 About the Festival:
Global Visions
celebrates documentary filmmaking as an effective means to educate people
about realities of the global community. The
Festival is an arts and culture forum for people keen to know more about
the world we live in. Its objective is to showcase diverse and wide
ranging current films/videos, information, cultural performances and
multimedia exhibits that reflect the world’s diversity of culture,
quality of life, perspectives for the future and challenges to survival.
General Festival
Facts:
| Dates: |
November
5 - 9, 2003 |
| Place: |
Edmonton |
| Venues: |
Metro
Cinema - Citadel
Theatre
Stanley Milner
Library Theatre
Edmonton
Art Gallery Theatre
(All venues are at city
centre around Sir Winston Churchill Square) |
| Tickets: |
$8
individual film entry - may be purchased on-site up to one hour
prior to screening
(Festival passes
available) |
For more information, visit the
Global
Visions web site
HUMANSERVE
Sponsorhip:
As part of our public engagement and
education mandate, HUMANSERVE
is proud to support
the Global Visions Film
Festival. In past years, we have had a
presence at the festival at the Festival Marketplace and by sponsoring
films.
This year,
HUMANSERVE is proud to sponsor the film
Ford Transit by Palestinian filmmaker
Hany Abu-Assad. Winner of the 'Spirit of
Freedom Award' for best documentary at the 20th annual Jerusalem
Film Festival.
| Date: |
Saturday,
November 8, 2003 |
| Time |
7:00
p.m. |
| Venue: |
Edmonton
Art Gallery
2
Sir Winston Churchill Square
(Parking
available underground at: City Hall, Stanley Milner Library & Citadel Theatre.
LRT Station across the street at City Hall.) |
Film Review - Ford
Transit:
 Review
by Marc Glassman ( Hot Docs)
Rajai, a Palestinian taxi driver,
navigates his Ford minivan past roadblocks and checkpoints, transporting
passengers from East Jerusalem to Ramallah. This classically-constructed
verite documentary shows the frustration and humiliation that Rajai and
his customers experience as they make their simple daily journeys during
a civil war. Rajai's opinions on the Intifada, suicide attacks,
and life in wartime (which mirror those of many of his passengers) evoke
the present Israeli/Palestinian crisis. Among his paying guests
are a number of "guest stars", artists and intellectuals who have
pointed opinions to express. Filmmaker B. Z. Goldberg, of
Promises fame, and politician Hanan Ashrawi board his van to
eloquently state their personal concerns about a situation that has
become intolerable. Comic, touching and incendiary, this film is a
snapshot of the modern Israeli state.
2002
HUMANSERVE
participated in Global Visions 2002 as a sponsor for the film
Gaza Strip by
James Longley.
Film Review - Gaza
Strip:
Review by
Human Rights Watch
 A
refreshingly unfettered look at the Israeli-Palestinian situation in the
occupied territory, Longley's documentary is a unique experience, a film
which gives a voice to a population largely ignored by the mainstream
media. Shot almost entirely in a cinema vérité style and presented
without narration, the film focuses on ordinary Palestinians rather than
politicians and pundits. GAZA STRIP is an extraordinary and painful
journey into the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip struggling with
the day-to-day trials of the Israeli occupation. In January of 2001,
Longley traveled to the occupied territory. His plan was to stay for two
weeks to collect preliminary material for a documentary film on the
Palestinian Intifada. It was during his stay that Ariel Sharon was elected
as Israeli Prime Minister. As violence erupted around him, Longley threw
away his return ticket and filmed
for the next three months, acquiring nearly 75 hours of footage. GAZA
STRIP follows a range of people and events following the election,
including the first major armed incursion into "Area A" by IDF
forces during this intifada. More observation than political argument,
GAZA STRIP offers a rare look inside the stark realities of life under
Israeli military occupation.
USA,
2002, 74 min.
2001
HUMANSERVE
participated in Global Visions 2001 as a sponsor for the film
Frontiers of Dreams
and Fears (Ahlam El-Manfa) by
Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri.
participated in Global Visions 2001 as a sponsor for the film
Frontiers of Dreams
and Fears (Ahlam El-Manfa) by
Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri.
Film Review - Frontiers of
Dreams & Fears (Ahlam El-Manfa):
 Extracts from a review by Jum Quilty (Daily Star,
Lebanon, May 10, 2001)
This is the latest film by Palestinian
filmmaker Mai Masri. Frontiers
is an in-depth portrayal of the lives of Palestinian children in the
refugee camps of Shatilla (Lebanon) and Dheisha (West Bank). The 23
year-long Israeli occupation of South Lebanon resulted in a
kilometers-thick barrier that separated the Palestinians north of the
occupation zone from the Israelis. The sudden evacuation of the
Occupying forces from Lebanon in the spring of 2000 reduced the border to
to a few strands of razor wire, making it permeable to bullets or
words. This film follows two young Palestinians through several
months of their lives and each girl represents a variation on the
theme of deprivation. But, though they have a tragic aspect,
the stories aren't simply portraits of pathos. Frontiers
exhibits an optimism that cuts through the cynicism of brains numbed by
too much faceless violence on the evening news. Rather than
despair, its emotional foundation is hope..
Frontiers
was produced in association with the Independent Television Service (ITVS)
with funding provided for by the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB).
2001, USA, 57 min
Interested
in film? See also Live
from Palestine |
|
