AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM
The film is tenatively scheduled for release on July 4th 2006.
"FOUR STARS (Highest Rating). The scariest goddamn film you'll see this year. It will leave you staggering out of the theatre, slack-jawed and trembling. Makes 'Fahrenheit 9/11' look like 'Bambi.' After watching this movie, your comfy, secure notions about America -- and about what it means to be an American -- will be forever shattered. Producer/director Aaron Russo and the folks at Cinema Libre Studio deserve to be heralded as heroes of a post-modern New American Revolution. This is shocking stuff. You'll be angry, you'll be disgusted, but you may actually break out in a cold sweat and feel a sickness deep in your gut; I would advise movie theatre managers to hand out vomit bags. You may end up needing one."
--- Todd David Schwartz, CBS
Aaron Russo interview about his new movie, From Freedom to Fascism:

Now in their fourth year, the American Conservation Film Festival (ACFF) is preparing for its 2006 festival to be held November 2-5, 2006, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia (about 70 miles west of Washington, DC).

"There are by God more Washington lobbyists than tree frogs... with stickier fingers," says Granny D in Almost Level, West Virginia, a short Truthout film by Rebecca MacNeice. As the destruction of America's Appalachian Range accelerates in the mad rush for coal, activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock and former congressman Ken Hechler act as tour guides flying over regions of mind-boggling devastation.

Meanwhile at home in Sturgeon Bay it's time to tell Dave at Cinema 6... Don't Ignore 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Call him on the office line at 920.746.8371 and let him know you and forty of your friends would come see it if he manages to screen a copy.

Gore's film finished in the Top Ten in terms of overall weekend gross with $1.356 million despite its limited run, placing ninth. Indiewire reports, "...one of the most interesting statistics came out of the Dallas film-distribution region. There, the film opened at three theaters - Landmark's Magnolia in Dallas, the Angelika Film Center in Plano and the Arbor in Austin (part of the Paramount Classics' Dallas market). Exit polling showed that 80+% of viewers who consider themselves Republican said they'd recommend the film... two other encouraging trends are emerging. First, young people are going to the movie sooner than Paramount Classics assumed. Second, local corporations in various cities are calling to ask about sponsoring screenings."

Here's where An Inconvenient Truth will be playing in Wisconsin so far as of June 4:

WI Ashwaubenon 06/30/06 Bay Park 54304
WI Brookfield 06/16/06 West Point 8 Plex 53045
WI Madison 06/16/06 Eastgate 53718
WI Madison 06/16/06 Westgate 53711
WI Menomonee Falls 06/16/06 Marcus Cinemas 53051
WI Milwaukee 06/09/06 Oriental 53202
WI Milwaukee 06/16/06 Oriental 53202
WI New Berlin 06/16/06 Ridge Cinema 53151
WI Oak Creek 06/16/06 Southshore 16 53154
WI Wauwatosa 06/16/06 Mayfair Mall 53226

"President Bush will be ignoring "An Inconvenient Truth" when the movie opens in the nation's capital, just as he has ignored the inconvenient truth of global warming throughout his administration," says Alternet's EnviroHealth. Gore is launching a book, a movie, and a new environmental group with one mission: convincing Americans that climate change is real.

When Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush (R) was asked by a reporter if he would see Al Gore’s global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” he said, “No, I’m not going to be doing that.” He did see the latest X-Men movie, which he described as “excellent.”

The Last Communist - Chin Peng in 1950s Malaysia

http://anystreetcorner.blogspot.com/2005/03/chin-peng-my-dad-and-me.html

It’s the end for The Last Communist

By MANJIT KAUR

PADANG BESAR: The decision to ban the screening of The Last Communist (Lelaki Komunis Terakhir) is final.

Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said allowing the film to be screened in the country would give the wrong impression about Chin Peng, the exiled leader of the Communist Party of Malaya.

“It will be like allowing a film portraying Osama Bin Laden as a humble and charitable man to be screened in the United States,” he said.

Mohd Radzi said there was no violence shown in the movie and it gave a wrong impression about Chin Peng.

“People who don’t know about Chin Peng will think what a ‘poor old man’ he is. The impression given is wrong,” he told reporters after meeting with Umno members at SMK Datuk Jaafar Hassan near here yesterday.

It was reported on May 24 that the Government and not Umno would decide whether the film could be released for public screening.

Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim had said that under the Film Censorship Act, the Home Affairs Minister had the final say.

