This week a coalition of social justice groups announced a new initiative to limit the City of Seattle’s liability for cost overruns on the downtown traffic tunnel being built to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
Now, here’s the thing I’ve never understood: what exactly is the real budget for the tunnel?
The local media, including The Seattle Times, the P-I, and local TV news programs, call the tunnel a “$1.96 billion project.” But the Washington State Department of Transportation says the total budget is $4.2 billion.
Okay, so local media must be referring to the City of Seattle’s portion of the project, right? Wrong. Because the state’s portion of the costs is capped at $2.8 billion. When you add $2.8 billion to $1.96 billion you get closer to $5 billion than $4.2 billion.
To make matters worse, my memory recalls that WashDOT’s original estimate was in the neighborhood of $7 to $11 billion. Then they started tinkering with the design and cost estimates in an attempt to make the tunnel seem affordable in comparison with the other options, particularly the surface street option, which was the most affordable option of all.
Instead, we have this boondoggle of a tunnel that seems to have no fixed budget. Maybe that’s because it’s the largest traffic tunnel in history—another fact that gets left out of local media reports.
This week, Gov. Gregoire announced that two companies have submitted bids for the tunnel construction. These bids are top secret, apparently, since she gave no details, other than to say that they both came in under budget. Whatever in the hell that means.
Seattle residents have to remember, however, that while the state’s costs are limited to $2.8 billion, Seattle’s costs are unlimited. Hence the initiative being drafted by the Sierra Club, Real Change News, and other social justice groups. They’re hoping to get their initiative drafted and signature gatherers deployed in time to get it onto the August ballot. Tunnel construction is due to start in late 2011.
Stay tuned.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Civilian Review Board? Anyone?
This week the ACLU sent a letter to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle Police Chief John Diaz protesting the shooting of Native American wood carver John T. Williams by a Seattle police officer. The letter called for a review of training procedures at the Seattle Police Department. It hinted that failures in leadership might be responsible for a recent increase in violence against homeless folks and people of color by SPD officers, and that the department might try to cultivate some “cross-cultural” skills.
Even this mild letter provoked indignation from SPD Chief Diaz and the local pro-business press (The Seattle Times). Mayor McGinn took a wait-and-see attitude: let’s all wait for the results of the inquest and the Firearms Review Board’s ruling. Well, past inquests have, without fail, ruled in favor of the police department. The Firearms Review Board is run by Deputy Police Chief Clark Kimerer, so we can’t hold out any hopes for that.
Where are the calls for a civilian review board? Community activists still want one, but in this one-newspaper town, there’s no media forum for debating the issue. So the idea of a civilian review has disapeared from view. Except here, of course.
Even this mild letter provoked indignation from SPD Chief Diaz and the local pro-business press (The Seattle Times). Mayor McGinn took a wait-and-see attitude: let’s all wait for the results of the inquest and the Firearms Review Board’s ruling. Well, past inquests have, without fail, ruled in favor of the police department. The Firearms Review Board is run by Deputy Police Chief Clark Kimerer, so we can’t hold out any hopes for that.
Where are the calls for a civilian review board? Community activists still want one, but in this one-newspaper town, there’s no media forum for debating the issue. So the idea of a civilian review has disapeared from view. Except here, of course.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
G-20 Inside and Out
The Canadian government spent $1 billion on security for the G-20 summit in Toronto, but still wasn’t able to keep a few black-bloc protestors from smashing store windows and burning two police cars. Or perhaps I should say “and” instead of “but,” because it was clear that the police were not concerned about property damage. If anything, the sacrifice of two police cars was a small price to pay in order to justify the hundreds of millions spent on new equipment and overtime for 20,000 police, soldiers, and intelligence officers.
