Then everything is kosher! We can tax their socks off!

So there you have it. Now we just have to figure out if most of these guys are actually U.S. citizens in the first place. I hear that New York state AG Andrew Cuomo is working on that.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/ex-post-punitive

UN Experts to Probe Secret CIA Detention Centers

2009-03-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

This article has been re-posted from our friends at Common Dreams.

by Agence France Presse

GENEVA - Two United Nations special rapporteurs said Tuesday they would investigate secret detention centres used by the CIA in counter-terrorism efforts.

Nowak and Martin Scheinin, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism will study locations alleged to have hosted such secret detention centres, including US military bases.
Besides secret jails run by the CIA, the study would also probe alleged prisons run by other governments.

Scheinin said such prisons were "one of the most horrendous practices" that emerged after the September 11 attacks in the US, while Nowak hoped that this "will stop, and perhaps is in the process of being stopped."

The results of the probe should be ready in a year.

The two independent experts mandated by the UN Human Rights Council hailed US President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prison and all CIA prisons operating abroad.
Nowak said he was also "very encouraged" by the fact that Warsaw is probing allegations of a secret CIA jail near Szymany in northeast Poland.

Besides alleged detention centres in Poland and Romania, the two experts will look into the role played by over 10 American military bases in the world, which have been alleged to have also sheltered secret jails.

"We are fully aware" of the problem, said Nowak, citing the military base of Tuzla in Bosnia, which was suspected of having served as a temporary holding centre for detainees before their transfer to Guantanamo.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/10-8

Tax the Speculators

2009-03-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

Ironweed has re-posted this article from our friends at Common Dreams.

by Ralph Nadar

Let's start with a fairness point. Why should you pay a 5 to 6 percent sales tax for buying the necessities of life, when tomorrow, some speculator on Wall Street can buy $100 million worth of Exxon derivatives and not pay one penny in sales tax? Let's further add a point of common sense. The basic premise of taxation should be to first tax what society likes the least or dislikes the most, before it taxes honest labor or human needs.

In that way, revenues can be raised at the same time as the taxes discourage those activities which are least valued, such as the most speculative stock market trades, pollution (a carbon tax), gambling, and the addictive industries that sicken or destroy health and amass large costs.
So, your member of Congress, who is grappling these days with gigantic deficits on the backs of your children at the same time as that deep recession and tax cuts reduce revenues and increase torrents of red ink, should be championing such transaction taxes.

Yet apart from a small number of legislators, most notably Congressman Peter Welch (Dem. VT) and Peter DeFazio (Dem. OR), the biggest revenue producer of all-a tax on stock derivative transactions-essentially bets on bets-and other mystifying gambles by casino capitalism-is at best corridor talk on Capitol Hill.

There are differing estimates of how much such Wall Street transaction taxes can raise each year. A transaction tax would, however, certainly raise enough to make the Wall Street crooks and gamblers pay for their own Washington bailout. Lets scan some figures economists put forth.
The most discussed and popular one is a simple sales tax on currency trades across borders. Called the Tobin Tax after its originator, the late James Tobin, a Nobel laureate economist at Yale University, 10 to 25 cents per hundred dollars of the huge amounts of dollars traded each day across bordered would produce from $100 to $300 billion per year.

There are scores of civic, labor, environmental, development, poverty and law groups all over the world pressing for such laws in their countries. (see tobintaxcall.free.fr).

According the University of Massachusetts economist, Robert Pollin, various kinds of securities-trading taxes are on the books in about forty countries, including Japan, the UK and Brazil.
Pollin writes in the current issue of the estimable Boston Review: "A small tax on all financial-market transactions, comparable to a sales tax, would raise the costs on short-term speculative trading while having negligible effect on people who trade infrequently. It would thus discourage speculation and channel funds toward productive investment." He adds that after the 1987 stock market crash, securities-trading taxes "or similar measures" were endorsed by then Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and even the first President Bush. Professor Pollin estimates that a one-half of one percent tax would raise about $350 billion a year. That seems conservative. The Wall Street Journal once mentioned about $500 trillion in derivatives trades alone in 2008-the most speculative of transactions. A one tenth of one percent tax would raise $500 billion dollars a year, assuming that level of trading.

Economist Dean Baker says a "modest financial transactions tax would be enough to "finance a 10% across-the-board reduction in the income tax on labor.

The stock transaction tax goes back a long way. A version helped fund the Civil War and the imperial Spanish-American War. The famous British economist, John Maynard Keynes, extolled in 1936 a securities transaction tax as having the effect of "mitigating the predominance of speculation over enterprise." The U.S. had some kind of transaction tax from 1914 to 1966.
The corporate history scholar (read his excellent book, Unequal Protection) Thom Hartmann, turned three-hour-a-day talk-show-host on Air America (airamerica.com/thomvision), had discussed the long evolution of what he calls a "securities turnover excise tax" to "tamp down toxic speculation, while encouraging healthy investment."

So, why don't we have such a mega-revenue generator and lighten the income tax load on today and tomorrow's American worker? (It was one of the most popular ideas I campaigned on last year. People got it.) Because American workers need to learn about this proposed tax policy and ram it through Congress. Tell your Senators and Representatives-no ifs, ands or buts. Otherwise, Wall Street will keep rampaging over people's pensions and mutual fund savings, destabilize their jobs and hand them the bailout bill, as is occurring now.

