Sundance at MoMA: Illuminated Voices
April 25–May 2, 2003
The power of
nonfiction film to ignite debate, uncover corruption, provoke
political movements … and move audiences
is at the heart of Illuminated
Voices, a program devoted to shining light into the shadows of
human suffering and bringing forth voices that might
not otherwise be heard.
This first
of what will be an annual collaboration between the Sundance
Institute and The Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to the
original and provocative work funded by the Sundance
Institute Documentary Fund (formerly
the Soros Documentary Fund), which provides
support to documentary filmmakers focusing on wide-ranging international
issues, including human rights, civil liberty, social
justice, freedom of expression,
and the development of open societies. The Fund
has energetically encouraged issue-oriented cinema and
artistic daring while working
to bring documentaries to a wider audience through
enhanced avenues of distribution. All the films in this
program were coproduced with grants
from the Soros or Sundance Institute Documentary
Fund. All the films screened on May 1 and 2 are New York
premieres, and most will be introduced by their directors
and followed by Q&A’s.
Organized by Diane Weyermann, Director, the
Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, and Jytte Jensen,
Associate Curator, Department of Film and Media, The Museum
of Modern Art.
A selection of shorts from the projects Landscape of Memory
(1999), a four-part series on reconciliation in Southern Africa,
and Steps for the Future (2001), an international collaborative
project commissioning local filmmakers from seven countries in Southern
Africa to create documentaries about the HIV/AIDS crisis. Both series
produced by Don Edkins.
. Mozambique. Directed
by Karen Boswall. In Shangaan with English subtitles.
26 min. . Zimbabwe.
Directed by Prudence Uriri. In Shona, Ndebele, and English
with English subtitles. 26 min.
. Mozambique. Directed by Orlando
Mesquita. In Ximanica with English
subtitles. 4 min. . South Africa.
Directed by Siyabonga Mikhatini.
In Zulu and English with English subtitles. 5 min. . Zambia.
Directed by Sampa Kangwa and Simon Wilkie. In Bemba and Nyanja with
English subtitles. 26 min.
Total running time 87 min.
. 2003. Belgium/France. Directed by Thierry
Michel. Defying, clarifying, and contradicting the images
presented by much of the U.S. media, this beautifully realized film
captures the contemporary everyday life of Iranians living in a country
in which religious fervor and the continued threat posed by radical Islam’s
commitment to martyrdom contrasts with an increasingly modernized youth
expressing its desire for freedom, change, and a more open society. In Farsi, French, and English with English subtitles. 94 min.
. 2003. Mexico. Directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodríguez.
When her young son is killed by a hit-and-run driver,
María Elena leaves her home in Chihuahua
to go back to her birthplace, rural Sierra Tarahumara.
The film’s concentric
structure is organically in tune with the processes that
lead María Elena
from one stage of her life into a new and entirely different
one. In Spanish and Raramuri with English subtitles. 76 min.
. 2002.
France/USA. Directed by Anne Aghion. With the urgency
of a reporter’s dispatch, Aghion’s
film explores the Gacaca, a new form of citizen-based
justice designed to unify Rwanda in the wake of the 1994
genocide. This process, which accords justice and responsibility according
to ancient customs, raises important questions about how people
in small communities can learn to forgive each other’s
unspeakable transgressions and live and work together
for the greater good of the country. In Kinyarwanda with
English subtitles. 55 min.
Filmmakers and film professionals discuss documentary filmmaking
dedicated to social and political issues, and the funding,
distribution, and exhibition of same. Participants to
be announced. 120 min.
.
2001. Israel. Directed by Anat Even, Ada Ushpiz. A portrait of
three Palestinian widows who share a house with their eleven children
in Hebron.
Their roof is an Israeli military post and the house is literally
split between the Israeli command and the Palestinian
authorities. While their lives are largely dictated by
these perverse conditions, they still dream of a better future. In Arabic
and Hebrew with English subtitles. 73 min.
.
2001. Hungary. Directed by Ferenc Moldoványi. This film looks
at Albanian and Serbian children in Mitrovica, a city
split north and south along ethnic lines. Through creative
black-and-white images reflecting the inner wounds of his subjects, Moldoványi
exposes the tragedy of a land torn by ethnic hostility through the
eyes, dreams, fates, and memories of its traumatized children. In
Albanian and Serbian with English subtitles. 90 min.