Wait a minute—what do they mean by “intelligence officers”? Go to YouTube and search for “g-20 protests” and you’ll find a video of plainclothes police that shows exactly where Canadian tax dollars went: to pay dozens of cops in t-shirts and jeans wielding sticks and beating protestors. One was even dressed as a black-bloc protestor, leading to the question: did the police infiltrate protest groups in order to cause violence and justify the crackdown on peaceful protestors? The answer appears to be “yes.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the barriers, the heads of state for the 20 most developed nations were fussing about what to do to appease their restive populations and save the global economy. Their economists cast the problem as a simple either/or choice: either governments continue to go deeper into debt by spending money on economic stimulus plans to save the global economy, or governments can cut spending on social programs to pay down their debts and avoid bankruptcy (but this might further hurt the economy). The Obama administration’s official policy is that the US government can do both at the same time, without giving any convincing details about how they will accomplish this impossible feat.
No one mentions the third way—the only sane option in the face of the worst economic downtown since the 1930’s—that governments do what nearly every household in the world has been forced to do over the last two years: cut spending on nonessential items and use the savings to pay down debts and buy necessities.
In other words, to save the global economy and government balance sheets, governments must do the following: stop financing wars and military appropriations and do away with corporate give-aways. In the case of the US government, which finances both sides of the war in Afghanistan, ending two wars in the Middle East would save enormous amounts of money. Ending the inefficient and ineffective efforts to prop up the housing market (hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plus billions of dollars in no-interest loans to big banks, plus tax credits for homebuyers and mortgage holders) would free up plenty of money to pay down the deficit.
And there would be lots of money left over to finance necessities that create jobs in the US economy: healthcare, education, infrastructure (telecom systems, transit systems, water and sewer systems, etc.) and social services.
History shows that this third way is the only one that works; it’s what saved us in the 1930’s and 1940’s. But it’s “politically impossible” to discuss, much less implement, because it is, in fact, Socialism.
And we need to try it again.
Wait a minute—what do they mean by “intelligence officers”? Go to YouTube and search for “g-20 protests” and you’ll find a video of plainclothes police that shows exactly where Canadian tax dollars went: to pay dozens of cops in t-shirts and jeans wielding sticks and beating protestors. One was even dressed as a black-bloc protestor, leading to the question: did the police infiltrate protest groups in order to cause violence and justify the crackdown on peaceful protestors? The answer appears to be “yes.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the barriers, the heads of state for the 20 most developed nations were fussing about what to do to appease their restive populations and save the global economy. Their economists cast the problem as a simple either/or choice: either governments continue to go deeper into debt by spending money on economic stimulus plans to save the global economy, or governments can cut spending on social programs to pay down their debts and avoid bankruptcy (but this might further hurt the economy). The Obama administration’s official policy is that the US government can do both at the same time, without giving any convincing details about how they will accomplish this impossible feat.
No one mentions the third way—the only sane option in the face of the worst economic downtown since the 1930’s—that governments do what nearly every household in the world has been forced to do over the last two years: cut spending on nonessential items and use the savings to pay down debts and buy necessities.
In other words, to save the global economy and government balance sheets, governments must do the following: stop financing wars and military appropriations and do away with corporate give-aways. In the case of the US government, which finances both sides of the war in Afghanistan, ending two wars in the Middle East would save enormous amounts of money. Ending the inefficient and ineffective efforts to prop up the housing market (hundreds of millions of dollars poured into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plus billions of dollars in no-interest loans to big banks, plus tax credits for homebuyers and mortgage holders) would free up plenty of money to pay down the deficit.
And there would be lots of money left over to finance necessities that create jobs in the US economy: healthcare, education, infrastructure (telecom systems, transit systems, water and sewer systems, etc.) and social services.
History shows that this third way is the only one that works; it’s what saved us in the 1930’s and 1940’s. But it’s “politically impossible” to discuss, much less implement, because it is, in fact, Socialism.
And we need to try it again.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Two More Great Documentary Films
On the last weekend of the Seattle International Film Festival, I saw two documentaries that I recommend people seek out:
Last Train Home was about the largest annual human migration in the world: when 130 million Chinese workers leave their factory jobs to return home to the countryside to visit their families for Chinese New Year. The filmmaker follows one family over the course of four years to gauge the impact of China’s position as the main manufacturer to the world. This film was much better than I expected it to be, and definitely worth seeking out, especially if you’d like to know who makes your blue jeans, t-shirts, iPods, and other inexpensive, imported goods.