On another matter, Mohd Radzi who is also the Umno secretary-general, said Umno members must pay their annual fees to their branch representatives by October.

He said although about 30% of Puteri Umno members had registered with the party they had yet to register with the Election Commission.

“It does not mean that you are automatically registered with the commission when you register with the party,” he said.

MEDIA-MALAYSIA:
Film on Communist Leader Banned on Shaky Grounds
Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, May 11 (IPS) - The Malaysian government has banned a film on the life and times of an octogenarian communist insurgent leader, who had also collaborated with the British during World War II, setting off a hornet's nest of charges about denial of freedom and space for democratic expression.

Film makers, movie buffs and ordinary people have expressed shock and anger at the sudden and unexpected ban on ‘The Last Communist' --a semi-musical road movie that looks at life in the small towns in Malaysia that were connected with the colourful career of Chin Peng (pseudonym for Ong Boon Hua), former head of the long defunct Communist Party of Malaya.

Chin Peng, son of Chinese immigrants, collaborated with the British to resist the Japanese occupation of Malaya and was even decorated for it with the Order of the British Empire (OBE). But, in 1948 he launched a communist insurgency in what became Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Ironically, the film, by independent film maker Amir Muhammad, was treated as benign by the Censor Board which approved it for screening to general audiences without a single cut.

Amir himself described the movie as a ''semi-musical documentary road movie inspired by the places and events in the early life of Chin Peng'', the secretary-general of the outlawed Communist Party of Malaya.

It was to have been shown in three cinemas from May 19.

Even a group of Special Branch political police, that has a reputation for its anti-communist stance, did not object to the film.

However, the decision to screen the film was objected to by nationalistic-minded Malays in the ‘Berita Harian', a mass circulation Malay-language daily, which launched a venomous attack on the film in early May.

It accused Amir and the film of glorifying communism. It interviewed leading personalities, including a historian who derided the director and the film and urged the government to ban it.

What many found hard to stomach was the fact that none of the critics of the film had actually seen it. Yet, in a knee-jerk reaction, the government succumbed to their demands and announced, last week, that the film was banned.

''It is truly disgusting that a Malaysian film which is showing at 14 film festivals around the world is banned in the country,'' said opposition member of parliament, S. Kulasegaran.

''The government has made a fool of itself,'' Kulasegaran told IPS. ''Even Singapore which once fought a life and death struggle with the communists is to screen the film.''

But then the difference may lie in the fact that Chin Peng's movement, for all its ideological moorings, was supported by ethnic Chinese, rather than the indigenous Malays who dominate Malaysia. In Singapore, on the other hand, ethnic Chinese form the majority.

The Malaysian government says people in this country -- a few of whom are victims of Chin Peng's atrocities -- are not ready for such a movie.

Relentless government propaganda is partly to be blamed for the public reaction to Chin Peng. It was trend that continued from colonial days when the British successfully equated communists with bandits and Chin Peng was not only branded a traitor but his name made synonymous with terror.

In his own views recorded in ‘My Side of the Story', a book compiled from interviews by journalists, Ian Ward and Norma Miraflor and released in 2003, Chin Peng speaks about the effectiveness of British propaganda in exaggerating atrocities committed by the insurgents while camouflaging their own -- such as the 1948 massacre at Batang Kali.

In Singapore, the monolithic People's Action Party (PAP) government of then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew locked up leaders of the main opposition party, the Barisan Sosialis, in the early 1960s, on the grounds that it had links with Chin Peng's movement.

Film makers, enthusiasts and critics are not taking the Malaysian ban lying down. They have launched a campaign to force the government to reverse its decision and supporters from countries like Australia and New Zealand are writing to the government and local media arguing against the ban.

Locally, supporters plan to boycott the ‘Berita Harian' and also pressure advertisers to drop the paper.

The government's explanation is that the atrocities committed by the communist are still fresh in people's mind. "I don't think it's right. I also received a lot of objections and negative feedback from the public so I don't believe Malaysians have reached a level where they are ready for such a movie," Interior Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said.

"So whether you like it or not, the underlying message is that this movie will promote Chin Peng. This is the man who was behind the destruction of property and the loss of many innocent lives,'' he said.

The movie, written and directed late last year, made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February. It has been invited to 14 international film festivals including those in London, Seattle, Vancouver and Hong Kong.

In a long and passionate rebuttal of the ban in his blog, Amir said: "I am not naive and do know that the subject of communism is taboo in Malaysia. I maintain that The Last Communist was made with a certain sense of responsibility and sensitivity to history."

