Screening: _Gaza Strip_ (Thu., Oct. 31) & other events

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Thursday, October 31, 7:30 - 9:30 PM
Screening: Gaza Strip (Dir. James Longley, 2001)
*****   Like most news reports and television images coming out of 
the Middle East these days, "Gaza Strip," an unsparing new 
documentary by James Longley, offers little reason for optimism.  The 
film, which opens today at the Anthology Film Archives in the East 
Village, was shot in the winter and spring of 2001, and it provides a 
grim, upsetting glimpse at the lives of some of the 1.2 million 
Palestinians who live in the crowded cities and refugee camps of 
Gaza.  Mr. Longley makes powerful use of the techniques of cinéma 
vérité.  The absence of voice-over narration and talking-head 
interviews gives his portrait of daily life under duress a riveting 
immediacy.  Much of "Gaza Strip" follows Mohammed Hejazi, a 
13-year-old newspaper vendor.  This youth, who left school after the 
second grade, spends much of his spare time with other boys throwing 
rocks at Israeli soldiers, even though his best friend was killed by 
the gunfire that is the inevitable response, and his father, who had 
spent time in an Israeli prison, once tied his son up to keep him at 
home.  Mohammed presents a mixture of hardened cynicism and childish 
innocence that is both heartbreaking and unnerving.  He is equally 
contemptuous of Ariel Sharon, whose election as prime minister takes 
place early in the film, of Mr. Sharon's predecessor Ehud Barak and 
of Yasir Arafat, and he fluctuates between weary sorrow and 
militaristic bravado. ("We want weapons. We don't want 
food.")...There are moments in "Gaza Strip" that disclose a wrenching 
human reality deeper and more basic than any politics.  At one point 
Mohammed muses on death and the afterlife.  His words cut against 
much of what we have heard lately about the Muslim view of martyrdom 
and paradise.  He imagines receiving a stern interrogation from God - 
"Why did you throw those rocks?" "Why did you steal?" - after which 
he will be sent to heaven or hell, he doesn't know which.  After some 
thought, he decides that he would be happiest in the solitude of 
purgatory.  Such is the aspiration of a boy in Gaza.   (A.O. Scott, 
New York Times 1/8/02)   *****
Cf. <http://www.littleredbutton.com/gaza/>
Location: 300 Journalism Building, Ohio State University, 242 West 
18th Ave., Columbus, OH
Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/journalismbuilding.html>
Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance
Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Download the flyer at <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/PalTruth-GazaStrip.doc>!

Thursday, November 7, 7:30 - 9:30 PM
Screening: _SOA: Guns & Greed_ (Dir. Robert Richter, 2000) & _The New 
Patriots_ (Dir. Robert Richter, 2002)
Mary Hershberger, Graciela Rannella, and Vince Ramos will lead 
discussion after the video showing.
* _SOA: Guns & Greed_: Rarely seen footage in this documentary shows 
how the combat-ready SOA graduates use their guns to protect the 
greed of large corporations and world financial institutions. Acting 
on their own or under orders from their governments, the soldiers 
target labor organizers, human rights advocates, educators, religious 
leaders and others who speak out against sweatshops and enterprises 
of greed that exploit the country's people and resources. _SOA: Guns 
& Greed_ presents powerful statements from students, labor leaders, 
veterans and church people involved in nonviolent protests to close 
the School of the Americas.
* _The New Patriots_: Five U.S. military veterans, including a 
Congressional Medal of Honor winner and a woman West Point graduate, 
speak out about terrorism, patriotism, and their transformation from 
warriors to peace activists. After the 9/11 tragedy the U.S. 
government called for the eradication of terrorist training camps. 
Not mentioned by officials was the U.S. Army School of the Americas 
(SOA), located at Ft. Benning, GA, described by the veterans as a 
school for terrorism. After a decade of protests, the SOA changed its 
name to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation 
(WHISC). As SOA did in earlier years, WHISC today trains hundreds of 
Latin American soldiers in counter-insurgency techniques aimed at 
terrorizing civilian populations.
Location: 300 Journalism Building, OSU, 242 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH
Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance
Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Download the flyer at <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/SOA.doc>.

Saturday, November 9, 1:00-3:00 PM
Statewide Anti-War Rally in Columbus, OH
Location: the Statehouse Lawn / Tentative time: 1:00-3:00
Initial Co-sponsors: Committee for Justice in Palestine & Council on 
American-Islamic Relations

Thursday, November 14, 7:30 - 9:30 PM
Screening: _500 Dunam on the Moon_ (Dir. Rachel Leah Jones, 2002)
Ayn Hawd is a Palestinian village that was captured and depopulated 
by Israeli forces in the 1948 war. In 1953 Marcel Janco, a Romanian 
painter and a founder of the Dada movement, helped transform the 
village into a Jewish artists' colony, and renamed it Ein Hod. This 
documentary tells the story of the village's original inhabitants, 
who, after expulsion, settled only 1.5 kilometers away in the 
outlying hills. This new Ayn Hawd cannot be found on official maps, 
as Israeli law doesn't recognize it, and its residents, deemed 
"present absentees" by the authorities, do not receive basic services 
such as water, electricity or an access road. Rachel Leah Jones' 
filmmaking debut is a critical look at the art of dispossession and 
the creativity of the dispossessed.
Cf. <http://www.500dunam.com/>
Location: 300 Journalism Building, OSU, 242 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH
Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/journalismbuilding.html>
Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance
Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Download the flyer at <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/500DunamontheMoon.doc>!

Thursday, November 21, 7:30 - 9:30 PM
Screening: _Project Censored_ (Dir. Steve Keller)
For the first time on video, stories ignored by the mainstream news 
media are reported and discussed by journalists and media scholars. 
For the past 20 years, Project Censored has compiled an annual list 
of the most significant news stories ignored or censored by the 
established media.  In this new video by Off the Couch Productions, 
five of those stories are presented by narrator Martin Sheen: "U.S. 
Arms Deals Flout the 'Arms Transfer Code of Conduct'"; "NASA Bets the 
World: Cassini's Deadly Payload"; "Personal Care and Cosmetic 
Products May Be Carcinogenic"; "Dark Alliance: The Contras, the CIA, 
and Crack Cocaine"; and "Milking the Public: The Bovine Growth 
Hormone Controversy."  Commentary is offered by journalism scholars 
Ben Bagdikian, Peter Phillips, Carl Jensen, and Erna Smith, as well 
as Bruce Brugmann, publisher of the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Cf. <http://mediaed.org/videos/CommercialismPoliticsAndMedia/ProjectCensored>
Location: 300 Journalism Building, OSU, 242 West 18th Ave., Columbus, OH
Campus Map: <http://www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/journalismbuilding.html>
Sponsors: Student International Forum & Social Welfare Action Alliance
Contact: Yoshie Furuhashi, 614-668-6554 or <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
Download the flyer at <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ProjectCensored.doc>!
-- 
Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: 
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
* Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
* Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>