Plug & Pray – a film about computer technology, robots, and artificial intelligence might seem like something only an egghead would care about. But this film centers on interviews with Joseph Weizenbaum, a retired computer science professor at MIT, who is critical of the impact of computers and handheld devices on our culture and lifestyle. His realist viewpoint is juxtaposed with interviews of computer scientists and engineers who are trying to bring about a future where people will become human/machine hybrids. Their stated goal is to find a way to cure disease, but eventually their real goal is revealed: eternal life—but only for a select few. If you think genetically modified food is bad, this film will scare the heck out of you.
This year, like every year, SIFF had a lot of really good films. But Seattle is a film mecca year-round, with several independent screens. For example, SIFF will be showing The Best of SIFF this weekend: three days of films that were voted the best of the film festival by audiences and the SIFF jury. (The SIFF Cinema is located in the basement of McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center.)
Also this weekend, Northwest Film Forum will be showing The Oath, a documentary I reviewed on May 31st (see my blog post for that day). It will run from June 18th through the 24th. Check it out.
Last Train Home was about the largest annual human migration in the world: when 130 million Chinese workers leave their factory jobs to return home to the countryside to visit their families for Chinese New Year. The filmmaker follows one family over the course of four years to gauge the impact of China’s position as the main manufacturer to the world. This film was much better than I expected it to be, and definitely worth seeking out, especially if you’d like to know who makes your blue jeans, t-shirts, iPods, and other inexpensive, imported goods.
Plug & Pray – a film about computer technology, robots, and artificial intelligence might seem like something only an egghead would care about. But this film centers on interviews with Joseph Weizenbaum, a retired computer science professor at MIT, who is critical of the impact of computers and handheld devices on our culture and lifestyle. His realist viewpoint is juxtaposed with interviews of computer scientists and engineers who are trying to bring about a future where people will become human/machine hybrids. Their stated goal is to find a way to cure disease, but eventually their real goal is revealed: eternal life—but only for a select few. If you think genetically modified food is bad, this film will scare the heck out of you.
This year, like every year, SIFF had a lot of really good films. But Seattle is a film mecca year-round, with several independent screens. For example, SIFF will be showing The Best of SIFF this weekend: three days of films that were voted the best of the film festival by audiences and the SIFF jury. (The SIFF Cinema is located in the basement of McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center.)
Also this weekend, Northwest Film Forum will be showing The Oath, a documentary I reviewed on May 31st (see my blog post for that day). It will run from June 18th through the 24th. Check it out.
Monday, June 7, 2010
More SIFF Films
Here’s a few of the better feature films I’ve seen at the Seattle International Film Festival this year:
Crab Trap – a fine little film set in an Afro-Colombian community on the coast. Having just won an electrical hook-up from the Colombian government, the residents find themselves fighting a white developer who wants to turn their beach into a tourist resort. Meanwhile, another outsider, who wants to hire a boat to sneak him out of the country, finds himself caught like a crab in a trap because all the local fishermen have taken their boats far out from shore in search of an ever-dwindling supply of fish. A beautiful film with its own leisurely pace.
Southern District – Set in a wealthy household in the Bolivian capital, this film was remarkable for the director’s use of long, single-scene shots that pan away from the characters to show the house and all its rich possessions. The house eventually becomes the main character of the film. Few films have done a better job of showing how wealth can so effectively create tensions with a family while isolating it from the rest of the world, and even the lower-class servants who also inhabit the house.
Winter’s Bone – A 17-year-old girl is the head of her Ozark mountain family, since her mother’s mental breakdown and her father’s arrest for cooking methamphetamines. Her father puts the house up for his bond to get out of jail and promptly disappears under mysterious circumstances. Not convinced that he disappeared on his own, the daughter goes in search of him. Her search reveals hidden, disturbing secrets about her rural community. This film deserves a wide release, but don’t hold your breath. Look for it on DVD.