"It is not a propaganda film but a rather ‘odd' documentary," he said. The film does not include any interviews with, or even photographs of, Chin Peng himself.

Amir attacked ‘Berita Harian', as a "conservative newspaper whose cultural politics verges on the ethnocentric and the semi-fascist."

"It is, to put it mildly, horribly unfair for a movie to be banned based on comments by people who had not seen it. I am dismayed that a single newspaper (and a culturally chauvinistic one at that) could cause the government to reverse the decision by the censors," Amir said.

Amir and the production company have appealed against the decision. "I made the documentary for Malaysians first of all, since it is about our own past and present. We can't let chauvinists tell us what we can or cannot see."

Human rights activists also decry the ban and demand that the government reverse it.

"It lacks accountability and transparency because it was made at the absolute discretion of the minister," said Sonia Randhawa, executive director of Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia.

"Under the current law the minister does not have to account for decisions made for the rest of us," she said, urging the repeal of sections of the film censorship act that disallow appeals against a decision.

"The fact that the minister can ban a movie because people who have not watched it have protested also demonstrates that the government is not interested in transparency," she told ‘The Sun' newspaper.

The National Human Rights Society in a statement said the ban was "another nail in the coffin" for artistic expression in the country. Its president Cecil Rajendra said it is because of such ‘'mindless censorship and repression'' that the country's creative and innovative people preferred to emigrate or stay in exile. (END/2006)

May 21, 2006 22:56 PM

Rais Finds 'The Last Communist' Film Not Offensive

KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 (Bernama) -- The banned musical documentary "The Last Communist" is not offensive, said Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim.

"The plot isn't controversial and there's nothing that could be deemed as offensive from the cultural viewpoint," he said.

The facts portrayed in the documentary could be read in the book about former Communist Party of Malaya leader Chin Peng sold in book stores, he told reporters after joining Members of Parliament to watch the film at the National Film Development Corporation (Finas) Sunday.

The Internal Security Ministry banned the documentary produced by independent film-maker Amir Muhammad on May 10 days before its screening in cinemas although it had been passed by the Censorship Board.

The ban followed criticisms that the film glorified the cause of the communists and Chin Peng.

The documentary was screened for the MPs at the request of parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang who wanted to see the justification for its ban.

Rais said there was nothing new in the film except for the interviews with the Communist Party of Malaya's former members.

"They were vague, not conclusive for any quarters... that's normal," he said, adding that whether the ban would be lifted was the prerogative of the Internal Security Ministry.

He said his ministry would give its views if it was asked to do so but he hoped the issue would not be blown out of proportion.

Lim said that he could not see anything controversial that could justify the banning of the film.

"When I went in, I was prepared to be outraged. But, hard as I tried, I could not find anything to be outraged about because it does not glorify the Communist Party or Chin Peng, and does not even promote communism.

"It just used the Chin Peng connection to make a documentary about life in the country and a little bit about life at the border. Some scenes such as the charcoal factory (in Taiping), petai boys (in Bidor) are an eye opener for many and highly educational," he said.

PAS secretary-general Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar said it was a simple film portraying the life of a group of Malaysians in the 1940s and 1950s.

"It does not even tell a full story on the communist insurgency in the country nor is it a propaganda film," he said, adding that it would not leave a negative impact on the audience.

-- BERNAMA

Keanu Reeves Slams Police State As Scanner Lights Up Cannes
Media suggest films show world is in sorry state

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | May 30 2006

Keanu Reeves has slammed the modern day police state and surveillance society, a centerpiece of the upcoming film in which he stars, during promotion for A Scanner Darkly at the Cannes film festival.

In A Scanner Darkly, the government, corporations and the elite conspire together to keep free thinking, free expression, freedom itself on the outside-- to facilitate a perceptive wall confining individuality itself to a realm doomed to the fringes.

The film chronicles how power interests exploit the drug war in order to create unthinking armies of drone servants and erect police state measures to prevent the people from ever glimpsing the dark truth behind a highly mechanized surveillance panopticon.

"Certain personal rights that were protected in the (U.S.) constitution for privacy are being chipped away at under the guise of homeland security without redress, and that's not good," Reeves told Reuters.

Several years ago the media tried to create a stereotype that Keanu Reeves isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, a complete 180 from the truth. Anyone that knows Reeves and has spoken in depth with him comes back with the same impression, that Keanu is a deeply engaged thinker and cares passionately about real issues.

