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A Festival of Peace
“I ran away from my foster mother, became homeless, lived on the street for three years. Because I was handicapped I couldn’t get into an apartment building to get out of the snow. Your skin feels like it’s on fire when you’re that cold. I’d stand in the doorway, where bright lights shine on the manikins, and psych myself into believing I could feel the heat coming off the light bulb.”
We get, in all, twelve minutes of Daisy. The above words are a condensation of one of those minutes. The other eleven are just as intense, just as shocking — but spiritually soaring, as this wheelchair-bound woman — she contracted polio after swimming in a polluted lake — talks matter-of-factly about a life that seems like it should be broken beyond repair. She talks about her abusive father, the beatings, the flowers on the bedspread (her only toys), her “bright light” spiritual vision in an iron lung. Her words made me cry, not because of the horror, but because she was so happy, so full of a transcendent gratitude for nothing less than life itself.
This short film, by Jack Major, is called “Daisy.” It’s one of 34 films that make up the second annual Peace on Earth Film Festival, which will be held on the last three days of February at Chicago’s Cultural Center. A schedule for the event will be posted soon at peaceonearthfilmfestival.org.
The festival is (amazingly) free of charge, and features a joyful diversity of documentaries, student films and animated shorts from all over the world, united thematically under the rubric of “peace.”
All of which begs a fascinating question: What is peace? A film festival that celebrates it has to come up with a working definition. Nick Angotti, who founded the festival in 2008, kept coming back to the word “story” when we talked about it. The review committee looked at 194 submissions; the ones they selected all told a slice of the human story, compellingly if not always slickly.
“We do have films that pictorially are not the best, but the stories are amazing,” Nick said.
After looking at a number of the films myself, in whole or in part, I would add the word “truth” to this working definition. I started to realize, as I reviewed movies on topics as diverse as dumpster diving, Holocaust remembrance, Iranian teen rappers, a Muslim man’s alienation in post-9/11 America, and two preschool boys’ innocent discovery of race, that there was a certain sensitive consciousness at work or at play in each one, stirring the raw truth. The result could be joyous, searing, darkly comedic, or all of the above.
This is a film festival with a mission.
“Peace on Earth Film Festival,” the mission statement reads, “is a not-for-profit film festival whose primary objective is to raise an awareness of peace, nonviolence, social justice and an eco-balanced world as possibilities, by bringing attention to independent films from around the world. Through the power of motion pictures, POEFF endeavors to enlighten and empower individuals, families and communities to step out of the ignorance of conflict, violence and divisiveness into the light of communication, compassion and understanding.”
Part of the festival’s mission is to bring peace awareness to young people — to let them hear the stories of their contemporaries and wake them up to the power and significance of their own stories. Thus, before the festival officially opens, some 600 Chicago schoolchildren, in several groups, will get a chance to screen a number of the student films, vote for the best one and engage in dialogue about what they saw.
The spirit of this is summed up in the words of Margaret Wheatley, who is quoted on the festival’s website: “You can’t hate the one whose story you know.”
As well as the 34 films, which range from feature-length to several minutes long, the festival will include several panel discussions. In one of them, some of the filmmakers whose work is featured will talk about their craft and the potential of the medium of film to promote — create — peace. A second panel (which I have the honor of moderating) will be composed of Chicago-area peacemakers, who will talk about the work they’re doing in their communities.
“Peace, as we have seen, is not an order natural to mankind: it is artificial, intricate and highly volatile. All kinds of preconditions are necessary,” writes military historian Michael Howard in The Invention of Peace.
He means this, I think, as a statement of hope, stripped of illusion. Peace is possible, but we have to work at it. Indeed, we have to invent it. And crucial to the process is the work of filmmakers, whose job is to tell the stories of those who already have.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllThis is what movies OUGHT to be about. Not violence and mayhem, "heroes" performing impossible stunts, sickly sweet "love" stories, stupid comedies, and stupider "message" films.
Peace. Wisdom. Sanity. Wit. Peace.
Gary
“Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they're doing and saying in films right now just shouldn't be allowed. There's no dignity anymore and I think that's very important.”
-- Mae West
It depends on what one calls a "stupid message film", gdgoodman. Frankly, I think that there are plenty of good movies out there that do carry a message.