. 2002. Iran. Directed by
Maziar Bahari. This chilling film examines the murders
of sixteen prostitutes in Iran. Through interviews with
the killer, his family, and the families of the victims, Bahari explores
the murderer’s motivations and the religious and
political contexts that inspired, and allowed, the slayings to take place. In Farsi with English subtitles.
53 min.
. 2003. Israel. Directed by Amit Goren. This
beautifully shot and thoughtful documentary tells the
stories of several Israeli settlers living in the Golan Heights,
capturing their daily lives and attitudes regarding negotiations
to return the land to Syria in exchange for peace. The
film interweaves found footage to trace the more recent
history of the Golan, and strives to imagine a future
for this region that is on the verge of dramatic change. In Hebrew with
English subtitles. 95 min.
. 2000. Algeria/Belgium.
Directed by Belkacem Hadjadj. After the death of her husband,
a mother of three becomes the only female taxi driver in the violence-plagued
city of Sidi Bel-Abbès, Algeria. Culture,
tradition, and prejudice are revealed in the filmed conversations
between the outgoing cabby and her various customers. In Arabic and French with English subtitles.
52 min.
. 2002. New Zealand. Directed by Annie
Goldson. Intelligent, funny, and full of charisma, Georgina Beyer,
née George Beyer, is the world’s first transsexual
to hold national office. A former sex worker of Maori heritage,
she was, amazingly enough, voted into New Zealand’s parliament
in 1999 by a mostly white, largely conservative rural constituency.
The film presents a beautifully rounded portrait of this farm boy
who transformed himself into a celebrated cabaret diva and grassroots
community leader. 53 min.
. 2002. South Africa.
Directed by François
Verster. Bonteheuvel, a township near Cape Town, was notorious
for its violent riots in the 1980s during the armed struggle
against apartheid. This film focuses on the day-to-day
lives of two former members of the teenage unit Bonteheuvel Military
Wing, a guerilla branch of the ANC, as they find their way in present South Africa. In Afrikaans and English with English subtitles. 52
min.
.
2003. USA. Directed by Megan Mylan, Jon Shenk. This warm,
smartly structured film follows two young refugees and their fellow “Lost
Boys,” from the Kenyan refugee camp where they were hiding
out from the twenty-year civil war in Sudan through their
first year in the United States. The film puts a very
human face on the often abstract, global issues of displacement,
alienation, and acculturation, as well as on the more concrete problem
of being young and in a land not your own. In Dinka and English with
English subtitles. 87 min.
. 2003. USA. Directed by Jocelyn Glatzer.
The remarkable musician Arn Chorn-Pond, who grew up under
Cambodia’s murderous Khmer
Rouge regime, escaped from imprisonment in a death camp
in 1979 and made his way to safety in Thailand. The film
is a stunning portrait of Chorn-Pond’s endeavor
to rescue traditional Cambodian music from the brink of extinction and
bring the tragic story of Cambodia’s holocaust to the world.
In Khmer and English with English subtitles. 53 min. Chorn-Pond
present.
. 2001. Canada. Directed by
Katerina Cizek, Peter Wintonick. It invades your privacy
and protects your rights: the camcorder. It began as a hobbyist’s
dream and has become a political weapon, a tool of justice, and a portable
way of preserving history. This film, while aware of the camcorder’s potential
for abuse, champions it as a major advancement in the global fight for
human rights. 53 min.
. 2002. USA. Directed by Tia
Lessin. An eye-opening film about human rights and an
inspiring tale of one woman’s emancipation
and fight for justice on United States territory—Saipan,
where Japanese and Filipino female garment-workers are
part of a billion-dollar industry, yet have no rights and
are excluded from U.S. immigration laws. 46 min.
. 2001. USA. Directed by John
Friedman, Eric Nadler. How did Saddam Hussein get his
hands on nuclear technology? Directors Nadler and Friedman
follow a nightmarishly convoluted international trail in search of
the origins of the centrifuge scandal, which takes them from the
Middle East and South America of the present day to Adolph
Hitler’s
Germany. In English and German with English subtitles.
95 min.
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