Media reports out of Cannes have focused on the hard-boiled edge of the productions filling the screens this year, which include Aaron Russo's eagerly awaited America: From Freedom to Fascism, saying they represent a mirror for a world in a sorry state.

In reality the overwhelming rush of influential new films tackling topics of war, government control, surveillance and dictatorship are a creative backlash to the tiresome dumbed-down verbal diarrhea dished out by the establishment propagandists.

In a nation where the White House produces fake government PR and packages it as 'news' for the indoctrination of a bewildered US television audience, movies like Scanner are a refreshing challenge to the conformist driven orthodoxy

The outstanding Scanner Darkly website is continually updated and has a new audio clip of one of Alex's rants from the movie. Click here for the website and then click 'substance D'.

A Scanner Darkly is set for release on July 7. Read producer Tommy Pallotta's Cannes blog by clicking here.

Documentary tells story of execution
by Bobbie J. Clark - The Daily Iberian

ST. MARTINVILLE — Willie Francis practiced walking up and down the hallway of the Iberia Parish Jail. He wanted to make sure his legs would be under him when he made the march to the electric chair.

He didn’t want to embarrass his family by having his legs fail him.

Francis was scheduled to be put to death May 3, 1946, for murdering Andrew Thomas in St. Martinville. However, something went wrong, and Francis survived the execution.

A long legal battled ensued, going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled another execution should take place.

Francis was finally executed in May of 1947. He was 18 years old.

Francis’ ordeal has been documented in several books and studied by many legal scholars. It is now the subject of a documentary titled, “Willie Francis Must Die Again,” written and directed by Allan Durand.

Durand lives in St. Martinville and practices law in Lafayette. He graduated from Catholic High School and went on to earn his bachelor’s degree at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He graduated from Louisiana State University Law School.

He moved back to St. Martinville in 1981, and shortly after started making movies.

“I’ve been working on this film on and off for the last five or six years,” he said. “The Willie Francis case is probably the most famous case to come out of the 16th Judicial District. It’s one of the most famous capital punishment cases to go to the Supreme Court. It’s the only time in U.S. history that anyone’s gone to the electric chair twice.”

The lawyer who took Francis’ case was Bertrand DeBlanc, Durand’s great uncle. Durand said Francis’ father paid DeBlanc with two gallons of potatoes.

“Bertrand knew he wasn’t going to get paid,” Durand said. “This offended his sense of fairness to put a kid in the electric chair a second time.”

DeBlanc’s family had kept all the files from the case over the years. Durand used those files, along with some books written about it and articles from The Daily Iberian for his research.

Since the completion of the documentary, Durand has been traveling the film festival circuit. In April, the film was named Best Documentary at the Memphis International Film Festival. At the Santa Barbara Film Festival, it was nominated for the Social Justice Award.

The next stop is the Atlanta Film Festival, where the film was nominated for best documentary short. If it wins, it will be in contention for an Academy Award. Durand was recently honored with the visual arts award at the Ninth Annual Bunkfest Arts, Heritage and Music Awards program.

Durand said his ultimate aspiration for the documentary would be for it to be made into a feature film.

“I’ve tried to pitch it as a feature film for (several) years,” he said. “Everyone says it’s a good story, but has a sad ending. It might have been made by now if it had a happy ending.”

He said Madonna’s film company, Maverick Films, has expressed interest in the film, but added he has not heard from the company about it.

PBS has decided to run the documentary regionally and maybe nationally, which could give it the publicity it needs to be made into a feature film.

“It helps when you’ve got an unusual story,” he said. “At some point, someone will see it.”

Durand knows how the film industry works. He has several projects under his belt, including the film, “Belizaire the Cajun,” staring Armand Assante and Robert Duvall.

He’s recently gotten the green light to do a documentary on a guy from Breaux Bridge who went to New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina and saved 798 people.

“I can’t point out a time where I decided I wanted to make movies,” he said. “It’s just something I grew up always wanting to do.”

In 1990 - to commemmorate Earth Day - founders launched the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair.

"Reneweable energy is a different kind of a thing," says Randy Udall. "...and we're a little divorced from it. The beauty of a fair like this is it's bringing people back in touch with... flows of energy which are always going to dwarf fuels. Flows are much bigger than fuels. The sunlight hitting all the people outside of this tent right now left the sun eight minutes ago... It's travelled 93 million miles in eight minutes. It's hauling ass, and it's not just a good idea it's the law!"