Cell 211 – winner of Spain’s Goya Awards, this film is intense and violent, but also contains a critical look at the brutality of prison life. The main character is a prison guard starting his first day of work who gets caught in a prison riot and is forced to pretend he’s an inmate to survive. Eventually, he comes to sympathize with the prisoners.
And these three documentaries were outstanding:
American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi – This film was a fascinating look at who Condoleeza Rice really is and what motivates her. Many folks have been perplexed by how an intelligent, African-American woman could become involved with the Bush neo-cons. This film shows you how.
The Two Horses of Genghis Khan – I found this film particularly moving, maybe because I’ve been reading about the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress its 50 minority populations. Two Horses follows the travels of a Mongolian singer/songwriter who goes in search of the lyrics of a traditional Mongolian song her grandmother used to sing to her. With beautiful cinematography and lots of Mongolian music, it reveals that the Cultural Revolution is far from over.
The Tillman Story – Far better than I expected it to be, this film tells the story of Pat Tillman, the major league football player who gave up a multi-million-dollar career to enlist in the army after 9-11. Expecting to fight in Afghanistan, he was shocked and disillusioned to find himself deployed to Iraq. It tells the story of how the Pentagon and Bush administration used his death for propaganda purposes, and how his family eventually found out the truth.
The film festival continues through Sunday, June 13th, and I hope to see at least six more films. I hope they’re as good as the ones I’ve seen so far.
Crab Trap – a fine little film set in an Afro-Colombian community on the coast. Having just won an electrical hook-up from the Colombian government, the residents find themselves fighting a white developer who wants to turn their beach into a tourist resort. Meanwhile, another outsider, who wants to hire a boat to sneak him out of the country, finds himself caught like a crab in a trap because all the local fishermen have taken their boats far out from shore in search of an ever-dwindling supply of fish. A beautiful film with its own leisurely pace.
Southern District – Set in a wealthy household in the Bolivian capital, this film was remarkable for the director’s use of long, single-scene shots that pan away from the characters to show the house and all its rich possessions. The house eventually becomes the main character of the film. Few films have done a better job of showing how wealth can so effectively create tensions with a family while isolating it from the rest of the world, and even the lower-class servants who also inhabit the house.
Winter’s Bone – A 17-year-old girl is the head of her Ozark mountain family, since her mother’s mental breakdown and her father’s arrest for cooking methamphetamines. Her father puts the house up for his bond to get out of jail and promptly disappears under mysterious circumstances. Not convinced that he disappeared on his own, the daughter goes in search of him. Her search reveals hidden, disturbing secrets about her rural community. This film deserves a wide release, but don’t hold your breath. Look for it on DVD.
Cell 211 – winner of Spain’s Goya Awards, this film is intense and violent, but also contains a critical look at the brutality of prison life. The main character is a prison guard starting his first day of work who gets caught in a prison riot and is forced to pretend he’s an inmate to survive. Eventually, he comes to sympathize with the prisoners.
And these three documentaries were outstanding:
American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi – This film was a fascinating look at who Condoleeza Rice really is and what motivates her. Many folks have been perplexed by how an intelligent, African-American woman could become involved with the Bush neo-cons. This film shows you how.
The Two Horses of Genghis Khan – I found this film particularly moving, maybe because I’ve been reading about the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress its 50 minority populations. Two Horses follows the travels of a Mongolian singer/songwriter who goes in search of the lyrics of a traditional Mongolian song her grandmother used to sing to her. With beautiful cinematography and lots of Mongolian music, it reveals that the Cultural Revolution is far from over.
The Tillman Story – Far better than I expected it to be, this film tells the story of Pat Tillman, the major league football player who gave up a multi-million-dollar career to enlist in the army after 9-11. Expecting to fight in Afghanistan, he was shocked and disillusioned to find himself deployed to Iraq. It tells the story of how the Pentagon and Bush administration used his death for propaganda purposes, and how his family eventually found out the truth.
