2001 List and Description of Films

LONG NIGHT’S JOURNEY INTO DAY: South Africa’s Search for Truth and Reconciliation
Director: Frances Reid & Deborah Hoffman
Production: Iris Film/Cinemax Reel Life
2000
Running Time: 94 minutes
This is a beautiful and often disturbing reflection on the nature of truth and forgiveness. The documentary captures the mandate of one of the most unusual social phenomena of recent history, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. The Commission’s function, after the fall of apartheid, was to examine the crimes from an era of systematic racism and decide who would be allowed to seek amnesty.
The empowering documentary Long Night’s Journey into Day examines the TRC and its purpose of bringing together victims and perpetrators to find the truth. With four amazing cases, including the killing of American Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl, we witness the TRC’s unusual goal of seeking justice that is restorative rather than retributive in hopes of creating a more promising future for South Africa.
The film takes us deep into the human heart, where searing hatred and healing forgiveness do battle as mothers face the killers of their children. But we also witness the miraculous transformation of a country as it brings closure to an ugly chapter, one case at a time – Patricia Thomson, indiewire.com
Best Documentary Film: Grand Jury Prize – Sundance Film Festival 2000
Peace Film Prize – Berlin Film Festival 2000
Berlinger Zeitung Reader’s Prize – Berlin Film Festival 2000
Golden Spire – San Francisco International Film Festival

PEACE OF MIND: Coexistence through the Eyes of Palestinian and Israeli Teens
Director: Mark Landsman
Production: Global Action Project
1999
Running Time: 56 minutes
This film is an intimate portrait of a conflict rarely seen from a youth perspective. The story centers on the efforts of teenagers to visit each other in their homes, amidst bombings and volatile peace talks that threaten their security. It’s about their often-difficult attempts to listen to each other and learn. They met at the “Seeds of Peace”` camp in the idyllic woods of Maine. This film chronicles what happens when they return to their homes, to their segregated communities, amidst fear, mistrust and hatred for the other side. The Palestinian and Israeli teenagers were each given their own video camera to document one year in their lives in Israel, the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority. Using cameras as video diaries, the teens turned the lens on themselves, their families, friends and communities, revealing the internal and external challenges each one of them faces as peace seekers in a fiercely divided conflict. Peace of Mind has been featured on ABC’s Nightline, and was screened at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and in festivals in Israel and Canada.
Best Documentary: Audience Award Honorary Mention – Hamptons International Film
Festival 1999
Most Inspiring Film – Canyonlands Festival 2000

JUST A LITTLE RED DOT
Director: Mitra Sen
Production: Sandalwood Productions
1996
Running Time: 35 minutes
Inspired by a true story, this is a story of a newcomer to Canada from Sri Lanka who enters her new 5th grade class, wearing a little dot on her forehead, some of her classmates are curious while others make fun of her and show racist attitudes. Things change when the girl gives her teacher a package of red dots (bindi), a South Asian cultural symbol, as a birthday gift. The kids are fascinated by the new symbol on the forehead of their teacher, and similarly want a dot for their own foreheads too. Out on the playground, they are faced with insensitivity and negative attitudes from their peers…and realizing the hurt and the pain that results from discrimination, the class decides to do something about it. Together they create an ingenious solution and set out on a mission to challenge prejudice and spread the message of respect and understanding for people who are different. This is a film that was made for children, but which can be enjoyed and appreciated by adults as well.
Best Short Film – International Film Festival for Children, India
Golden Book Prize – Roshd Educational Film Festival, Iran
Most Popular Film – Chicago International Children’s Film Festival
Grand Trophy/Best Educational Film – New York Festival
First Place Short Film – Cinema e Educaco, Brazil
Best Live Action Short – Korean International Family Film Festival

ZEGOTA
Narrator: Eli Wallach
Director: Sy Rotter
Production: Documentaries International Film & Video Production
1992
Running Time: 28 minutes
Using archival photographs and film footage, together with interviews, this film narrated by Eli Wallach, tells the story of the desperate plight of Polish Jews and the conditions of terror under which the Zegota rescuers tried to help. Zegota participants, Jewish survivors and Polish and Jewish historians recall and reflect on the extraordinary courage of people who risked – and some who sacrificed – their lives trying to save Polish Jews from certain death. Frustrated by the Allied government’s refusal of intervention, the exiled Polish leaders set in motion their own efforts to save Jewish lives by financing and encouraging the cooperative action between the Polish Underground and their civilian counterparts, who together had formed the clandestine Council for Aid to Jews. This was the only government-sponsored social welfare agency established to rescue Jews in German-occupied Europe. This organization, given the code name “Zegota,” provided hiding places and false identity documents for Jewish men, women, and children who were able to escape from Nazi control. Their efforts saved thousands of lives. At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Israel, they recognize the “Righteous Gentiles” for their rescue of Jews. More than 40% of the righteous gentiles were Poles. It is the highest percentage of all national groups who assisted Jews.