The 17th annual Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Fair takes place this summer from June 23-25, 2006. The Fair will again be held at the ReNew the Earth Institute, MREA’s educational facility, in Custer, WI (just 7 miles east of Stevens Point).

Udall says, "Some people would ask, in terms of our energy future, 'Why are we working on anything else?'"

Here's a great 10-minute video made possible by Focus on Energy, on the event...
The "World's Largest Renewable Energy Event" (QuickTime recommended)

Gor'es movie opens tomorrow... in theaters

"By their contempt for expert opinion on everything from Iraqi reconstruction to the cost of their tax cuts, Republicans have turned Diagram (Al) Gore into a hero. By their serial dishonesty, Republicans have created a market for "An Inconvenient Truth" - the title of Gore's movie," says WAPO's Sebastian Mallaby.

Darwin's Nightmare is a tale about humans between the North and the South, about globalization, and about fish. Some time in the 1960's, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world.

Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo… Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the continent. This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.

Watch for it to screen at the Coffeehouse as soon as it is released on US format DVD... and we are looking for a copy of this year's Best Wisconsin Film: TRIVIATOWN
directed by Patrick Cady and Brit McAdams - any help locating them would be appreciated.

Hey tinfoil-hatters!
Forget about Building 7, planned demolitions, missing surveillance tapes and a hole in the Pentagon that's too damn small to hold a big airplane...
The following film, shown recently at Tribeca, documents the run up, all of the pre-911 , and it connects all of the dots from A...bramoff to Z...arqawi that resulted in the 2nd Pearl Harbor. It is factual, chilling, unsettling and well documented:
Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime 1.0 (1 hr 11 min 48 sec)

"The West Point honor code, which mandates cadets will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do, defines honor and duty," says Joseph Wojcik, co-founder of West Point Graduates Against the War. "And this provides us with a lifelong sense of duty, a shared responsibility for graduates to do the right thing, even if that means admonishing our country's leadership."

The late General Dwight D. Eisenhower was a West Point graduate who also served as the 34th President of the US from 1953-1961.

"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war."

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity. War settles nothing."

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They’ll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads. But if an American wants to preserve his dignity and his equality as a human being, he must not bow his neck to any dictatorial government."

Dwight D. Eisenhower


Eisenhower's Farewell speech delivered on January 17, 1961 should be mandatory reading for all future Presidents... it sets the tone for a new documentary that is currently in limited distribution, making the rounds of art house cinema - Why We Fight, directed by Eugene Jarecki. It will be released on DVD on June 27, 2006.

Robert Greenwald sent the following update on his forthcoming film:

Dear activists, colleagues and friends:

AMAZING!

We are stunned, energized and very moved by your outpouring of generosity to help make "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers." In the last eight days, you democratized film and political story telling. It's quite remarkable.

Overall, we raised $347,094, just blasting through our $300,000 goal! 2,701 of you contributed an average of $60. Because of that momentum, two large donors pushed us over the top: Erika Glazer and Dick Mazess who champions many great causes, most notably VotersForPeace.us. All of the money will be put to use specifically for this film, both for production and now with some funds to help with outreach, education and distribution.

But first we have to make the movie... so filming starts next week!

The plan: We shoot through the month of May with Kerry Candaele (story producer) and Nick Higgins (director of photography) on the road most of the time while story producers Abbie Hurewitz and Amanda Spain continue researching and interviewing. Lisa Remington is our line producer holding it all together with Ricardo Acuna assisting.

Come June, we'll edit. Carla Gutierrez and Mike Stanley (with Mike Beegle assisting) will start the cutting marathon so we can finish in late July or early August. Sarah and Devin are insisting late July, but I am begging for early August. (This happens with every film!)

And then it’s back to you to take the country by storm beginning in late September!

Stay tuned and hang onto your seats. This is explosive stuff. Your faith and money brings this to life. In September we will need your help again, this time by screening, writing, protesting, organizing and using the film to register new and mobilize voters to force the issue right into the heat of the '06 elections.

We can and will change the way this country runs.

And from the bottom of all our hearts at Brave New Films, THANK YOU for your incredible support!

Robert Greenwald

VIDEO | Dennis Banks: Sacred Run
A Film by Rebecca MacNeice
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, organized the first Sacred Run across the country 28 years ago. The run is a staggered event that covers the country by foot between February 11th and April 22nd, ending in Washington, DC, on Earth Day. Along the way, the core group of runners is joined intermittently by other walkers and runners. This year's closing ceremony was held at the Lincoln Memorial. Banks has always been accompanied by Buddhist monks from the Nipponzan Myohoji sect.

