Tickets and Locations

Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard Street
Brookline, MA 02446
617-734-2500 (recorded information)
617-734-2501 (office)
email: coolcorn@aol.com
www.coolidge.org
Coolidge Corner T stop
on the C Green line

All tickets are $8.00 for all shows
at all times except:
Bargain matinees
(before 5:00 PM Mon-Sat;
before 5:00 PM Sun)
- tickets are $5.50
Senior citizens and children under 12
- tickets are $4.00 all the time.

International Institute of Boston
One Milk Street
Boston, MA 02109
voice/TTY: (617) 695-9990
email: smorse@iiboston.org
www.iiboston.org
Downtown Crossing, Park Street,
or State Street T stops

Admission is $8.00 for all shows.
Senior citizens and student tickets
are $4.00 each.

Museum of Fine Arts
465 Huntington Av
Boston, MA 02115
(617) 369-3770
www.mfa.org/film
Museum of Fine Arts T stop
on the E Green line

$8 for general admission;
tickets are $7 for MFA members,
seniors, & students.
To purchase by credit card,
call (617) 369-3306
(automated - $2 service charge
per order)
or purchase in person
at the MFA Remis Auditorium.

Open Saturday through Tuesday
10:00 am-4:30 pm,
Wednesday through Friday
10:00 am-8:30 pm.
Cash or credit cards are accepted.

Sunday January 14, 2001

12:00 p.m. (film info)
Coolidge Corner Theatre

The Circle
Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2000; 89 minutes

preceded by ICC: A Call for Justice
EVC's Youth Organizers Telvision, US, 2000; 15 minutes

Saturday January 13, 2001

12:45 p.m. (film info)
Museum of Fine Arts

Bread and Roses
Ken Loach, US, 2000; 112 minutes

Friday January 12, 2001

5:30 p.m. (film info)
Museum of Fine Arts

Crazy
Heddy Honigmann, The Netherlands, 1999; 97 minutes

preceded by ICC: A Call for Justice
EVC's Youth Organizers Television, US, 2000; 15 minutes

Thursday January 11, 2001

Opening Night

7:00 p.m. (film info)
Museum of Fine Arts

Before Night Falls
Julian Schnabel - US - 2000 - 125 minutes

Reception to follow

Homeland
Jilann Spitzmiller and Hank Rogerson, US, 1999, 60m (16mm, doc)

Filmed over three years, against the harsh yet stunning backdrop of South Dakota, Homeland weaves an intimate and lyrical portrait of contemporary Native American life, focusing on four Lakota Indian families living on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Through the personal stories of a spiritual leader, a grandmother, a community activist, and an artist, the film follows the families as they face the ever-present realities common to most American Indian reservations - alcoholism, extreme unemployment, and scarce housing. With their family loyalty, spiritual ways, and keen sense of humor, they strive to build a better life for their children and the generations to come. Sponsored by ITVS and the Soros Documentary Fund.

5:30 pm, 13th January at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
filmmakers present
Co-presented by the North American Indian Center of Boston

This Is What Democracy Looks Like
Collaborative - US - 2000 - 90m - video -doc
In English

This Is What Democracy Looks Like is the first documentary to capture the raw energy of the WTO protests, while clarifying their global and historic significance at the same time. Dynamic footage from the streets is punctuated by interviews with a broad spectrum of intellectuals, organizers, and activists reflecting on their personal experience in Seattle. This Is What Democracy Looks Like, a 90-minute documentary co-produced by the Independent Media Center and Big Noise Films, weaves this footage into a gripping document of what really happened on Seattle's streets. The film's comprehensive scope and vision cuts through the confusion and tear gas to create a moving portrait of the week that changed the world.

9 pm, January 12th and 7pm, January 14th at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
filmmakers present
Co-presented by the National Lawyers Guild of Massachusetts

La Boda
Hannah Weyer, US, 2000, 53m (video, doc)

Elizabeth is marrying Artemio in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and you are cordially invited to the wedding (la boda). Meet these two young people from the U.S.-Mexican border region whose lives are framed by the challenges of migrant life. Through Elizabeth, we see a family and community continually on the move, keeping alive their roots in Mexico even as they incorporate American-style dreams and their often harsh realities. With complete access to her subject, filmmaker Weyer gives the viewer an absorbing entry into a young girl's passage through daughter, worker, student, woman, wife and world citizen.