"West Side Story", although it's a musical about gangs, racial/ethnic tensions, urban gang warfare, and people crossing the ethnic/racial/color barriers and falling in love, sends a distinct message. Far from glorifying gang violence, West Side Story, imho, points out the senselessness of it, and the destructive consequences of bigotry and hatred.
Set in the late 1960's, "Billy Jack", a film that's about a Green Berets Viet Nam Vet who's half white and half Cherokee Indian and an expert at Hapkido (a Korean Martial Art that combines Tae Kwon Do and Aikido), turns against the war, and, drawing closer to his Native American roots, takes up solitary residence on an Indian Reservation that's nearby a conservative Arizona town. Nearby the reservation is also a progressive alternative school for kids of all races, ethnic groups and colors with problems of some sort or other, that has only two rules; No drugs, Do something creative, and carry one's own weight. Run by a kindly teacher named Jean Roberts, the school runs into much trouble with many of the town's residents, who're resentful of non-whites, peace oriented whites, and the fact that the school is an unconventional school, with few rules.
When some of the kids at the school go into town, they encounter much hatred from local townspeople, as well as physical abuse from some townfolks, including Bernard Posner, the son of the town commissioner, Stuart Posner, and his friends when they go into an ice cream shop and are denied service by the white proprietor of the store. Billy Jack arrives, sees what's just happened, and becomes enraged. A fight ensues when Billy Jack takes on a bunch of local toughs in a city park just across the street from the ice cream shop. At first, Bernard Posner seems like someone to be sympathized with when he refuses to shoot down the wild Mustang horses at the Indian reservation for his father to sell as dog food, at six cents a pound, but as the movie goes on, we see Bernard more and more for what he really is; a vengeful but cowardly individual who admits to hating his father but always wanting to make him proud. Bernard also tries to hit on a couple of female students at the school without success. This vengefulness shows up even more when he shoots and kills Martin, a gentle Native American boy who befriends a student at the school named Barbara who, after being beaten by her father for being pregnant and sick at 15, runs away and is hidden at the school by Billy Jack. She ends up losing the baby by falling off the horse while doing some trick riding. Bernard Posner, together with his pal, "Dinosaur", tie Jean Roberts up and brutally rape her while she's sunbathing down by the river.
Bernard Posner does get his in the end, however. Despite warnings by Jean Roberts of possible dissolution of the school and harm coming to the kids, Billy Jack gets his revenge. He hunts down Bernard Posner, finds him making out with a 13-year-old girl in a shabby hotel room on the edge of town, and, when Bernard aims a gun at Billy Jack, Billy Jack kills Bernard with a karate chop to the throat. He and Barbara take sanctuary in the old church on the edge of town. A shootout between Billy Jack and the law ensues, and Billy Jack shoots and kills Barbara's father, Mike. Only under the conditions that the school be run for the next ten years without interference, that Jean Roberts becomes Barbara's legal guardian, and the promise of the governor's office to hold annual conferences on the school's progress does Billy Jack ultimately surrender to the law and allow himself to be taken to trial, amid much weeping, Black Power saluting, and waving from the kids at the school,for whom Billy Jack had so quickly become their hero and protector.
All of the above having been said, I believe that the film "Billy Jack" sends a very mixed message; While it's necessary to fight against racism, lawlessness and corruption, things can and sometimes do go too far, as the killings indicate.
Of course there are REAL "message" films. One could say Avatar is a "message" film. though it seems somewhat mixed, like the Billy Jack movies.
I was referring to the "message" films that clumsily put forth some sentimental tripe of an idea. The Lion King springs to mind.
Gary
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
-- from Ferris Bueller's Day Off
"Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity, quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace."
Benito Mussolini
"It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do."
Benito Mussolini
"Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism."
Benito Mussolini
"Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts."
Benito Mussolini
"The mass, whether it be a crowd or an army, is vile."
Benito Mussolini
"The truth is that men are tired of liberty."
Benito Mussolini
For every one peace film out there, there are 10 war films competing against it. Nevertheless, watching the peace films and passing it around is one of the best ways to convince even a passive mind to practice peace. Anyone can pretend to be for peace one minute and then make violent remarks the next thereby contradicting oneself and the same goes for politicians who speak against one war but then get into office and find themselves unable to make the move for getting out of war. We all have the power to make peace trump war even in times when government funds military spending over domestic spending. We can teach children not to play with war toys and train them to be constructive. Parents and adults in general can put pressure on schools to prevent military recruiters from intruding on education and make them disclose the full details of what signing up is all about. I'm sure there are more examples out there that we could share on this forum in addition to the articles.