I just discovered an article in the Valley Scene regarding 5th annual WildWood Film Festival which took place April 14-15 at The Big Picture in Appleton, that deserves to be archived...

How to draw a Doggie
By Jim Lundstrom

Eric Carter was so inspired to see his work on a big screen at last year’s WildWood Film Festival that this year he not only has his own short film – “How to Draw a Doggie in Four Easy Steps” – entered for judging in the comedy category, but he also took part in the filming and editing of works entered by two filmmaking friends who also have works entered in the 5th annual WildWood Film Festival.

“Last year I had two shorts in Wildwood,” said Carter, a 33-year-old Green Bay resident. “It was awesome. I think it’s great to have the chance to show your films.”

WildWood is a two-day event that begins with a single viewing session Friday, April 14, and continues for two more sessions on Saturday.

For the past two years it was held in the small hall at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, but this year moves to the large-screen format movie theater The Big Picture in downtown Appleton, a move that Carter applauds.

“That should actually be better,” he said. “The PAC is a prestigious place, but they didn’t have the best equipment for showing films.”

Still, he said, “It was just exciting to see something I did play on a big screen.”

That’s exactly why WildWood founders Craig Knitt, Tom Thorne and Jason Buss created the festival, to shed light on the largely underground film community in Wisconsin. They hope this year’s crop of films give wider exposure both to the filmmakers and the film festival.

“We had close to 50 submissions this year,” Buss said. “Quite a few of those are returning filmmakers. That’s good to see.”

“We’re proud to encourage Wisconsin filmmakers,” Thorne said. “We’re hoping this fifth year will be the breakout year for us. We’d like to have multiple venues around the state in the future – Green Bay, La Crosse, Wausau.”

Carter said he enjoys taking part in WildWood for the pleasure of seeing his work in public on a big screen, but last year’s event also turned into opportunities to work with others.

“I was just surprised to find there are so many actors and people who want to make movies around here,” said Carter, who makes a living as a picture frame and wedding video editor.

“I made a lot of short films in high school,” he said. “I really wanted to go to college for film, but I didn’t want to go far away, so I ended up studying photography and art (at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay).”

In 2004 he took an editing class at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay that led to his entry in this year’s festival, “How to Draw a Doggie…”.

“The assignment was to do an instructional video, and I really didn’t want to do an instructional video,” Carter said. “I wanted to do something a little more creative.”

What he came up with could be seen as a comic take on the creative process, but Carter insists it’s all arbitrary stuff designed to fulfill the class assignment.

“In art school, I was into surrealism and dada,” he said.

So, the four steps to drawing a doggie include 1. Coffee, with Frank Sinatra on vocals; 2. Drawing a doggie, which Carter does; 3. A Levitating Strawberry (part of the assignment called for inserting a clip, and Carter found this one on the Internet); 4. Crabmeat Rangoon, which requires a trip to a Chinese restaurant.

“I never knew the WildWood Festival existed until someone at NWTC told me I should enter my couple of films in it,” Carter said. “It was cool to see there were other local people making movies. I was in my own little bubble and didn’t even know there was a group getting together to make movies.”

That led to his discovering the Independent Filmmakers Guild, which operates out of Green Bay, and put him in touch with other likeminded filmmakers.

“Scott Harpt started the IFG, and he’s the guy who wrote and directed ‘Chester McPhail’ (another comedy in this year’s WildWood lineup),” Carter said. “I did all the filming and editing on that. Then there’s a documentary, a short profile called ‘Menzel.’ I helped with the editing on that.”

All of which has inspired Carter to do more.

“I have a lot of ideas,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out how to write using scriptwriting software and write an actual story instead of just piecing stuff together. I’m studying stop-motion graphics because I want to get more into the animation side of things.”

Robert Greenwald writes...

Dear field producers and screening hosts,

So we have gone public with our new film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers. It was sooner than we had thought, but given the critical nature of raising the funds now or not having the film available for the fall, the Brave New Films team decided it was better to go public. And what a great response we've had already... a thousand people have contributed over $60,000!! And if you take the time to look through the contributors, the variety, the personal dedications, the political passion jumps off the page.

http://iraqforsale.org/

I can't overstate the potential political import of having this film available as a tool in mid-September. Rick Jacobs, the Brave New Films chairman, wrote about this today on the Huffington Post.