A few minutes spent lobbying members of Congress by millions of Americans (call, write or e-mail, visit or picket) will produce one big Change for the better. Contact your member of Congress. The current financial mess makes this the right time for action.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/04-13

Call for Mass Civil Disobedience Against Coal

2009-03-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

Our friends at Common Dreams have reposted this article from Yes! Magazine:

by Bill McKibben & Wendell Berry

Dear Friends,

There are moments in a nation's-and a planet's-history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.

We will be there to make several points:

Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA's James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level-below 350 parts per million co2-lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.

Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.

Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.

Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.

The industry claim that there is something called "clean coal" is, put simply, a lie. But it's a lie told with tens of millions of dollars, which we do not have. We have our bodies, and we are willing to use them to make our point. We don't come to such a step lightly. We have written and testified and organized politically to make this point for many years, and while in recent months there has been real progress against new coal-fired power plants, the daily business of providing half our electricity from coal continues unabated. It's time to make clear that we can't safely run this planet on coal at all. So we feel the time has come to do more--we hear President Barack Obama's call for a movement for change that continues past election day, and we hear Nobel Laureate Al Gore's call for creative non-violence outside coal plants. As part of the international negotiations now underway on global warming, our nation will be asking China, India, and others to limit their use of coal in the future to help save the planet's atmosphere. This is a hard thing to ask, because it's their cheapest fuel. Part of our witness in March will be to say that we're willing to make some sacrifices ourselves, even if it's only a trip to the jail.

With any luck, this will be the largest such protest yet, large enough that it may provide a real spark. If you want to participate with us, you need to go through a short course of non-violence training. This will be, to the extent it depends on us, an entirely peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you. There will be young people, people from faith communities, people from the coal fields of Appalachia, and from the neighborhoods in Washington that get to breathe the smoke from the plant.

We will cross the legal boundary of the power plant, and we expect to be arrested. After that we have no certainty what will happen, but lawyers and such will be on hand. Our goal is not to shut the plant down for the day-it is but one of many, and anyway its operation for a day is not the point. The worldwide daily reliance on coal is the danger; this is one small step to raise awareness of that ruinous habit and hence help to break it.

Needless to say, we're not handling the logistics of this day. All the credit goes to a variety of groups, especially EnergyAction (which is bringing thousands of young people to Washington that weekend), Greenpeace, the Ruckus Society, and Rainforest Action Network. For more information: http://www.capitolclimateaction.org/

Thank you,

Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/27-10

Non-profit Organization Common Cause Expounds Upon Pay-to-Play

2009-02-13T12:28:00.000-08:00

Pay-to-play is a term used to describe an all too common occurrence in our political system: when money is exchanged directly for political favors, such as generous campaign donations for a lucrative government contract, or Superbowl tickets in exchange for a legislative favor.

The phrase began dominating headlines in late 2008, when former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges that included trying to sell the Senate seat of then President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder.

Ironically, in the closing arguments of his impeachment trial on Jan. 29, Blagojevich stumbled on a kernel of truth about politics today, when he defended his actions by saying, "Those are conversations relating to the things all of us in politics do in order to run campaigns and try to win elections."

“You guys are in politics,” Blagojevich added to the senators. “You know what we have to do to go out and run elections.”

Blagojevich, who also tried to withhold funds for a local children's hospital as ransom for campaign contributions, deserves no defense. But he demonstrates how deep the pay-to-play problems go.

“The American people know too, and they want it stopped,” said Bob Edgar, president and CEO of Common Cause. “It’s time to end pay-to-play politics in America and give people the government they deserve.”

There is no question that our system is broken. Blagojevich is just one story and yet, through his actions, he has shined a spotlight on a much deeper rot in our politics that needs to be fixed.

Common Cause is proposing a major reform package that, if enacted, will strike at the heart of this corrupt system and culture. Our “Clean Government for Change” package would:

· Ban lobbyist contributions, bundling and fundraising for members of Congress and the President

· Adopt pay-to-play laws at the state level modeled after a successful Connecticut law that bans campaign contributions and fundraising by lobbyists and government contractors

· Create a new campaign finance system that enables candidates who swear off special interest money to run vigorous campaigns on a blend of small private contributions and public funds.

Please join Common Cause in its work. Visit www.commoncause.org to learn more.

Past Film Update: Economist Gordon Tullock's Ideas on Political Corruption Explained

2009-01-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

Ironweed's Volume No. 35 from October 2008 contains a short film entitled LONG DIVISION: The Next Big Threat to Democracy.

The film focuses on famed economist Gordon Tullock, a scholar who abstains from voting because he considers his vote to be statistically insignificant.

Now, a new article in 2009 from NorthJersey.com explains some of Tullock's economic priciples, including why the actions of crooked politicians like disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich are so harmful to the rest of us.

To read the full article, visit http://www.northjersey.com/news/nationalpolitics/36965694.html

--The Ironweed Team

DEFIANCE: A new feature film coming soon to a theater near you

2008-12-17T07:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Ironweed supporters,

As you may know, our December lineup of films focuses on homelessness and the Japanese American internment camps of the WWII era.

This holiday season, we came across another important film from the WWII period entitled Defiance, and it's based on a little-known, yet fascinating true story.

We recommend you see Defiance, which hits select theaters on December 31, 2008 and wider theatrical release on January 16, 2009.