The film festival continues through Sunday, June 13th, and I hope to see at least six more films. I hope they’re as good as the ones I’ve seen so far.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Gaza: The Media Blockade
On Monday, Israeli troops boarded a boat in international waters that was carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. During that raid, at least nine people were killed, all of them activists who are working to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Aside from the horror I felt at hearing this news, I was dumbstruck at the ineptitude of the news reports of the raid. The US media not only fell down on the job, it fell into a black hole.
The worst offender was the New York Times, which adhered entirely to the Israeli government line. They reported, as uncontested fact, that activists on board the boat fired pistols at the Israeli soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from helicopters hovering above. They reported that nine people died, but not that the dead were activists, members of the flotilla, not Israeli soldiers. Instead, after mentioning the number of dead, The New York Times never mentions them again at all; it lingers instead on the wounds suffered by Israeli soldiers and makes much of the fact that two soldiers were treated for bullet wounds. Apparently, The New York Times reporter never thought to ask if the wounds were from friendly fire.
Oh, and by the way, pipes and knives were found on the boat. I can think of many uses for spare lengths of pipe on a ship. And knives—for heaven’s sake. What else are you going to use to cut rope, or—for that matter—cut your vegetables to make soup?
The Associated Press wire service articles were little better. They relied on quotes from soldiers and the Israeli government and when they did quote an activist, it wasn’t a person who’d been on the boat during the raid. The articles never mentioned the names of the organizations that sponsored the flotilla, and only one article mentioned that a group formed by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter (the group remained unnamed, of course) condemned the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest humanitarian rights violations”—but that quote was in the second to last paragraph of a 20-paragraph article. [“Israel boat raid sparks condemnations, protests,” by Selcan Hacaoglu and Lee Keath, AP, 5/31/09.]
Both the New York Times and AP articles barely mention the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and when they do, they quote Israeli government assurances that residents of Gaza are well provided for. No other viewpoint is sought, no effort is made to find out what is really happening inside the Gaza Strip, as if fact-based reporting might reveal inconvenient truths about one of America’s biggest allies in the Middle East.
As I told a friend today, the US press corps’ silence over the effects of the Gaza blockade remind me of a similar resounding silence over the brutal effects of sanctions the US government imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990’s. Like the continuing blockade of Gaza, the Iraq sanctions came after an outside force--the US--destroyed most of Iraq’s vital civilian infrastructure in the first Gulf War. Israel, having bombed the heck out of Gaza, is now starving the Gazans of the equipment needed to rebuild and provide clean water, food, electricity, sanitation, medical care, safe housing, and other necessities to its residents. And this is provoking a major outcry from nearly every other nation of the world except the US.
And the US people remain insulated from that truth.
Aside from the horror I felt at hearing this news, I was dumbstruck at the ineptitude of the news reports of the raid. The US media not only fell down on the job, it fell into a black hole.
The worst offender was the New York Times, which adhered entirely to the Israeli government line. They reported, as uncontested fact, that activists on board the boat fired pistols at the Israeli soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from helicopters hovering above. They reported that nine people died, but not that the dead were activists, members of the flotilla, not Israeli soldiers. Instead, after mentioning the number of dead, The New York Times never mentions them again at all; it lingers instead on the wounds suffered by Israeli soldiers and makes much of the fact that two soldiers were treated for bullet wounds. Apparently, The New York Times reporter never thought to ask if the wounds were from friendly fire.
Oh, and by the way, pipes and knives were found on the boat. I can think of many uses for spare lengths of pipe on a ship. And knives—for heaven’s sake. What else are you going to use to cut rope, or—for that matter—cut your vegetables to make soup?