The issue of war profiteering, of profit over patriotism, of our being less safe because money that is meant for the soldiers and for the reconstruction of Iraq, is going into the pockets of these greedy corporations. We've found some incredibly brave individuals who are willing to talk on camera about what they have witnessed.

And now once more we need your help. Please take my video appeal, if you like it, if not make up one of your own. And then with a personal note send it on to your e-mail lists. Tell them about your experience as a field producer or a host, tell them about the films you've seen and screened, and the possibility with this film. And then ask them if they would sign up and contribute.

Here's the link:
http://iraqforsale.org/

Get those email lists out and fire away, we need you to distribute the fundraising, just as you have distributed the films. Thanks!

Robert Greenwald

P.S. Here's what two field producers working with me on the film had to say:

Janie: "I've loved tracking down information that in the long run is going to benefit the well-being of our troops that are placed in harms way, while at the same time being able to support them in a way that really matters, not just slapping a bumper sticker on my car and calling it a day.

Ellen: "Working on the film is a way for me, an ordinary citizen with no big political or Hollywood connections, to feel like I'm making a difference. They say that knowledge is power. This is a way for me to get knowledge and help disseminate it, too."

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)Opens May 24 nationwide...

Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore's personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. A longtime advocate for the environment, Mr. Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way.

"Al Gore strips his presentations of politics, laying out the facts for the audience to draw their own conclusions in a charming, funny and engaging style, and by the end has everyone on the edge of their seats, gripped by his haunting message," says Guggenheim.

An Inconvenient Truth is not a story of despair but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share.

"It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely," says Gore.

On April 29 thousands of people will be gathering all across the nation and here in Wisconsin at Coate field on the UW-LaCrosse campus at around 7:30 8 PM. Then they will "commut" (walk) to the parking lot of the YMCA in La Crosse and spending the night sleeping in the parking lot. They are doing this because every night thousands of children in Uganda must walk miles from their homes into the center of the city each night to spend the night packed together like sardines in basically empty warehouses - because that is the only place they are safe from being kidnapped and used as child soldiers or sex slaves.

On April 29 people around the world are commuting to the center of their cities and spending the night outside to bring awareness of the situation into focus to create the support that is needed to end this crisis.

During the night they will write letters to congress, sign petitions and also take pictures, do artwork, and write letters that will be taken to Uganda and be given to the children there!

Find out more at www.invisiblechildren.com , click on the Global Night Commute button and then sign up somewhere.

There is a film available on DVD...

Kavanah: A Progressive Jewish Voice, Along With The Social Justice Film Series, Presents:
================================================================
PROMISES — the Film
Monday, April 17th 7:30pm TITU (Look for "Promises: Social Justice Film Series")
Running time, 106 minutes.
Arabic, Hebrew and English dialogue with English subtitles.
Abstract below.
================================================================


PROMISES follows the journey of one of the filmmakers, Israeli-
American B.Z. Goldberg. B.Z. travels to a Palestinian refugee camp and
to an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and to the more familiar
neighborhoods of Jerusalem where he meets seven Palestinian and
Israeli children.


Though the children live only 20 minutes apart, they exist in
completely separate worlds; the physical, historical and emotional
obstacles between them run deep.


PROMISES explores the nature of these boundaries and tells the story
of a few children who dared to cross the lines to meet their
neighbors. Rather than focusing on political events, the seven
children featured in PROMISES offer a refreshing, human and sometimes
humorous portrait of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.


PROMISES, a film by Justine Shapiro, B.Z. Goldberg and co-director and
editor Carlos Bolado, was shot between 1995-2000.


To find out more about the film and the project please go to:


http://www.promisesproject.org/index.html

The Social Justice Film Series is an open space for activists to share and unite in struggle, sponsored by:
Amnesty International (UW and local chapters), The Madison InfoShop, Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC), UW Stop the War!, Action In Sudan, Community Action on Latin America (CALA), Kavanah (A Progressive Jewish Voice), The Homeless Cooperative, Madison Warming Center Campaign (MWCC), the LGBT Campus Center, Al-Awda (the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition), Madison Fair Trade Action Alliance (MadFTAA), FH King Students for Sustainable Agriculture, the Campus Women's Center, Family Farm Defenders, MultiCultural Student Coaltion (MCSC), MEChA (El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), Industrial Workers of the World, (IWW-Madison Chapter) and the Madison Observer.