Peace
Remember that war makes great profits for corporations who are now firmly in control of our country. Peace is always something to strive for, but in reading history, it will always be with us in some form. The war party in this country is quite successful in persuading ordinary citizens that they are looking out for their welfare, while the opposite is true.
"Good news makes bad copy"
"If it bleeds it leads"
and so on, ad nauseaum.
"...as I reviewed movies on topics as diverse as dumpster diving, Holocaust remembrance, Iranian teen rappers, a Muslim man’s alienation in post-9/11 America, and two preschool boys’ innocent discovery of race..."
A holocaust movie?
You never see that subject represented in mainstream cinema.
Meanwhile, it seems as if every second Oscar-winning film is about dumpster-diving.
A reminder that we have seemingly forgotten the individual in our support for corporate crime and endless war for profit.
Sioux Rose
Well, this festival is the YIN to Chicago's YANG in that the beauty of this festival presents something of a counterbalance to the infamous "Chicago School" which lent legitimacy to Friedman's ideology, thereby setting the foundation for "The Shock Doctrine." And THE PEOPLE have paid and paid ever since.
Sioux Rose your posts R always extraordinary synchronised creative and poetic and a sense of universality. Just now the yin & yang confirm balance & spirituality I don't mean religion all delivered with fire in the belly. U don't have to say anything it screamed to be said.
Soulidarity
Sioux Rose
LIBERTUS: You're very lyrical, yourself. And it's always a pleasure to "meet" like-minded (or at least open-minded) fellow intellectual travelers in this forum. Goddess knows the U.S. elites are bound and determined to evoke another Dark Age, so it's imperative that those who understand The Light speak about it, teach about it, and share in its ultimate embrace.
It's very stormy here in North Florida. Again. And I can see how the born agains in my zone will take the wild weather as ample proof that no global warming is going on. We've had record COLD temperatures. Here is where it would be wiser to explain that the climate is DESTABILIZED, and that those regular seasons have eclipsed their usual boundaries, not unlike the world's oceans rising over previously habitable island chains. Without orderly seasons, the harvest cycles will cease to deliver, even if nature's elements are lined up, enslaved, and chemically INDUCED to produce. As Kahlil Gibran poignantly pointed out in his elegant work, "The Prophet"... "If you bake a bread with bitterness, you bake a bitter bread." Carry that concept into the biogenetic assembly line currently beating the life out of every minute BEing.
In such strained times, when so much wit and treasure is wasted on the instruments that guarantee calamitous outcomes, thank you for reaching out across the din to say hello, and sending a smile into my soul.
Films are the extraordinary indispensable reflection, a mirror of our collective conscious & unconscious. Every image is a thousand year a thousand memory a thousand colour. It is our eternal wondering & marvelling test exploring our deepest humanity, spirituality, sexuality, vision, thermostat and the dark side within the animal itself. It is of the utmost importance that we do not let corporation engineer that mirror or destroy the natural one.
Soulidarity
For a good metaphorical take on fascism, check out John Carpenter's 1988 film "They Live". Experience a world veiled in subliminal propaganda....BUY CONSUME CONFORM SUBMIT OBEY and best of all...SLEEEEP my little pretty!
A peace film festival that doesn't seem to have much to do with actual peace, as in relation to war and occupation, seems to be a misnomer. That is not to say that such a festival, dedicated to human rights and social justice issues, isn't important.
Uri Avnery just came out with an article on this very phenomenon in Israel where there are all sorts of different civil and human rights groups that are very commendable but he notes with concern that there are almost no actual peace groups. And since he believes that peace, in the sense of not continuing the violent occupation of the Palestinians, is fundamental to all other social justice issues, he believes that they work as distractions, leading those with ideals away from the core issues surrounding actual peace.
Given that the US is also involved in violent aggression and occupation of numerous places on the earth, shouldn't a peace festival here, in the belly of the war beast, be dedicated to actual peace? Isn't there enough material and concern for that? And if not, why not?