The Associated Press wire service articles were little better. They relied on quotes from soldiers and the Israeli government and when they did quote an activist, it wasn’t a person who’d been on the boat during the raid. The articles never mentioned the names of the organizations that sponsored the flotilla, and only one article mentioned that a group formed by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter (the group remained unnamed, of course) condemned the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest humanitarian rights violations”—but that quote was in the second to last paragraph of a 20-paragraph article. [“Israel boat raid sparks condemnations, protests,” by Selcan Hacaoglu and Lee Keath, AP, 5/31/09.]
Both the New York Times and AP articles barely mention the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and when they do, they quote Israeli government assurances that residents of Gaza are well provided for. No other viewpoint is sought, no effort is made to find out what is really happening inside the Gaza Strip, as if fact-based reporting might reveal inconvenient truths about one of America’s biggest allies in the Middle East.
As I told a friend today, the US press corps’ silence over the effects of the Gaza blockade remind me of a similar resounding silence over the brutal effects of sanctions the US government imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990’s. Like the continuing blockade of Gaza, the Iraq sanctions came after an outside force--the US--destroyed most of Iraq’s vital civilian infrastructure in the first Gulf War. Israel, having bombed the heck out of Gaza, is now starving the Gazans of the equipment needed to rebuild and provide clean water, food, electricity, sanitation, medical care, safe housing, and other necessities to its residents. And this is provoking a major outcry from nearly every other nation of the world except the US.
And the US people remain insulated from that truth.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Seattle International Film Festival
I’m a cinephile who’s always had a love/hate relationship with the Seattle International Film Festival. In the early 1990’s when I first started going to the festival, it was devoted almost entirely to foreign films, which made it a paradise for those of us who hunger for films not made in Hollywood.
But even back then, there were problems with the way the festival was run. It was almost entirely run by volunteers, and it showed. Morning screenings often started late because the volunteers had slept in. You had to wait—sometimes for hours—in a long line to buy your tickets from a single box office. And each venue differed in how efficiently it was run. You might show up at 6:30 for a 7 pm film and find yourself standing in the rain until 7:30 while the volunteers went through a shift-change.
Sometimes even the films suffered. I recall one memorable screening of a Russian World War II film that switched halfway through to a scene of Polish teenagers climbing through a bedroom window in modern-day Gdansk. (The projectionist apologized by saying that the reels must have gotten mixed up at the office because Russian words looked exactly like Polish ones to him.)
Over the years, the little foreign film festival with sparse audience attendance has evolved into a behemoth that screens documentaries, foreign blockbusters, independently made US films, and the rejects from major Hollywood studios. It’s easier to obtain tickets and the screenings start on time, but you still have to wait an hour in line at each screening in order to get a good seat. And if you find a foreign gem, it’s only after much sifting.
Yet I still attend the festival, every year, with the hope of finding one or two (or maybe a few more) really good films that I wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. This year, I’m focusing on documentaries and foreign films with a political subtext.
Here’s a list of the documentaries I’ve seen so far:
Queen of the Sun – an artful film about the honey bee and everything it does for the human race. This film examines the state of the American honey bee and various threats to its existence, including commercial agriculture, monoculture crops, pesticides, the use of antibiotics in commercial bee hives, and Colony Collapse Disorder. But the film is uplifting, with its focus on independent, organic beekeepers, whose ranks include aging hippies, retired scientists, and a third generation beekeeper engaged in urban guerrilla beekeeping on the rooftop of her New York apartment building.
The Oath – filmmaker Laura Poitras, who directed My Country, My Country which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, interviews Abu Jindal, the brother-in-law of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan. Almost immediately, it becomes clear that Abu Jindal, who works as a cab driver in Yemen, knows more about the inner workings of Al Qaeda than 90% of the detainees being held in indefinite detention at Guantanamo. The film reveals the complexities of the US war on terror by going inside the mind of a man who was once, and may still be (despite his protestations to the contrary), a true believer in jihad. I found this film fascinating because I couldn’t definitely pin down who Abu Jindal is and what he truly believes. Whether that’s a reflection of the man himself or the limitations of the medium—a film made by a Western woman—is still a question I’m asking myself days after I saw this film.