Followed by:

Our House in Havana
Stephen Olsson, US, 2000, 57m, (video, doc)

Director Olsson follows the emotionally charged return trip of Silvia Morini, a vivacious 68-year-old Cuban, who, after 38 years living in the US, decides to return to Cuba to search for the house, the neighborhood and the faded remains of her once-opulent, privileged life. Silvia's pilgrimage, full of discoveries, forces her to confront her own myths of Cuba and the revolution. An intimate, thought-provoking cinematic journey, seasoned with Cuban history, culture, music and passion.

2 pm, January 13th at the International Institute of Boston
Co-presented by Boston NOW

Blink
Elizabeth Thompson, US, 2000, 70m (video, doc)

Blink examines the dramatic story of one-time white supremacist leader Gregory Withrow, who, at the height of his involvement in the movement in 1988, fell in love with a woman whose parents had fled Nazi Germany. His own subsequent flight from the militant White Aryan Resistance captured the imagination of the national media when Withrow was found beaten and "crucified," his hands nailed to a board.

Preceded by:
ICC: A Call for Justice
EVC's Youth Organizers Television, US, 2000, 15m (video, doc)

What is the International Criminal Court (ICC)? Who will benefit? Why won't America ratify the treaty? Through archival footage, spoken word poetry and interviews with survivors of torture and ICC advocates, the Youth Organizers crew explores these and other questions surrounding the ICC.

7 pm, January 12th and 9 pm, January 14th at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
Co-presented by the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Awards 2000 and Political Research Associates

Circle
Jafar Panahi - Iran - 2000 - 89m - 35mm - drama In Farsi with English subtitles

A woman goes to light up a cigarette, only to be rebuked by a man she doesnÕt even know. Jafar (The White Balloon) PanahiÕs politically courageous drama takes on such interchanges and prohibitions, still taboo in Iranian cinema. For the first time, women are more than simply dutiful wives, respectful daughters, or mere chadors licking at the edges of the frame. Here, women are willfully, sometimes furiously, in plain sight. THE CIRCLE delicately drifts among several women characters, each of their stories gracefully melting into the other. And all the while, their everyday oppression comes into ever sharper focus. Unsentimental, deeply felt, PanahiÕs narrative has a muckraking vigor and bristling moral outrage that mark the beginnings of a new, bold kind of Iranian cinema.


12 noon, 14th January at the Coolidge Corner Theatre

Good Kurds, Bad Kurds:
No Friends but the Mountains
Kevin McKiernan, US, 2000, 79m (video, doc)

A war of national liberation or a war against terrorism? Filmmaker and acclaimed freelance journalist Kevin McKiernan poses this question at the outset of this stirring, provocative film lensed by legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler. "It's all in how you define 'good' and 'bad': 'Good Kurds' are those in Iraq; they're Saddam Hussein's victims whom we want to help. 'Bad Kurds' are those waging an armed insurrection against US ally Turkey; they're at the receiving end of US weapons." McKiernan went to northern Iraq to cover the uprising against Saddam. Just a few miles away, no one was covering the hidden war in Turkey, so he decided to bring out the story. Good Kurds, Bad Kurds brings sharp clarity to a complicated history while providing disturbing insight into both US immigration and foreign policy.

4 pm, January 13th at the International Institute of Boston
filmmaker present
Co-presented by Amnesty International

Crazy
Heddy Honigmann - The Netherlands - 1999 97m - 35mm - doc
In Dutch with English subtitles

There may not be a word for the kind of emotion evoked by Heddy Honigmann's latest film. But Crazy is the word used most frequently by the Dutch UN soldiers who tell their stories of emotional devastation during peacekeeping missions in Ôsecurity zones,Õ such as Cambodia, Lebanon, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Korea. These ÔpeacekeepersÕ speak of being witnesses to brutally chaotic conditions, of murder and child prostitution, of being improperly equipped, of feelings of powerlessness amidst incredible suffering. Each soldier recalls a song intimately connected to these memories, one that helped get him through his plight. Watching this very personal and direct film, there is a sense these stories are being told for the first time. A curious but careful interviewer, Honigmann's use of home video and snapshots provides an emotional link the soldiers often deny or struggle to conceal. But it's the lingering close-ups of these soldiers listening to their songs that are the most revealing. The remarkable and mysterious power of these segments, a complex marriage of music and memory, will be immediately recognized by anyone with a song they've called their own.