This film is an epic tale of family, honor, vengeance and salvation. The year is 1941 and the Jews of Eastern Europe are being massacred by the thousands. Managing to escape certain death, three brothers take refuge in the dense surrounding woods they have known since childhood. There they begin their desperate battle against the Nazis.

Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell star as brothers who turn a primitive struggle to survive into something far more consequential – a way to avenge the deaths of their loved ones by saving thousands of others. At first it is all they can do to stay alive. But gradually, as whispers of their daring spreads, they begin to attract others – men and women, young and old – willing to risk everything for the sake of even a moment’s freedom.

Tuvia (CRAIG) is a reluctant leader and his decisions are challenged by his brother, Zus (SCHREIBER) who worries that Tuvia’s idealistic plans will doom them all. Asael (BELL) is the youngest – caught between his brothers’ fierce rivalry. As a brutal winter descends, they work to create a community, and to keep faith alive when all humanity appeared to be lost.

While we caution that Defiance is a gritty film with some elements of violence, we felt this true story should be heard. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our blog.

The Team at Ironweed

PS- You can learn more at www.defiancemovie.com

Daughters of Wisdom & Women's Advancement by Bari Pearlman

2008-11-25T09:04:00.000-08:00

In the Summer of 2004, I was invited by Lama Norlha Rinpoche, the abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Upstate New York, to join him on his regular visit to his homeland of Nangchen, in remote northeastern Tibet. I was familiar with his humanitarian efforts in Nangchen, where he had been a young monk before his monastery was destroyed and he escaped to India in 1958. "Come make a film about how my people have lived for centuries, before it all changes," he said. So in July 2004, my bag full of protein bars and my veins full of hepatitis vaccine, off we went.

If we likened Tibet's most media-documented and commonly touristed city of Lhasa to Manhattan, Nangchen would be located somewhere in the mountains of Wyoming. It is a remote and rural area with an average altitude of 14,000 feet, situated along the source of the Mekong River. Since 1986, Lama Norlha Rinpoche has created schools for children and established medical clinics there, and rebuilt the Korche Monastery of his childhood. In 1990, he founded Kala Rongo Monastery exclusively for nuns, and later, one of the only monastic colleges for women in all of Tibet. These were the most radical of all his projects, and were met locally with great controversy and skepticism – Why did women need to be educated? Why did they need to practice Buddhism full time? What could a group of nuns possibly contribute to the community? And that was clearly the story I wanted to tell.

From my Western feminist viewpoint, the subservient role of Tibetan women was a travesty, though sadly not at all uncommon in the world. I was therefore eager to meet a group of empowered nuns who had broken free of their gender constraints and were taking their futures into their own hands. Instead, I found only the tiniest beginnings of anything resembling what we would define as a 'feminist revolution' at Kala Rongo. The nuns were much more reserved and shy than I had expected, more grateful and diligent about the opportunities given them than fierce or outspoken. But in their own way, they were completely fulfilled and liberated by their chosen path. So when I finally abandoned my pre-conceived notions about what radical social change should look like, I discovered the power of their transformation-in-progress in the subtleties of their personal stories.

This is how DAUGHTERS OF WISDOM came to be an experiential presentation of the nuns, told in their own words from their particular place of freedom and choice that they experience on their own terms.

As far as the filmmaking itself, we had a crew of three: cinematographer Gena Konstantinakos; local translator Tsering Yuldron, who got quick lessons in being a production assistant, and myself. We did not have official permits to film, but because we were traveling with Lama Norlha Rinpoche, who has high spiritual ranking and a pragmatic working relationship with the Nangchen authorities, we were mostly left to ourselves. Traveling with him was a lot like I imagine it would be like to travel with the Pope. People came out of their tents and houses, from over hills and up from valleys to greet his passing car and receive a blessing from him. Being part of his entourage, we were welcomed and granted intimate access to everyone we came in contact with.

At 14,000 feet, carrying a tripod up even a small staircase was a chore, and the nuns enjoyed teasing us about our huffing and puffing. Even with our fancy hiking boots, climbing up the steep mountains took us four hours of strenuous effort compared to the half hour the nuns (who I am sure are part mountain goat) take in their tennis shoes. Our first week, the headphone jack on our camera went dead and we could not monitor sound, though fortunately, there weren't the usual white noise and radio interferences to worry about in a place with no electricity. We had six 8-hour camera batteries which got charged about once a week when someone was going into the nearby town. Dust got inside the lens (and everywhere else) that wouldn't come out, and we became limited in our ability to shoot toward light.

There were mice crawling across us to get to the cheese storage room on the other side of our sleeping quarters. There was a lot of rice and sautéed green vegetables with no nutritional value, and rancid butter. There were sudden hail and snow storms. There was a lot of waiting, and waiting, and waiting. And an abundance of kindness and generosity and openness and patience on the part of our subjects as they got used to our question after question that forced them to reflect on their lives probably for the first time. (At first, the nuns were coy even at the request of their names, before they explained that "It’s weird to say our names. We never do it.") We always invited our subjects to ask us questions as well, which usually ran along the lines of "How many yaks does your family have?" and "How many of your family members do you live with?"
Upon our return home, the task of translating the 80 hours we had shot was monumental. Numerous local translators tried without success to understand the micro-micro-dialect the nuns spoke. Eventually, we sent the footage back to Tibet where we were helped by two fellow students of our field interpreter Tsering. Carla Ruff edited for five months, with a few follow-up 'tweak' sessions.

