“War on Their Minds: Voices of American Kids”
Directed by Jennifer Glos About 150 children ages 4 to 18 from all
parts of Southern California were questioned on the subject of war
for this film. Kids from anti-war families as well as kids who
attend military school or have parents fighting in Iraq were
interviewed making this film the most politically balanced film in
the Showtime project. Although there are lighter parts of the
documentary where kids are just being kids, Glos discovered that
many kids were greatly concerned and had extremely strong opinions
concerning war. In the end, what Glos discovered was dismaying.
“Winning the Peace” Directed by Eli Kaufman This
extremely professional-looking film about an Iraqi American Marine
who discovers the costs of war was originally inspired by a
photograph in the New York Times, that filmmaker Eli Kaufman saw in
June 2003, of two American Marines embracing after just having
witnessed the deaths of some Iraqi children who had stepped on an
unexploded land mine. “The image of two U.S. Marines, big
guys, just totally broken up by what they had witnessed. … That
image of war deserved a back story,” Kaufman said. In
addition to some impressive dramatic performances by the actors and
some beautiful cinematography, the film never becomes overbearing
or preachy even though it’s a film about war. Rather
it’s simply a touching story about the consequences of
war.
“Outside” Directed by Jenn Kao In this science
fiction piece, which filmmaker Jenn Kao calls a “metaphor for
war and reconciliation,” Debbie lives in solitary confinement
in a shelter that is supposed to protect her, but is more like a
prison. She and her friends live in a post-apocalyptic world where
the only way they can communicate with one another is through
radio. They spend most of their days dreaming of the beach or
grass, places outside and far away from their grim and inhumane
existence where they subsist off a few crackers and water. When
Debbie encounters foreigners outside her door, she is told to not
look at them and that as long as she stays in her cell,
she’ll stay safe. But the loneliness Debbie experiences
causes her to develop a relationship with an outsider whom she
doesn’t understand at first. There’s a repeated image
of Debbie rubbing crude oil in her hands, which seems like a
reference to the idea of President Bush going to war for oil, but
Kao insists that the oil is simply a drug that Debbie and others
who are confined use to “help them simulate what it would be
like to be outside.”
“Attention” Directed by Brad Sample Filmed as a
debate between two historians on either side of the Iraq war
debate, Sample explores more than the verbal political debate that
has recently divided our nation. Interspersed into the debate are
images of war, political rhetoric, the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and
the war-ridden country of Iraq. Most poignantly, after the
bombardment of images of war and conflict, Sample asks the audience
to vote on which policy they agree with more ““ pro-war or
anti-war ““ leaving neither side looking more favorable than
the other.
“The Invisible Man” Directed by Angela Mrema Satire
turned tragedy, this fictional film questions both the journalistic
merits and human impact of the now-familiar newscroller lines that
run across the bottoms of most news channels on TV. A devoted
newscroller writer, once realizing that nobody really reads or
cares much about what he writes, takes a few liberties with his
job. After getting away with it once, he becomes so disenchanted
with his job that he will never be able to look at it the same way
again. Similarly, if that’s really how information gets onto
television, audiences may not be able to watch newscrallers
again.
“Elegy” Directed by Kristina Malsberger For
filmmaker Kristina Malsberger, this “hypothetical
documentary” about the discovery, post-nuclear fallout, by
aliens of a space capsule that shows home footage of human
families, was extremely personal. The 20 hours of footage
Malsberger collected and compressed for the film short were loaned
to her by friends and family members. In fact, Malsberger herself
appears in the film as a baby in a bathtub with her mother, and a
little girl running with a kite across a field. Malsberger
exclusively used home videos that were on Super 8 film, which was
popular in the’50s, ’60s and ’70s for home
movie-making.
“Dominance and Terror: A Discussion with Noam
Chomsky” Directed by Roberto Oregel Chomsky, the
long-standing American linguist and one of the most famous
political dissidents, is captured by Oregel discussing such issues
as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and solutions for the
conflict in Iraq. This introspective look at his thoughts and
opinions goes deeper than your average documentary, helping to
illustrate Chomsky’s feelings with artistic exuberance.
-Compiled by Angela Lu, Justin Scott and Jake Tracer