Global Peace Film Festival Archive

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Films From 2004 GPFF

Another Side of Peace

“If we can find reconciliation as parents who have lost our own children, why can’t our leaders do the same” - Roni Hershenzon is a 60-year-old Israeli man who lost both sons to the ongoing violence in Israel. Rather than be consumed by hatred and despair, Roni took a less-traveled road by co-founding the Parents Circle, an Israeli and Palestinian support group for bereaved families who have lost children in the conflict. Another Side of Peace follows Roni’s personal journey to come to terms with his sons’ deaths and his outward journey, with his Palestinian counterpart Ghazi Brigrieth, to connect with other bereaved parents in Israel and the West Bank in their shared search for reconciliation and an end to the violence.

The Boat Is Full

Some films tell history; but there are a select few that actually make history. We are proud to bring back -- in a miraculously restored print -- Markus Imhoof’s landmark 1981 Swiss drama, The Boat is Full. This intimate, powerful, and ultimately devastating film dared to explode the myth of Switzerland’s neutrality toward Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, it has been nearly absent from American theaters for two decades. It is 1942. A ragtag group of Jewish refugees escaping from a German train stumbles upon a place of sanctuary and hope -- a farmhouse just across the Swiss border. Among them is a woman seeking to find her husband, an orphan, an old man, and a deserting German soldier -- all exiles, turning with hope of refuge to a hardened and fearful Swiss couple. Their desperate light, and the shifts of fate brought about by their hosts’ denunciation and sudden repentance, creates one of the most powerful and indelible depictions of the moral price of war. Controversial in its home country from the outset, but ultimately recognized worldwide as a masterpiece of storytelling and ensemble acting, the film’s power derives from its tight focus on one small band of outcasts. The film has taken on renewed resonance amid recent allegations of Swiss banking and government complicity with Nazi Germany. But Imhoof’s beautifully controlled drama transcends contemporary debates to reveal a universal human struggle for rescue and redemption. Originally presented at the very first San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in 1981, we are thrilled to screen The Boat is Full in a digitally restored print that took seven labs three years to prepare.

BROTHERHOOD U.S.A. 2003 84 min

Everyone knows about the heroism of New York City's firefighters on September 11. We read about and saw video of them going into the towers and fighting their way up the stairs when everyone else was fighting their way down. These are men who daily put themselves in harm's way for the people of New York City. Lilibet Foster's documentary goes behind the scenes at firehouses and at fires and rescues to see what makes these men tick. The film follows fire companies in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens through their day-to-day tasks, rescues, and drills. The men learn to "read" fire -- its smell, its sound, its sight. But being a firefighter has become much more complicated in recent years. New York's Bravest are now trained to respond to situations in which biohazards, radioactive materials, and other implements of terror might be lurking around every corner. It's hard to watch this documentary, which so vividly details the personalities and politics at play in a typical New York City firehouse, and not feel thankful for the job they do.

LIBERIA: AN UNCIVIL WAR

"Liberia, a nation burdened by its past. America, a nation with no memory at all" — Jonathan Stack. In Liberia, the summer of 2003 was pure insanity: two armies are in the final battle of a decade-long civil war, holding the capital under siege while thousands die from mortar shells launched from afar. As the soldiers, mostly teenagers, fight a bloody urban battle, the nation prays that American forces show up to put an end to the violence. Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves, has a long intertwined history with America. While the rebel army, the LURD, attempts to overthrow the Liberian government, President Charles Taylor and his army maintain a strong grip on the city. Acclaimed filmmaker Jonathan Stack (The Farm; Justifiable Homicide (HRWIFF 2002)) and journalist James Brabazon journey to the heart of the conflict, filming the LURD rebels as they fight their way closer to the capital and covering the defense of the capital from the inside. The film situates the fighting within the larger international political context, focusing particularly on America's weak response. It completes the picture with a series of exclusive interviews with the elusive Charles Taylor, a man since indicted for war crimes for heinous abuses against civilians, sexual slavery, and the use of child soldiers. The film presents the complex layers of the conflict and focuses attention on the moral failure of the U.S. to respond to a growing humanitarian crisis.