5:30 pm, January 12th at the Museum of Fine Arts
Co-presented by Physicians for Human Rights

Bye Bye Africa
Mahamet Saleh Haroun - Chad - 1999 86m - video - drama
In French with English subtitles

Chadian filmmaker Haroun's first feature, Bye Bye Africa is a moving documentary-based drama about art, life and despair in the growing free market of Chad. Based on real events in the filmmaker's life, the film tells the story of Haroun's trip home following the death of his mother. There he finds a film industry and a country in chaos, which now functions according to an indefinitely prolonged 'culture of conflict.' An affirmation of the value of art in general and filmmaking in particular, Haroun's piercingly self-reflexive, brutally honest film is at once a portrait of a community and a sobering inquiry into the future of Africa and its cinema.

9 pm, January 13th and 5pm, January 14th at the Coolidge Corner Theatre

Daring to Resist
Martha Lubell and Barbara Attie, US, 1999, 58m (video, doc)

Is resistance always a matter of guns and explosives? Or can it be practiced with photography, ballet, forgery and wits? What is it that leads a person to choose defiance, rather than submission, when her whole world is collapsing around her? Daring to Resist looks at these questions in a gripping documentary. Three Jewish women reflect on their lives in Holland, Hungary, and Poland during World War II, when they refused to remain passive in the face of Nazi genocide. As teenagers all three girls acted without family support, joining other young people determined to fight back. The film interweaves the women's varied and astonishing stories, as they tell of resisting the forces of hatred in unexpected ways. Never-before-published photographs and home movies enrich the women's vibrant narratives.


7pm, January 13th and 3 pm, January 14th at the Coolidge Corner Theatre
filmmaker present
Co-presented by The Boston Jewish Film Festival, DoubleTake Magazine and Facing History and Ourselves

Bread and Roses
Ken Loach - US - 2000 - 112 m - 35mm - drama
In English and Spanish with English subtitles

British filmmaker Ken Loach offers an inspired exposŽ of oppression melded with a sincere snapshot of family drama and individual strength. In contemporary Los Angeles, Maya (Pilar Padilla) has just arrived from Mexico to stay with her sister. Maya secures a janitorial job at a downtown high rise and is primed for the American dream. But in this image-making capital, Mayaâs opportunity is someone elseâs opportunism. Then she meets Sam (Adrien Brody) - a young, idealistic lawyer with a passion for workerâs rights who enlightens Maya and her co-workers about their exploitation. Soon, passionate discussions of unions and wages lead to violent demonstrations as Maya, Sam and a disgruntled crew of janitors put up the fight of their lives. Loachâs skillful touch with dramatic realism and political commentary comes alive as the cast deliver breathtaking performances, and Bread and Roses puts a distinctly human face on a profoundly serious problem.

12:45 pm, January 13th at the Museum of Fine Arts
Co-presented by Jobs with Justice

Before Night Falls
Julian Schnabel - US - 2000 - 125m - 35mm - drama In English and Spanish with English subtitles

Unquestionably, Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas was one of the major talents to have emerged from the Latin American literary boom of the 1960s; yet, running afoul of the Castro regime as both a political dissident and an openly gay man, Arenas was harassed, imprisoned and physically abused Ð all the more so because he managed to smuggle out and publish his works abroad. Adapting Arenas' brilliant, posthumously published autobiography, painter and film director Julian Schnabel magnificently captures the style and flavor of Arenas' writing, with brief, intensely vivid scenes that evoke a succession of remembrances. He is supported by a strong cast, with a star-making performance by Spanish actor Javier Bardem as Reinaldo, who embodies both the strength and vulnerability of a man for whom, as he wrote during his New York exile, "there is really no solace anywhere."


7 pm, January 11th at the Museum of Fine Arts
Co-presented by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
Opening Night reception to follow, all audience members invited

A Civilized People / Civilisées
Randa Chahal Sabbag, Lebanon, 1999
97m (35mm, drama)
Winner of the 2000 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize

Randa Chahal Sabbag was 20 years old when the civil war in Lebanon began and 40 when it ended. Her experience of that time has formed the basis for a powerful and eloquent film. During the civil war in Lebanon, many Lebanese fled to Europe - abandoning their large apartments, their sumptuous villas, and the servants whom they had imported by the thousands. This stunning dramatic debut focuses on these individuals and their stories, weaving together a broad spectrum of colorful characters to create an unforgettable tapestry of Lebanon's civil war. Currently, the Lebanese government has asked Chahal Sabbag to cut 47 minutes of this film, claiming that these sections are offensive and inflammatory. We will show the film in its entirety.

8 pm, January 12th at the Museum of Fine Arts
Co-presented by Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University