The Prague Post
July 25th, 2008
Endowment Fund     Book of Lists ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Night & Day

Frontline cinema

A week of documentaries offers a bracing dose of reality
Cinema Review | Search restaurants | Archives

By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 5th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
A Jihad for Love is just one of the offerings at this year's One World Film Festival.
enlarge
10th Annual One World Documentary Film Festival

March 5-13
At various cinemas and other venues
For full information, check www.jedensvet.cz

Local kinos will be dispensing a dose of reality this coming week, as the One World Festival takes over various screens with the best in contemporary film documentaries.
The decade-old festival has deservedly gained an international profile, reflected in the 13 films screening this year that are either European or world premieres.
As in years past, there will be some type of reportage for everyone, as well as a number of classics of the genre, such as Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line, John Pilger’s Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy and Marcel Ophuls’ brilliant The Sorrow and the Pity. There will also be a chance to see some classic Czech documentaries from the ’60s, including Stanislav Milota’s Jan 69, Evald Schorm’s Zmatek and Jaromil Jireš’s Tribunal.
Almost all the films, with a few exceptions, will be screened with English subtitles. The following are just a few suggestions for the week ahead (see the film listings for a full schedule).
Taxi to the Dark Side—USA. 2007. Directed by Alex Gibney. Just handed an Oscar for Best Documentary, Taxi is necessary viewing for anyone who might still harbor doubts about the morality of the United States’ wars. This hard-hitting film follows the incidents that led to an innocent Afghan taxi driver being sent to a U.S. interrogation camp, where he was literally interrogated to death. Director Gibney was also responsible for the excellent Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. March 6 at 5:30 p.m. at Světozor; March 8 at 11:40 p.m. at Lucerna
A Jihad for Love—USA, UK. 2007. Directed by Parvez Sharma. The plight of gay Muslims is fairly well-known to anyone paying attention to the press. From Neolithic Saudi Arabia to semi-civilized Iran, gay men and lesbians lead lives of fear and self-hatred. Produced by Sandi Dubowski, whose Trembling Before G_d captured the desperate attempts by gay Orthodox Jews to reconcile their sexuality with their faith, Jihad follows Muslim men and women attempting the same thing, whether they live in Egypt, Iran or in a Paris banlieue. As a counterpoint, Nitzan Gilady’s Jerusalem is Proud to Present shows that even though Israel is a far more liberal and democratic country than most of its neighbors, Israeli gays still must battle against religious intolerance. Jihad—March 7 at 9:45 p.m. at Lucerna; March 8 at 5:30 p.m. at Kino Atlas. Jerusalem is Proud—March 7 at 12:30 a.m. at Lucerna; 5:30 p.m. at Světozor
McLibel—UK. 2005. Directed by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach. It was the longest legal battle in English court history, and it was waged between one of the world’s largest fast food corporations and two average London residents. A gardener and barmaid, both Greenpeace volunteers, were sued by McDonald’s after they were found handing out anti-McDonald’s pamphlets in front of the hamburglar’s franchise in Hampstead. When the Happy Meal–makers couldn’t bend the accused and courts to their will, they started throwing their money around with their weight. But even a personal visit from Ronald McDonald wasn’t enough to finally kill off free speech. March 6 at 9:30 p.m. at Ponrepo
Nanking—USA. 2007. Directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman. This HBO-produced docudrama mixes historical footage with actors reading from contemporary diaries and reports from Westerners who witnessed the Japanese rape of Nanking in 1937. The butchering of the city’s civilians might have been even worse, had not the semi-autonomous expat community saved thousands within its own walls. Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway and Jürgen Prochnow are among the cast. March 7 at 10 p.m. at Atlas; March 10 at 5:30 p.m. at Světozor
Shadow of the Holy Book—Finland, 2007. Directed by Arto Halonen. Megalomania doesn’t come any finer than it did in Saparmyrat Niyazov Turkmenbashi, the now-thankfully dead despot of Turkmenistan. Along with renaming months after his relatives and banning opera, Turkmenbashi penned a turgid book of spiritual guidance as garniture for his personality cult, the Ruhnama, which makes Dianetics look like the Psalms. Halonen’s film looks at how the forced learning of Turkmenbashi’s ramblings has nearly thrown the former Soviet republic back into the dark ages. March 7 at 7:30 p.m. at Lucerna

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (5/03/2008):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Book of Lists

Provokator
Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.