Gerrymandering – a worthwhile topic for a film, but first-time director Jeff Reichert has invested more time in making this documentary visually entertaining than in defining his message. Tellingly, the film lacks a coherent historical timeline of gerrymandering in US politics. It sort of resembles…well…a gerrymandered Congressional district: all over the map without a valid reason for how it was cobbled together.
Turtle, the Incredible Journey – billed as a family-friendly film, there’s a lot more in Turtle for adults to enjoy than in most films made for children. It narrates the lifecycle of the loggerhead turtle, which goes on one of the longest migratory routes of any animal on the planet. The filmmakers captured a lot of stunning undersea photography. If you get a chance to see this one on the big screen, go for it.
So during my first week at the festival, I’ve had three good hits and one miss. Not bad so far.
But even back then, there were problems with the way the festival was run. It was almost entirely run by volunteers, and it showed. Morning screenings often started late because the volunteers had slept in. You had to wait—sometimes for hours—in a long line to buy your tickets from a single box office. And each venue differed in how efficiently it was run. You might show up at 6:30 for a 7 pm film and find yourself standing in the rain until 7:30 while the volunteers went through a shift-change.
Sometimes even the films suffered. I recall one memorable screening of a Russian World War II film that switched halfway through to a scene of Polish teenagers climbing through a bedroom window in modern-day Gdansk. (The projectionist apologized by saying that the reels must have gotten mixed up at the office because Russian words looked exactly like Polish ones to him.)
Over the years, the little foreign film festival with sparse audience attendance has evolved into a behemoth that screens documentaries, foreign blockbusters, independently made US films, and the rejects from major Hollywood studios. It’s easier to obtain tickets and the screenings start on time, but you still have to wait an hour in line at each screening in order to get a good seat. And if you find a foreign gem, it’s only after much sifting.
Yet I still attend the festival, every year, with the hope of finding one or two (or maybe a few more) really good films that I wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. This year, I’m focusing on documentaries and foreign films with a political subtext.
Here’s a list of the documentaries I’ve seen so far:
Queen of the Sun – an artful film about the honey bee and everything it does for the human race. This film examines the state of the American honey bee and various threats to its existence, including commercial agriculture, monoculture crops, pesticides, the use of antibiotics in commercial bee hives, and Colony Collapse Disorder. But the film is uplifting, with its focus on independent, organic beekeepers, whose ranks include aging hippies, retired scientists, and a third generation beekeeper engaged in urban guerrilla beekeeping on the rooftop of her New York apartment building.
The Oath – filmmaker Laura Poitras, who directed My Country, My Country which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, interviews Abu Jindal, the brother-in-law of Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan. Almost immediately, it becomes clear that Abu Jindal, who works as a cab driver in Yemen, knows more about the inner workings of Al Qaeda than 90% of the detainees being held in indefinite detention at Guantanamo. The film reveals the complexities of the US war on terror by going inside the mind of a man who was once, and may still be (despite his protestations to the contrary), a true believer in jihad. I found this film fascinating because I couldn’t definitely pin down who Abu Jindal is and what he truly believes. Whether that’s a reflection of the man himself or the limitations of the medium—a film made by a Western woman—is still a question I’m asking myself days after I saw this film.
Gerrymandering – a worthwhile topic for a film, but first-time director Jeff Reichert has invested more time in making this documentary visually entertaining than in defining his message. Tellingly, the film lacks a coherent historical timeline of gerrymandering in US politics. It sort of resembles…well…a gerrymandered Congressional district: all over the map without a valid reason for how it was cobbled together.
Turtle, the Incredible Journey – billed as a family-friendly film, there’s a lot more in Turtle for adults to enjoy than in most films made for children. It narrates the lifecycle of the loggerhead turtle, which goes on one of the longest migratory routes of any animal on the planet. The filmmakers captured a lot of stunning undersea photography. If you get a chance to see this one on the big screen, go for it.
So during my first week at the festival, I’ve had three good hits and one miss. Not bad so far.
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