REGRET TO INFORM: a Journey in Search of Truth
Director: Barbara Sonneborn
Production: Sun Fountain Productions
1998
Running Time: 72 minutes
Barbara Sonneborn’s husband was killed during the Vietnam War. Regret to Inform is the story of Sonneborn’s travel to Vietnam to find not only the place where her husband was killed, but also the truth of war and its legacy. This film weaves together the stories of widows from both sides of the American-Vietnamese war. The result is a moving examination of the impact of war over time that personifies the often-overlooked casualties of armed conflict: the survivors. Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the serene Vietnamese countryside, as well as archival footage from the war, Regret to Inform unites the voices of women into an international call for peace. The unique and varied perspectives of the women offer a testament to their strength, as well as to the healing power of compassion.
Best Feature Documentary Nomination – Academy Awards 1999
Best Director and Best Cinematography: Jury Awards – Sundance Film Festival 1999
Best of Festival Award – Vermont International Film Festival 1999
Nester Almendros Award – Human Rights Festival 1999

RAIN 1949
Director: Ilan Yagoda
Production: Israel Film Service
1998
Running Time: 52 minutes
In 1949, there were torrential rains in Israel. During that year, many refugees from the Holocaust arrived in Israel, settled on the land, and built their homes. The people who had been living on that same piece of land were displaced. This is a program about two groups of people – connected to the same hill and the same olive groves – and the Arab village that is now an Israeli kibbutz. They are the settlers of Kibbutz Megido and the Arab villagers of Lajun. Director Ilan Yagoda’s mother was one of the refugees who founded and built Kibbutz Megido. Ilan had lived on the kibbutz during his youth, and left it after the death of his father. Seventeen years later, he returned to the kibbutz, and talked with some of the original refugees and settlers, each one still carrying their own unique burden. He also talked with the original Arab elders who were forced to leave their village. Each one is tied to the same land. This is their story and Ilan tells it beautifully and sensitively.
Second Prize for Broadcast Documentary: Israel – Seventh Annual International Jewish Video Competition
Honorable Mention – 48th Annual Columbus International Film and Video Festival
Hamptons International Film Festival

PRELUDE TO KOSOVO: War and Peace in Bosnia and Croatia
Director: John Michalczyk
Production: Boston College and the Boston Theological Institute
1999
Running Time: 52 minutes
The film challenges some of the conventional wisdom about the recent horrors in Kosovo and offers some plausible shreds of hope for reconciliation and a brighter future. Filmmaker John Michalczyk has a background in theology, and it is his clear ecumenical spirit and interest in religious history that animates this informative and worthy film – John Koch, The Boston Globe
Prelude to Kosovo was shot on location in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia. The documentary combines graphic footage with interviews with religious and political figures. The film addresses the ideology of “ethnic cleansing” and the massacres resulting from a nationalist quest for political, cultural, and religious domination. The Serbian Orthodox, Bosnian Muslim, and Croatian Catholic perspectives are all represented. The film features original Balkan music by Alexis Gavras, Vedran Smailovic, and Vuk Kulenovic. Boston PBS affiliates WGBH and WGBX broadcast the television premiere of Prelude to Kosovo in November 1999.

FORBIDDEN MARRIAGES in the Holy Land
Director: Michel Khleifi
Production: Sinibad Films in association with
Sourat Films and the New-Media program of the European Union
1995
Running Time: 66 minutes
Exploring the lives and loves of eight mixed marriages from different generations and backgrounds, director Michel Khleifi uncovers the human side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The stories shown in Forbidden Marriages in the Holy Land include that of a young Palestinian musician living with his Israeli musicologist girlfriend; a fiery Palestinian woman married to a Jew; a Jewish woman who converted to Islam to be with her husband in Gaza; and an African woman married to a Palestinian. An intriguing expose of couples that, in a region scarred by conflict and catastrophe, chose love instead of hate. As one interviewee remarks, “If all Arab women married Jewish men and vice versa there would be no problem.”

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