In the end, my intention is to present to audience members the direct experience of the lives of others being lived simultaneously but very differently from their own, and through that, to remind us that constructed social and political ideologies should always defer to the authenticity of humanity, and not visa-versa. I think that this is the single most powerful unifying force we have in this time of unrest and uncertainty throughout the world, and the nuns of Kala Rongo have much to teach us about it.

- By Bari Pearlman, Director, Daughters of Wisdom (Ironweed Films: Volume 36: November 2008) For more information, visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films.

Considering Democracy & Policy Solutions by Keya Lea Horiuchi

2008-11-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

Thank you for the opportunity to blog with Ironweed Films and thank you for the opportunity to be included in your lineup of (fabulous!) films.

“Considering Democracy” is a film that I hope will continue to widen the scope of debate in the United States as we look toward solutions. I feel that we are at a tremendous and momentous time within the United States of America. We are at the threshold of it all. As we go forward, we must do so as a country. Yet it seems that as individuals in America, we are divided, based upon the sources of our information.

During the same time that the film went out on Ironweed Films, I was touring the country, driving to different communities, screening “Considering Democracy” and having questions and discussion afterward. I found that there is currently a lot of emotion, together with polarization, along with a tremendous desire to define and work towards policy solutions that work for the People in America. It’s quite a combination. I think that change does need to come from the People, and with that, I think that it is up to us, as regular people in society, to begin discussing issues and policy with one another.

“Considering Democracy” offers a comparison of the U.S. to other developed countries, along with points of view from abroad. As I worked on the editing process, there was an earlier edition of the film that showed just the foreign point of view. People who looked at the early edition said that while it was interesting, they didn’t know if any of what people said abroad, was true. Thus, the research began and currently appears as quick bits of information throughout the film. I also looked at why the U.S. is drastically different in its policy than all the other developed democracies. The introductory segments with the weaver and the questions at the end of each section were a way to structure the film so that each chapter began and ended in a similar way. People have asked me if I want people to ask the questions, verbatim, to representatives, and while I do want people to be actively engaged in the political process after representatives are elected, I really want people to think about the issues.

It is my hope that the film can act as a catalyst to get people thinking about possible solutions. We must also be aware of the current political structure and how the system interacts with it. Once we vote our representatives into office, the lobbying mechanism will swing into action. The policy solutions are out there, but there will be a resistance from people who listen exclusively to conservative media formats. We need to begin to build bridges to these people. Please consider sharing your Ironweed films with other friends who might have different informational sources. Thank you for taking a look at the film.

- by Keya Lea Horiuchi, Director, Considering Democracy: 8 Things to Ask Your Representative (Ironweed Films Volume 35: October 2008) For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com

Michael Moore's Free Film "Slacker Uprising"

2008-10-13T09:12:00.001-07:00

You may have heard Michael Moore's new film "Slacker Uprising" is available for free to everyone in the United States and Canada. It is the first time ever that a major feature-length film is debuting as a free download on the internet -- legally.

Why did Michael Moore decide to do this? There are two reasons:
1. Next year it will be the 20th anniversary since his first film, "Roger & Me," so he wants to thank everyone who has supported his work.
2. Michael is hoping to motivate new voters to make it to the polls on November 4th.

"Slacker Uprising" takes place in the wake of "Fahrenheit 9/11," during the run-up to the 2004 election, as he traveled for 42 days across America, visiting 62 cities in an attempt to remove George W. Bush from office. His goal was to help turn out a record number of young voters and others who had never voted before. What follows is often surprising, funny, enlightening and frightening.

To stream, download, or burn a DVD of "Slacker Uprising" free of charge, visit here: www.slackeruprising.com.

[source: www.michaelmoore.com]

9/11 & Government Bureaucracy by Ray Nowosielski

2008-10-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

Another October is upon us once again. Crisp winds are begining to blow, the leaves are commencing their seasonal showing of spectral radiance, and another 9/11 anniversary has come and gone, begging us to remember that repressive legislation and worldwide carnage are the only things that stand between us and an Al-Qaeda victory party.

Fortunately for us, we are in an election year, so the nationalistic hyperbole was able to ring extra loud and hollow. Speakers at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions attempted to drive home the notion that they and they alone could shield us from an otherwise certain death at the wrinkled hands of Osama Bin Laden.

Though politicians would love you to believe that expensive wars in far off lands can wipe out terrorism, unfortunately, it must be said that tactics and concepts are impervious to bullets and bombs. (Civilians who happen to be standing nearby to persons who might make use of such tactics or hold such ideas, are not however.) Likewise, it should be mentioned that laws giving more power to government and law enforcement, while stripping the dearly held rights of the citizenry, are also not the key to preventing the actions of a few determined souls.

In fact, I would argue that the US government had all of the power, money, and resources it needed to prevent 9/11, on 9/11. As evidence for this claim, I submit the fact that the CIA was monitoring future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Midar, and Mohammed Atta for more than a year prior to the attacks. Not only were these would-be terrorists monitored, but the CIA was in posession of a copy Khalid al-Midar’s passport which included a multiple entry visa to the United States as far back as January 2000. Despite these facts, the FBI wasn’t warned about these characters until a few weeks before the attacks, and their names were never placed on terrorist watch lists.

