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Social Justice Cinema

Mikko Makela talks about A MOMENT IN THE REEDS

By Bijan Tehrani on 12/10/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

In A MOMENT IN THE REEDS, having moved to Paris for university, Leevi returns to his native Finland for the summer to help his estranged father renovate the family lake house so it can be sold. Tareq, a recent asylum seeker from Syria, has been hired to help with the work, and when Leevi’s father must return to town on business, the two young men fall in love and spend a few days discovering one another during the Finnish midsummer. The following is Cinema Without Borders interview with Mikko Makela, director of A MOMENT IN THE REEDS. Mikko Makela is…

Daniel Sawka talks about the ICEBOX (Dec 7th on HBO)

By World Cinema Reports' Editors on 12/06/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

ICEBOX, a HBO film, written and directed by Daniel Sawka will be aired on Friday December 7th at HBO. ICEBOX tells the story of Óscar, played by Anthony Gonzalez (“Coco”), a 12-year-old Honduran boy who is forced to flee his home and seek asylum in the United States, only to find himself trapped in the U.S. immigration system. At Cinema Without Borders, we had the opportunity of interviewing Daniel Sawka on camera about making of the ICEBOX. https://vimeo.com/304885244 “I have seldom seen a movie so of the moment – it’s almost reportage,” said Amato. “ICEBOX gives viewers not only an opportunity…

Four films offering four different approaches to #BlackLivesMatter

By World Cinema Reports' Editors on 12/03/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

Give or take, it’s been about five to six years since #BlackLivesMatter became a thing on social media. By most accounts, the use of that hashtag began after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin. The deaths of Michael Brown (which led to protests and unrest in Ferguson) and Eric Garner in New York City and the street demonstrations that followed made the movement known all over the US and of course around the globe as well. Surely it’s an extension or a new mutation/update of the Civil Rights movement, with a little bit…

Can Sci-fi Movies Help Us Avoid Technological Disaster?

By World Cinema Reports' Editors on 11/17/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

Science fiction (sci-fi) has served as both an ethical and moral gauge of human scientific endeavors since at least Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in literature and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in film. A number of books have looked at how science is portrayed in the movies with all of them bringing a unique perspective to the issue (in fact, IEEE Spectrum’s own Stephen Cass coauthored such a book just last year). Now, a new book written by one of the preeminent experts on how to recognize and prevent risks in emerging technologies brings a new perspective to the topic, and asks: Can we use sci-fi films as a road…

Angelena Bonet Wins Two Awards for Angelena: Heart Of The Matter

By World Cinema Reports' Editors on 11/16/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

Angelena Bonet, founder and CEO of her companies Crystal Heart Productions and Crystal Heart Records, has won another two prestigious Awards of Recognition from the IndieFEST Film Awards. One award was given for Bonet’s biopic sequel documentary feature film “Angelena: Heart Of The Matter” in the Liberation/Social Justice/Protest category and Best Music Video for “Break The Chain.” “Angelena: Heart Of The Matter” (“A Time Of A Revolution”) is the second documentary feature film in her trilogy series. Continuing on from where “Angelena: Change The World” (A True Story) left off, Australian-born Bonet interviews high profile women’s rights leaders around the world such as President Obama’s Women’s Equality…

The Village-Grown Dialect Film Festival

By World Cinema Reports' Editors on 11/16/2018 CinéEqual

GUANGDONG, South China — For three centuries, quiet Zurong Village at the southernmost tip of China’s mainland hasn’t had much to offer visitors, aside from tropical fruit. But that all changed when a local businessman decided to make the small town the center of a nationwide film festival. For the past three years, the village has hosted the Zurong Dialect Film Festival, China’s first to celebrate the country’s dialects. The country is host to over 130 languages with countless regional variants, according to the Ministry of Education. However, dialects differ so greatly that Chinese speakers often cannot even understand them. In Zurong…

An interview with Carlos Amador, about California Immigrant Policy Center

By Bijan Tehrani on 11/04/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

Carlos Amador is CIPC’s Organizing Director, based in Los Angeles. He brings a wide-range of organizing and campaign skills from his years as a national immigrant youth leader. He was previously the Project Manager of the Dream Resource Center at the UCLA Labor Center, where he worked on issues impacting immigrant youth nationally. He is a former Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors for the United We Dream Network, and a founding Steering Committee member of the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance. Carlos was also a key member of the successful national campaign that won the Deferred Action for Childhood…

A conversation about The Apology, Airing October 22 on POV

By Bijan Tehrani on 10/21/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

The Apology depicts the personal journey of three women whose lives were upended when they were forced into sexual slavery during World War II. United Nations researchers report that between 1931 and 1945, the Japanese military forced an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 women and girls into institutionalized sexual slavery. Euphemistically referred to as “comfort women,” they typically ranged in age from 11 to 33 and were taken from Japanese colonies from Korea to Indonesia. Mobilized through forced recruitment, kidnapping, false employment offers or sale by family members and employers, they served in brothels supervised by the Japanese military. Seventy years…

Pariyerum Perumal: Civility in an Uncivil, Casteist Society

By World Cinema Reports' Editors on 10/13/2018 CinéEqual, Videos

Among other things, the film showcases how the campuses in Tamil Nadu are widely demarcated among the student population based on caste. Pariyerum Perumal (God Who Mounts a Horse) is a very strong film. It invites a society, which is entrenched with casteist prejudices, for a debate and asks people to rethink these extreme forms of incivility. It takes us through the highly emotional struggles of a scheduled-caste youth who aspires to become a spokesperson of dignity and human rights for his community. He thus wishes to become like his role model, Dr B.R. Ambedkar, an unparalleled revolutionary leader of modern…

Medea Benjamin talks about her book, Inside Iran

By Bijan Tehrani on 10/08/2018 CinéEqual

Social-justice filmmakers are in constant search for important and crucial sources for subjects for their films. The new book by Medea Benjamin, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, opens new horizons for those in search of captivating and pertinent issues. Inside Iran is a very honest and precise look into the relationship between Iran and the USA. The current U.S. administration’s policy of imposing unfair sanctions and beating the war drum by leaving the Iran Nuclear deal puts the lives of millions of Iranians at risk. Iran is among the nations listed in…

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Bridging The Border Award

At a time when physical, religious, racial, cultural, and economic borders divide the population of our planet, efforts to bridge those borders should be appreciated. In that spirit, Cinema Without Borders presents Bridging the Borders Award to the films that are most successful in bridging and connecting the people of
CineEqual

CinéEqual represents filmmakers, institutions, and community members with a focus on social justice cinema. As an integrated unit of CWB, it promotes a diverse, inclusive, and equitable democratic society that values the worth of all humans. The purpose is to educate our audience about concepts, theories, and methods related to social justice and to integrate ethical practices for solving social inequities through our online networks and resources. From studio productions like To Kill a Mockingbird to low budget films like Hotel Rwanda, I am not Your Negro, cinema has a venerable record of putting the spotlight on social injustice.