Filmmaker Jyllian Gunther will be blogging live from the Full Frame documentary film festival in Durham, N.C., from April 6-9. Stay tuned to THE MIX for daily cinematic highlights (and lowlights).

The Trials of Henry Kissinger
Jigsaw Educational Productions, Inc.
1 hr 19 min 41 sec - Mar 20, 2006
www.thetrialsofhenrykissinger.com


The war crimes of Henry Kissinger, and how he is connected to the Rockefellers. BBC 2002

Two New Films About Vets and The War to Premier at TriBeCa Film Festival:

In January, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) took the message of today's Troops and Veterans to the Sundance Film Festival as part of the premier of "The Ground Truth," a documentary film following the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans after they return from war.

Next month, two more films about Veterans' issues and the Iraq War will premier at the TriBeCa film festival in New York City. "When I Came Home" chronicles the all-too-common problem of homelessness that many Veterans face when they return from war. The second film, "The War Tapes," is the first documentary shot entirely by the Soldiers themselves. IAVA was involved with each of these films from the beginning.

Participant believes in the power of media to create great social change. Their goal is to deliver compelling entertainment that will inspire audiences to get involved in the issues that affect us all. Videoblogger Karmagrrrl says, "With films like Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, North Country, Murderball, and others, they really are taking a stand and letting it be known that a movie can be both good and raise public awareness about important issues in our society."

The Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers is a membership organization serving local and international film and videomakers — from documentarians and experimental artists to makers of narrative features. Books, workshops, screening events... based in NYC.

B.I.K.E. a film about rebels with a cause...

Fred King
fking@fountainhead.com
212-620-3092

Ann Arbor, MI
Ann Arbor Film Festival, Screening Room
Saturday, March 25th @ 3:30pm
Sunday, March 26th @ 3:00pm

New York City
Bicycle Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives
Thursday, May 11, 2006, 7:00 PM / 9:00PM / 11:00PM
& After Party with Black Label Bike Club
Sunday, May 14, 2006, 3:00 PM

"'V for Vendetta' is a pro-revolutionary, action-adventure romp that makes other political films look like 'Little House on the Prairie.'" says Anthony Kaufman in Anarchism, Hollywood-Style posted in AlterNet. The conservative managers at Cinema 6 must have let this one slip by since it poses as sci-fi set in Britain...

Set in the year 2020, "V for Vendetta" takes place in a fascistic London, some time after "America's war grew worse and worse," as one character narrates, "when unfamiliar words like 'collateral' and 'rendition' became frightening." The government is a cross between a full-blown totalitarian state and the current administration's scare tactics: with constant surveillance, a citywide "yellow-coded curfew" that instills paranoia and restricts nighttime movement, and a menacing band of secret police called "Fingermen" who patrol the streets and harass the citizens.

Somehow all that seems just like yesterday.

WARNING... don't click that link above unless you want to more than you should about V before you see it.

The Battle for America... by Alrick A. Brown, a graduate student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts is a streaming short - not to be missed! A writer and teacher, he has found his calling directing and producing narrative films and documentaries on social issues affecting the world at large.

Road to Guantanamo

The Road to Guantanamo won the prestigious Silver Bear for Direction for Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross in competition at The 56th Berlin International Film Festival.

Brittain's Channel 4 interviewed him in preparation for a March 9, 2006 airing of the saga on how a group of friends set off to a wedding in Pakistan in September 2001 and somehow blunder into the war in Afghanistan. The film-makers tell the story using reconstructions with actors, newsreel footage and interviews. At the outset, we hear President Bush solemnly telling the world that the Guantánamo prisoners are "bad guys". Once we meet Ruhel, Asif, Shafiq and Monir, the irony becomes evident. The young Brits, who became know as the Tipron Three, that Bush seems to regard as the embodiment of evil are ordinary lads, neither especially political nor devoutly religious.

No stranger to making movies about controversial issues, Winterbottom won the Berlin International Film Festival's top prize in 2003 for "In this World," which portrayed people fleeing Afghanistan by using real refugees as actors, and combined drama and documentary.

You can rent for 48 hours or buy this film... either way online at: videoclub.tiscali.co.uk

If you intend to download a film to yur PC and then want to project it on a TV... here's a lesson on how to hook it all together:
http://videoclub.tiscali.co.uk/info/tv.html
UK police arrest stars of award-winning film "The Road to Guantanamo" under the Prevention of Terrorism Act