All of this information comes straight from the Congressional “9/11 Report.” Mind you, most of it was buried in the footnotes. Perhaps you’re the type of person who would like to give the government the benefit of the doubt. Who wouldn’t? Consider then, that not only was the CIA aware of the movements of these Al-Qaeda terrorits, they were also aware of their associations to the embassy bombings in 1998 and the WTC bombing in 1993. On top of that, the CIA was monitoring a phone in Yemen which Nawaf al-Hazmi called from within the United States on several occasions using a phone that he had registered in his own name. Are we to believe that the big bad CIA couldn’t tell that these calls came from the U.S., thus demonstrating that Al-Qaeda was on our own soil?

Even after hijacker Khalid al-Midhar left the U.S. to assist with the bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, the CIA refused to inform theFBI that terrorists were now operating out of our country. Of course, giant bureaucracies make mistakes, what with the magnitude of their work load, right? How then, are we supposed to make sense of internal cables being distributed within the CIA claiming the the FBI had been informed that these men were in the country, when in fact the FBI had not received one word that Al-Qaeda terrorists were within their jurisdiction?

How are we supposed to make sense of the fact that when an FBI agent tasked to the CIA tried to send on word of al-Hazmi’s and al-Midhar’s visas to enter the U.S., he was told by a CIA desk officer that, “This isn’t a matter for the FBI.”

Apparently, the CIA had everything they needed to locate terrorists, they only lacked the will to disrupt their plots. Though they weren’t up to sharing information with the FBI, they were very much inclined to make the President believe they had done so. On August 6th, 2001, when President Bush received his now famous PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US,” the FBI was given an advance copy to look over and approve. After they had done so, someone then inserted descriptions of over 70 active FBI field investigations into the terrorist threat. This doctored version would be the one that President Bush would see, thus giving the perpetually vacationing executive the notion that domestic law enforcement was alerted to and responding to the Al-Qaeda issue, though of course, they were not.

Over the course of this entire year, our filmmaking team has been seeking funding for a documentary about the preceding story, with no success. We think it's an important and intriguing tale that needs to be further explored. "A true-life espionage mystery thriller about a cat-and-mouse game between the CIA and FBI played over the fate of two future September 11th hijackers."

"9/11 is old news," we are told again and again. You can find this entire story for yourself in the 9/11 Commission Report and the FBI Inspector General's Report, provided that you know what to look for. However, thanks to a mainstream media that has not adequately educated us on the important issues involved here, most people who have read the report have not known what to look for or understood the ramifications of what the Commissioners have reported. Hopefully it won’t take too many more disasterous wars and a much further slide into bankruptcy for the public to wisen up, or next October might be a lot more bleak and dreary.

- by Ray Nowosielski, Director, 9/11 Press For Truth (Ironweed Films Volume 34: September 2008) For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films/past

A Day at Earthdance by musician Eric Iverson

2008-09-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

In the midst of a dusty cloud I came upon what could be perceived as yet another wild and crazy California Summer Music Festival, but was soon and pleasantly surprised that the hippy dirt stomp at Black Oak Ranch, in Laytonville (also known as the Hog Farm) had a bigger and more important theme to it than most of the many festivals I have attended. Pulling up at the will-call to get my Earthdance pass, I was greeted by a singing and guitar playing parking volunteer that started strumming and serenading me as my tires rolled on to the dusty grounds. As disorganized as most festivals are at retrieving the will call passes I was amazed at how mellow and accommodating they were.

Right away I got my pass and was escorted over to a parking spot. From the second I opened my door the music from the main stage was resonating throughout the venue with the sounds of an African artist strumming his Kora. The dust in the air soon was absorbed into my being and I was transformed into one of the many. The temperature of the day soon took the place of the ever present dust cloud and my goal shifted to seeking cool beverages and shade.

As I entered the bowl at around 11:30am on Sunday morning, people where slowly trickling in from their camps to the venue with the look on their faces of just having gone through an all night escapade of thumping trance beats and twirling fire dancers. Amazingly most of the people still seemed very coherent and present in the festival’s theme of peace and unity. Having missed the big Prayer for Peace on Saturday afternoon, I could still feel the aura in the air from the residual effect of the many people around the world giving their intentions towards peace at the same time. I felt immediately welcomed into the circle of dust-dancing peace makers.

The vendor booths that created a horseshoe shape around the bowl were made up of fine crafted art, hemp clothing, odd paraphernalia, and incredibly delectable food. I stumbled upon some old friends-- I was amazed to find them amongst the thousands of heads-- and joined them on their blanket laid out in the middle of the crowd. Thus began our smorgasbord which included everything from tofu corn dogs and fries to crepes topped with bananas, strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Hours later with a tummy ache and the earth’s force pulling me toward its core, we made one last run for some iced coffee.

The music was in full tilt at that point and the crowd quickly formed into an organism moving, breathing and cheering as one. The ocean of people grew and grew until I finally realized that our safe little picnic area was now in the belly of this sea of synchronized dirt dancers. I gave my good byes to the old friends and headed back stage for some sanctuary.

The backstage hospitality was equipped with cold water, iced tea and hot dogs. Sitting down at a table where some indigenous elders were probably reasoning about something mystical, I saw to the right the African Kora player that had filled the air with his music when I first showed up. I feel that the festival did an amazing job of bringing many cultures together as one and the focus of peace was an obvious platform for people to come together. The music reflected that as well, with the multi-genre diversity of entertainers on the bill.

