West Hollywood, Film Festival
Tuesday, May 24, 2005Theater 1 7:30pm
DIRECTOR'S GUILD OF AMERICA
7920 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Map
Director: Sidney Lumet
Drama. 2004. USA. 56 min. English
Opening Night Feature
Acclaimed film director Sidney Lumet joins forces with Emmy-winning Oz creator Tom Fontana to explore the precarious status of individual liberties post-9/11 through two parallel stories -- each containing identical dialogues -- taking place on two continents half a world away.
The film ingeniously weaves together cautionary scenarios in which two graduate students --one a female American in China, the other a male Arab in New York -- are detained without hard evidence and interrogated about activities which may or may not relate to terrorist plots.
The film explores the plights of these very different people, both of whom are relentlessly questioned and then strip-searched by a pair of government officials who are intent on eliciting information to protect the public safety in the face of the threat of imminent terrorist attack.
In the end, Strip Search explores one of the most important contemporary questions of the new century: Must security and safety come at the price of freedom?
Tuesday May 24th, Theater 1, 7.30pm Awards and screening
Followed by a Q & A and panel discussion on the War on Terror with the filmmakers and guest speakers:
• Tom Fontana, filmmaker
• Farah Brelvi, Amnesty International Board of
Directors
• Reed Brody, Human Rights Watch, Special
• Council for Prosecutions
• Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles City Council
• Bonnie Abaunza, Artists for Amnesty, Director
(Parental advice: some scenes of nudity)