Pittsburgh Film Festival
September 9-17, 2005Saturday, September 10
5:30 pm Melwood Screening Room
THE SWENKAS
5:45 pm and 8:15 pm Melwood Screening Room
MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA
5:45 pm and 8:15 pm Melwood Screening Room
BULLETS IN THE HOOD: A BED-STUY STORY
8:00 pm Melwood Screening Room
STATE OF FEAR
Director: Jeppe Ronde
Documentary. 2004. Denmark. 72 min. Zulu and English, subtitled.
Pittsburgh Premiere
In post-Apartheid South Africa a small group of working Zulu men every Saturday night leave their grimy overalls behind and wear their best Carducci or Pierre Cardin suits to impress the weekly selected judge. The men are called the Swenkas, and they have run this fashion show for so many years that no one knows exactly when-or even why-it all began. The youngest Swenka, Sabelo, is in the most turbulent time of his life. He has to bury his father just a week before Christmas and only a week before his own wedding. But Sabelo's father was also "father" of the Swenkas, and now Sabelo and his fellow Swenkas find themselves in a state of incertitude. The Swenkas are the film's direct entry to the darkest downtown of contemporary Johannesburg, one of the most violent cities on earth. But the Swenkas are about to tell a totally different story from within that very place-a story of hope.
On Friday, September 9th the film will be followed by a discussion with Dr. Ellen Dorsey, Amnesty International Board Member, Adjunct Professor of International Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, Fulbright Scholar in 1992 to South Africa. In addition, Dr. Dorsey has done extensive research and publication on South Africa and Human Rights issues.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Matt Henderson
matt@7thart.com
Friday, September 9th, 8:00 pm and Saturday, September 10th, 5:30 pm, Melwood Screening Room
Director: David Redmon
Documentary. 2004. USA. 61 min. English and Gan, subtitled.
Pittsburgh Premiere
Mardi Gras: Made in China is a story of globalization told through humor and sadness, hope and violence, of the owner of a bead factory in China, the largest Mardi Gras bead distributor in the world; Carnival revelers who exchange beads during Mardi Gras; and four teenage bead-workers in China who make Mardi Gras beads.
By confronting an increasingly globalized world where consumers and producers are alienated from each other, the film attempts to re-establish human connections through curiosity and humor as it renders visible the seemingly invisible bead trail from the factory to the festival. Viewers are swept into a whirlwind of action, where drunk revelers exchange beads for nudity and guess who made them during Carnival.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
David Redmon
dwredmon@yahoo.com
The film is preceded by Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story
Saturday, September 10th, 5:45 pm and 8:15 pm, Melwood Screening Room
Directors: Terrence Fisher and Daniel Howard
Documentary. 2004. USA. 22 min. English
Pittsburgh Premiere
Terrence Fisher (20) lives in a housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. By the time he was 19 years old, eight of his friends were shot and killed in his neighborhood. Terrence is not a gang member or a drug dealer-he is just a normal teenager who likes making hip- hop music with his friends. What could Terrence do to stop gun violence in Bed-Stuy before losing another friend, or even his own life? Enrolled in Downtown Community Television Center's Pro-TV program, Terrence and a fellow teen filmmaker, Daniel Howard, picked up a camera to tell the story about the gun violence on their streets.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Reina Higashitani reina@dctvny.org
The film precedes Mardi Gras: Made in China
Saturday, September 10th, 5:45 pm and 8:15 pm, Melwood Screening Room
Director: Pamela Yates
Documentary. 2005. Peru/USA. 94 min. English and Spanish, subtitled.
Pittsburgh Premiere
How can an open society balance demands for security with democracy? State of Fear dramatizes the human and societal costs a democracy faces when it embarks on a "war" against terror, a "war" potentially without end, all too easily exploited by unscrupulous leaders seeking personal political gain.
The film follows events in Peru, yet it serves as a cautionary tale for a nation like the United States. Filmmakers Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy masterfully blend personal testimony, history and archival footage to tell the story of escalating violence in the Andean nation and how fear of terrorism was used to undermine the democracy, making Peru a virtual dictatorship where official corruption replaced the rule of law.
Terrorist attacks by the Shining Path guerrillas provoked a military occupation of the countryside. Military justice replaced civil authority, widespread abuses by the Peruvian Army went unpunished, and the terrorism continued to spread. Nearly 70,000 civilians eventually died at the hands of the Shining Path and the Peruvian military.
On Saturday, September 10th the film will be followed by a discussion with Mel Packer, a supporter of Center for Constitutional Rights and a longtime activist for human rights internationally.
Filmmakers/Distributors Contact Information:
Paco de Onis
paco@skylightpictures.com
Saturday, September 10th, 8:00 pm, and Sunday, September 11th, 5:45pm, Melwood Screening Room