The day had cooled down to a reasonable temperature and the headliners were taking stage to wrap up this four day event. After checking out the second to last band I had said my goodbyes and prepared myself for the long drive back home. Getting into my car, I felt a sense of contentment and peace within myself. I think the festival’s main goal of interconnectedness made its imprint into my soul. I highly enjoyed myself and would recommend Eathdance to anyone, including those in the Ironweed community who were able to see the August volume about achieving peace.

- By Eric Iverson, Musician and Earthdance Participant (Ironweed Films Volume 33: August 2008)
For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films/past

Health, Money and Fear & Government Intervention by Dr. Paul Hochfeld

2008-07-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

It was a great honor to have "Health, Money and Fear" included in the July edition of Ironweed Films. In the few months since I completed the film, I have been spending untold hours trying to distribute it with the goal of contributing to the debate.

Along the way, I have found a large number of sympathetic people. In my attempts to reach those who might not already be part of the choir, I have found a small but very vocal subset of apparently very bright people who have a violent reaction to any sense that our health care system calls for more government involvement which threatens "the magic of the marketplace."

To them I say that we have a health care non-system in which major business decisions are driven by the desire to maximize the profits gained from treating disease. There is relatively little money to be made from keeping people healthy. Accordingly, our current system will absolutely ensure that we have the most amount of disease from which we can profit. That's some kind of magic, eh?

As for more government involvement, that scares me too, but I don't think we have any choice. We are accelerating to the financial cliff and people are suffering because they don't have access to affordable health care. We need to develop a system in which somebody is leading the dialog about what medical services we can afford to provide to all our citizens.

I can almost guarantee that we will have a single payer system eventually... just like all our industrial competitors. It's the only way to control costs. Yes, "We are different", but what we have now isn't working.

-- Dr. Paul Hochfeld, Director, Health, Money and Fear (Ironweed Films Volume 32: July 2008)
For more information, visit http://www.ironweedfilms.com/films

Waiting to Inhale & Medical Marijuana Use by Oriana Iverson

2008-07-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

In April of 2007 I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. When I received this diagnosis at the ripe age of 30 I could not believe it. I have always been a very natural person, and try to use herbs and vitamins to keep healthy. How could this happen? People kept trying to convince me that I could beat it through some alternative treatment, and as much as I wanted to go that route, I had a husband and two-year-old son and I did not want to take chances.

My doctors informed me that a mild (by comparison) regimen of chemotherapy and radiation would most likely cure my cancer. Hodgkins is apparently a form of lymphatic cancer that is actually 95% curable with three months of weekly chemotherapy followed by one month of daily radiation treatments. Done and cured within 6 months? The choice to me was clear.

I prepped myself for what I knew would be a severely difficult time on my new family, and would certainly wreak havoc on my body. When treatments started it was as bad as I imagined. I was immediately nauseous and had no appetite. When I managed to muscle something down, I had severe digestive issues including excruciating stomachaches. I had constant headaches, suffered depression, couldn’t sleep, had low self-esteem after losing my hair, and generally felt just crappy.

It was not a completely novel idea to me to use marijuana to combat the side effects that I experienced from chemo. I had smoked it recreationally prior to my illness, and had had it in my medicine chest for nausea for years, but until I began using it medicinally for a serious illness, I never really truly understood how powerful and necessary a medicine it could be. I would use a vaporizer to partake, which warms the herb to the point of melting the THC crystals and releasing the essence of the herb but not burning it. I figured in light of the fact that I had cancer I should probably try to limit the amount of carcinogens that I purposely introduced into my system. This method of self medication was far more effective than any of the ten different drugs the doctor had prescribed to me to combat my side effects. One anti nausea medicine that was prescribed to me cost something like $1000 for 15 tablets and was reported to be the only truly effective drug for that purpose. Fortunately for me, I never needed to try it.

A visit to my “medication station” could, within minutes, stimulate my appetite, lift my spirits, relieve my aches and pains, and help me get to sleep. I had resolved from the beginning to keep a positive attitude because I knew it was the only way I could give strength to the people who loved and supported me, and herb was a great facilitator in helping me to achieve this goal.
My understanding was that once chemo was over, I had braved the worst, and it was “all downhill” from there. Once radiation started my hair would begin to grow back, and I wouldn’t be as nauseous. Instead of insomniac, I would be fatigued and finally able to sleep for more than 4 hours. My main issue was supposed to be acid reflux. Antacids would be helpful for this. (In reality, because of the heartburn and reflux that I experienced even while I was still eating, it was very difficult to motivate to eat at all. When I took my herbal medicine, I was at least temporarily convinced that eating could be tolerable and was worth the discomfort.) However, though all the promises about what to expect during radiation were accurate, a new, unexpected set of symptoms arose in reaction to the chemotherapy--after I had actually finished.

I developed a condition called peripheral neuropathy which is not uncommon to people who have been administered my chemo regimen. The normal symptoms are numbness and tingling in the extremities and in severe cases, dizziness and a decrease in muscle mass and motor function. In acute cases like mine, these other symptoms were accompanied by intolerable pain of every imaginable sensation: stinging, burning, aching, etc. It was relentless and for 6 weeks I slept no more than 2 hours a night. During the day I would spend my time trying to focus on something other than the pain and most times could be found rocking back and forth, near tears.