ZAMAN, THE MAN FROM THE REEDS

A peasant from the marshlands of southern Iraq journeys in a tiny boat up the Tigris to Baghdad, seeking medicine for his sick wife. The first feature shot in Iraq in more than a decade effectively mixes lyricism with documentary-style realism, capturing the final days of life under Saddam Hussein, whose regime confiscated five reels of this film that are now lost forever.

Short Films

A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words explores the effects of war and silence on a family. Through the use of old home movies, photos and interviews with her father and brother, the film recounts the filmmaker’s personal journey of uncovering family history.and accepting why her father cant talk about Viet Nam. Gravity Set in 1944 France, Gravity is a visually stunning account of two enemies suspended 30 feet high in a forest. Over the course of the night it becomes clear that their struggle for survival depends on each other.

A Life of Death

Throughout the 20th Century, and now into the 21st, wars have been waged all over the globe under the banner proclamation that conflict ultimately leads to world peace. A Life of Death presents the cost of this irony by poetically answering the question: What is the price of lasting peace?

Can I Explain

A young boy tries to understand his father’s role as a soldier. Baagon Na Ja The music video is based on a song written by medieval poet Kabir’s Bhakti Poetry. He says, "You don't have to seek out gardens to look for flowers...you can cultivate the flowers within through peace and harmony..." These thoughts have been claimed by the Hindu Right for their own political agenda. Bhakti is not Hindu, but Indian. It's the only tradition crucial to reclaim, as it speaks of no bar on caste, creed or religion. This music video It tells the story of Salim who is muslim and his long-standing friendship with an elderly schoolteacher, Yadav. Who is hindi. Their friendship—which transcends the barriers of religion and even crosses the generation gap—shows us that love transcends all barriers including those of religion and caste. After a riot in Mumbai, Salim's father is lynched by an angry mob. Salim's mother is devastated and leaves Mumbai with Salim. Years later, Salim returns. To the neighborhood. A substantial part of the music video has been shot through reflections. This use of mirrors throughout Baagon Na Jaa urges us to look within and to find the love that does exist in each of us: the love that truly transcends all barriers.

Looking Down

In a time when military intelligence technology can pinpoint a man tying his shoelaces from miles above the Earth, the question is no longer "what can we see," but "what do we know" Looking Down highlights the disparity between information and understanding in the age of technology and what it means for US-world relations by interrogating the current situation in Iraq. With satellite imagery and still photos from the current war in Iraq, the film problematizes the common implication that because we can peer into every crack and crevice of other nations, we know all that we need to know about their societies. But as the situation in Iraq has proved, human societies, their histories and their behaviors are far more complicated than military intelligence can ever represent. Using Computer animation, digital and video art this short experimental documentary highlights the irony of how little little focus and resolution has been brought to bear in Iraq in spite of the astonishing tools for gathering intelligence that are available these days.

Earth

Natural materials are transformed into diverse kinds of living beings on Earth. The transforming movement takes its motive from natural phenomenon, such as wave, rain, and wind.

HOMECOMING

Tadine is a long way from home and wants to return to Kosova and her beloved Dog, Kostandin. Adrift in a new country, her mother tries to hold the family together as her father sinks deeper into his own despair, unable to help his only child. Tadine’s determination to get the family home, and the friendship of the boy next door finally forces her father to confront his demons, heal his past and help his daughter find peace and a future in their new home.

Stealing Innocence

Two girls - one Israei and one Palestinian share a special friendship despite their cultural differences and the war raging around them. People have become numb to the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine and children are paying the price. This is a story about a special friendship between two young girls despite their cultural and religious differences. It is about love, war, friendship and loss of hope. Two girls - one Israeli and one Palestinian form a special friendship despite their cultural differences and the war raging around them. A personal story that creates a moving portrayal of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict and the effects of war on children.

Raju and I

Raju & I is a 30 minute animated film, which examines the problems of underpriviledged chidren from the point of view of a 12-year-old child, Atul. The story is woven around Atul and his friend Raju from the village. Atul belongs to an upper middle class household, and is too full of himself to notice poverty or for that matter poor children. On the other hand Raju's father is a drunkard who occasionally beats his son and makes him work. Raju's world is a far cry from Atul's, but that does not prevent them from sharing some memorable and delightful times together. When Raju runs away to the city, Atul's search for him opens his eyes to a whole new world. the film ends with a hope for the future and a pleasant surprise for Atul.