During this period, my use of medical marijuana increased to the point that I really needed to smoke every hour or so to relieve the pain. At that point those in my family who were unaccustomed to this kind of blatant and unapologetic use of marijuana could have easily worried that I was involved in some sort of addiction. But instead, they were all incredibly supportive. They witnessed me taking painkillers like Vicodin and (for lack of any drug specifically designed to combat acute peripheral neuropathy) the maximum dosage of a seizure medicine called Neurontin, just to ease the pain. It quickly became clear to them that the only time I was even close to comfortable was when I had medicated with a natural herb.

With so many friends and family coming through our home to help, it would have been a mixed blessing had they not all been so tolerant of my choice to use marijuana as an integral part of my treatment and care. I used their openness as an opportunity to educate them about how marijuana can be safely accessed and consciously administered. There was so much growth that occurred within all those who were touched by this experience. My mother actually came with me to a clinic to purchase medical marijuana lawfully, and others in the family tolerated the two beautiful bushes in our backyard that I was, to their amazement, permitted to grow via my doctor’s prescription and subsequently procured “215 card”.

I am so thankful that I was able to include marijuana in my treatment and use the experience as platform to increase consciousness around its compassionate use. During the height of my affliction with peripheral neuropathy my band was asked to perform at a medical marijuana rally. I could barely walk and my singing voice had suddenly decided to ditch its middle register. It was tempting to turn down the gig, but the cause was too close to my own heart. I got up on stage with my bald, scarf wrapped head, and sang to the best of my ability, all the while dancing and holding on to the microphone stand for balance. After what I had been through, it really hit home how important it is to promote the legalization of medical marijuana.

With recent changes in mandates around the cultivation and use of medical marijuana, and the ever-present disparity between state and federal laws, it is as important as ever to stand up for this cause and inform the public about the value of marijuana as a safe and effective alternative to prescription drugs. When Ironweed recently decided to put out the film “Waiting to Inhale,” I knew I had to be involved some how. During my treatment my mother took over operations for Ironweed Film Club, and the film that was coming out at that time was the “Breast Cancer Diaries,” which was moving to me as I could relate to the experience. Once again they are putting out a film that speaks to this life-changing event in my life and I am honored to have been included in the process of creating and promoting it.

I have been deemed cancer free for nearly a year now and have returned to my occasional recreational use of marijuana. Though it still elevates my mood, and stimulates my appetite, I no longer find it absolutely necessary to use it in order to cope. My pain is gone and my strength, balance and motor coordination have returned. I feel normal once again. Through the blessings of the creator, the love and support of my friends and family, and recent medical advancements (albeit thoroughly non-holistic), I was able to make it through. With the meditation induced through the use of marijuana, I was able to make it a spiritual experience and use it as an opportunity for growth and self-reflection.

--Oriana Iverson, Cancer Survivor (Introduction/ Ironweed Films Volume 32: July 2008)
Visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films to learn more.

Voices of Dissent & Political Protest by Karil Daniels

2008-07-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

It is perfect that Ironweed selected VOICES OF DISSENT for its mid-June 2008 DVD release, since July 4th follows as our country's birthday; a day to remember and celebrate the birth of democracy and freedom in the USA.

It is deplorable that our nation has strayed so far from the founders' concept of democracy. This is due in great part to the currently entrenched Bush administration which operates in their own self-interest, and often disregards the Congress and all other political parties, when it suits them to do so.

It is clear that they never learned the basis Kindergarten lessons of learning how to share and playing by the rules. Whether applying the concept of sharing to toys as children or political power as adults, we must all learn how to include everyone. Playing by the rules means that we are a nation of laws, not of people, and that those in power must respect and abide by the laws and the founding documents which describe what America truly is, rather than creating "signing statements" declaring that the laws don't apply to them, or ignoring Congressional subpoenas.

Looking at recent events, it is clear that the Bush administration is in violation of the Constitution on many counts and is doing everything possible to silence those who do not agree with them, even if it shreds our Constitution and Bill of Rights. They practice torture, lies, intimidation, arresting of their opponents, limiting the free speech of the public, outing of their own CIA operative as a vindictive act of political payback, and much more.

These actions are blatant violations of government "of the people, by the people and for the people." The Bush administration, which has been perverting our basic democratic values in myriad ways over the last 8 years, must be challenged and held accountable. As more and more people understand the extent of their crimes, the impeachment movement grows daily. Recently Dennis Kucinich bravely read into the Congressional Record a long list of Bush crimes against the Constitution and the American people.

VOICES OF DISSENT makes the argument that speaking out in opposition to those in power is one of our most basic and vital freedoms which must be protected, and it shows the many creative and inspirational ways that brave citizens are finding to express their anger and dissent against the erosion of our democracy and the hubris of the Bush cabal. Please visit http://www.voicesofdissent.us/

Bottom line is that if we do not protect and defend those who disagree with Bush, then we might as well have a dictator. Consider this: Bush, who describes himself as "the decider," said, on three separate occasions (and these are shown in the film), "things would be a lot easier in a dictatorship, if I'm the dictator." Some might say he was joking, others say that people often reveal their socially unacceptable and unpopular, yet real beliefs, in the form of a joke. Watch the film and decide for yourself. Which do you think it is?

-- Karil Daniels, Director, Voices of Dissent (Ironweed Films Volume 31: June 2008)
Visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films to learn more.

Call It Democracy & The Electoral College by Matt Kohn

2008-06-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

Elections are serious. Since World War Two, the human race has had the opportunity to extinguish itself. And the person making at least some of the decision regarding whether or not to use nuclear weapons is a single individual chosen by a system we have not changed since 1800.

We may never again live in a time when life or death struggles of our species are decided slowly. So it’s with that in mind that we must look critically at the Electoral College.

The purpose of the college was to elect to the Presidency a human being of at least 35 years of age who has resided in the United States for no less than 14 years and is lucky enough to have been born here. Otherwise, the sky is the limit. In theory this person is quite immune from the effects of their own decisions. A treasonous act committed by you or I could become the most patriotic decision if mandated by the President. And in the winner-takes-all system of accruing votes of all kinds, essentially, we vote for whomever wins.

While campaigning, the candidate will look at the most recent polling data, trying to understand the citizens most likely to change their votes in the candidate’s favor in unique districts across wide swaths of American experience. The gold is in the small precincts which can cause an entire state to be won, and therefore, an avalanche of Electoral votes.

This is kind of like watching sand balancing on scales to determine weight.

What I learned investigating the results of the last two Presidential elections is that pretty much every national election is prone to rigging and ultimately the betrayal of the will of the people. Even “will” as expressed through the Electoral College itself.

Watching my film, you will learn how this came to be, why it’s not going away soon, and how it has effects in every election. Watching my film, you’ll discover the historical truth that it’s not the name of the party, or a set of principles that goes back to the early 1800s, but the sense of advantage which determines how any party will react when faced with the civil rights challenges inherent in deciding by what method people vote.

This film presents the best argument from all sides. I don’t want to be bored by politicians and neither do you. What I want is to explore the mental gymnastics, tactics, and justifications that are the basics before asking yourself if the results of an election are “fair.”

I’m not going to tell you outright that the Electoral College should be abolished. I’ll help you learn about why you probably already feel that way.

--Matt Kohn, Director, Call It Democracy (Ironweed Films Volume 30: May 2008)
Visit www.ironweedfilms.com/films to learn more.

Ironweed Films Guest Blog

An Interview with Steve Kroschel about his film "The Beautiful Truth" and the politics of curing cancer

Zakary Zide talks about his inspiration for the "EarthDance Short Attention Span Environmental Film Festival"

Director's Statement from Singeli Agnew and Joshua Fisher about "Pollen Nation"

Director's Statement from Robert Greenwald about "Rethink Afghanistan"

Q and A with Andrew Nisker, Director of Chemerical

Director's Statement from Mark Achbar about "The Corporation"

Director's Statement from Philippe Diaz about "The End of Poverty"

Interview with Tim DePaepe, Director of Shades of Gray

Production Notes from Simon Burrow, Producer of Beyond Borders

Q&A WITH FILMMAKER JOSH TICKELL OF FUEL

Beth Murphy talks about making "Beyond Belief"

Geralyn Pezanoski talks about the experience of making "Mine"

Johan Norberg, Author of "Financial Fiasco", on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Director Kevin Tomlinson talks about his film "Back to the Garden"

Filmmaker David M. Edwards talks about his film Sprawling from Grace

Director Paul Lynch comments on the making of his film "Birth of a Movement"

Patty Greer talks about the experience of making "The Wake Up Call"

From the makers of 'What Babies Want' and 'Water Baby"

Farm Facts

Interview with Evgeny Morozov about Twitter and the Iran elections

Interview with James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch, the directors of Food Matters

Director Rod Mann talks about his film “Entheo:Genesis”

John Marks talks about his film "Shape of the Future"

Middle East Peace Documentary Airs Simultaneously to Israelis, PalestiniansAugust 8, 2005

(Re-Printed from Voice of America news.com)

Sundance Film Festival: The rebel and the Empress

Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival

Soldiers of Conscience filmmakers invite you to join the discussion!

- Gary Weimberg and Catherine RyanDirectors, SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE

Warchild Song Lyrics and Emmanuel Jal Bio

"Red Gold" by Co-Producer Lauren Oakes

"Mission to Break up Pacific Island of Rubbish Twice the Size of Texas" by Frank Pope

Recently Heard on Our Community Site...

"Crips and Bloods" Film Screening

Filmmaker Chris Metzler Introduces "Greener-Schnitzels"

Filmmaker Jeremy Kaller on "The Recyclergy"

Water Crisis Hits Iraq

Is a 100% AIG Bonus Tax Legal?

UN Experts to Probe Secret CIA Detention Centers

Tax the Speculators

Call for Mass Civil Disobedience Against Coal

Non-profit Organization Common Cause Expounds Upon Pay-to-Play

Past Film Update: Economist Gordon Tullock's Ideas on Political Corruption Explained

DEFIANCE: A new feature film coming soon to a theater near you

Daughters of Wisdom & Women's Advancement by Bari Pearlman

Considering Democracy & Policy Solutions by Keya Lea Horiuchi

Michael Moore's Free Film "Slacker Uprising"

9/11 & Government Bureaucracy by Ray Nowosielski

A Day at Earthdance by musician Eric Iverson

Health, Money and Fear & Government Intervention by Dr. Paul Hochfeld

Waiting to Inhale & Medical Marijuana Use by Oriana Iverson

Voices of Dissent & Political Protest by Karil Daniels

Call It Democracy & The Electoral College by Matt Kohn

Middle East Peace Documentary Airs Simultaneously to Israelis, Palestinians
August 8, 2005

- Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan
Directors, SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE