New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival April 21, 9:00pm
AlJazeera Documentary Film Festival April 26-29 (exact time TBA)

Apparently, you can use the “F” word once in a film and still get a PG-13 rating, but only if it’s used figuratively, as in “fuck you.” Using the word literally, as in “I want to fuck you,” seems generally to earn you an R. But you can never be sure. Enter the murky world of the MPAA ratings board, where the rules (if there are any) are kept intentionally vague and the members’ identities are secret.

In “This Film is Not Yet Rated, ” the clever, comical, documentary by Kirby Dick, titillating footage that vexed the ratings board, interviews, and a verité thread involving a devoted lesbian private investigator, combine to expose the hypocrisy and inanity of the MPAA ratings system.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is an association created to protect the interests of its members, the seven major Hollywood movie studios. Jack Valenti became the organization’s president in 1966, and in 1968, he created the MPAA film rating system, which imposes a theoretically voluntary rating on films, meant to help parents know whether or not a film is appropriate for their children. According to board chairman Joan Graves, all board members have young children of their own, but in “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” this claim is proven to be false.

After an opening sequence of familiar sex scenes from popular movies (genitalia obscured by exaggerated black boxes), the film begins with an interview with Kimberly Peirce, the director of “Boys Don’t Cry.” The film originally received an NC-17 rating which, Peirce was told, was due the length of Chloë Sevigny’s orgasm in a particular scene. Peirce explains what is to become one of the primary arguments of the film, that “unfamiliar territory breeds NC-17.” In other words, sexual behavior that might be considered deviant (including any scene where a woman appears to be enjoying it a bit too much) is judged more harshly than conventional sexual behavior.

Other examples abound. The film “But I’m a Cheerleader,” was originally given an NC-17 rating because of a very reserved scene in which a teenaged lesbian is masturbating—over her nightgown. The director Jamie Babbit said that she felt especially insulted by this because the film “American Pie,” which was released at the same time as her film, features a scene in which a teenaged boy masturbates into an apple pie, but received only an R rating. The John Waters film “A Dirty Shame” doesn’t even have any nudity, but received an NC-17 rating because of its “general tone.” According to Waters, it appears as though “just talking about sex” can get you an NC-17 rating.

The biggest laugh comes when, after managing to identify almost all the anonymous ratings board members (with the help of his private investigator), Kirby Dick then submits “This Film is Not Yet Rated” to the board. Not surprisingly, it receives an NC-17, which means that Dick gets to experience the appeals process first hand. Though he isn’t allowed to film most stages of the process, he uses cartoon reenactments to tell the story. The NC-17 rating is upheld, but because acceptance of the rating is voluntary and the film is being distributed by IFC, an independent company which doesn’t insist on the MPAA rating, Dick decides to label the film as “not rated.”

The problem with an NC-17 rating is that Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, and other major retailers won’t sell your movie, some newspapers and television stations won’t advertise your movie, most theater chains won’t show your movie, and therefore most distribution contracts require at worst an R rating. One problem with the film is that, first, it doesn’t explain this very well, and second, it places all the blame on the MPAA for handing out the NC-17 rating, instead of faulting the people who won’t show a movie just because it received one. In a Q and A after the film, Dick said that he “really wanted it to be about the effect on independents” an interesting subject which, unfortunately, wasn’t explored in a convincing way in the film. But these are minor quarrels. Overall, I found the film to be informative and highly entertaining.

A number of petitions, boycotts, and other calls to action regarding the situations in Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel have been circulating around the world of independent filmmakers. I thought I’d try to collect them here. The Israeli filmmakers’ letter to Lebanese filmmakers is a heartwarming but ultimately empty gesture. It does make you feel good about being a filmmaker though, part of a clan that somehow manages to see through to the truth of our common humanity while so many others are swayed by the hatred that is fed to us by politicians and the nightly news. The Palestinian Filmmakers, Artists and Cultural Workers Call for a Cultural Boycott of Israel seems like a mistake to me. Films by Palestinian artists like Hany Abu-Assad (one of my personal favorites, who I was surprised to find as a signatory) need to be seen in Israel more than anywhere else in the world. I fully support almost any form of non-violent protest under the circumstances, but a refusal to participate in cultural activities seems misguided. How else can you help Israelis to understand your point of view?

A letter to Palestinian and Lebanese filmmakers to coincide with the
opening of the Arab Film Biennial in Paris July 22nd

We, the undersigned Israeli filmmakers, greet the Arab filmmakers who
have gathered in Paris for the Arab Film Biennial. Through you, we
wish to convey a message of camaraderie and solidarity with our
Lebanese and Palestinian colleagues who are currently besieged and
bombarded by our country’s army.

We unequivocally oppose the brutality and cruelty of Israeli policy,
which has reached new heights in recent weeks. Nothing justifies the
continued occupation, closure, and oppression in Palestine. Nothing
justifies the bombing of civilians and the destruction of
infrastructures in Lebanon and Gaza.

Allow us to tell you that your films, which we try to see and
circulate among us, are extremely important in our eyes. They enable
us to know and understand you better. Thanks to these films, the men,
women, and children who suffer in Gaza, Beirut, and everywhere else
our army exercises its violence - have names and faces. We would like
to thank you and encourage you to keep on filming, despite the
difficulties.

For our part, we will continue to express through our films, with our
raised voices, and in our personal actions our vehement opposition to
the occupation, and we will continue to express our desire for
freedom, justice, and equality among all the peoples of the region.

Nurith Aviv / Ilil Alexander / Adi Arbel / Yael Bartana / Philippe
Bellaiche / Simone Bitton / Michale Boganim / Amit Breuer / Shai
Carmeli-Pollack / Sami S. Chetrit / Danae Elon / Anat Even / Jack
Faber / Avner Fainguelernt / Ari Folman / Gali Gold / BZ Goldberg /
Sharon Hamou / Amir Harel / Avraham Heffner / Rachel Leah Jones /
Dalia Karpel / Avi Kleinberger / Elonor Kowarsky / Edna Kowarsky /
Philippa Kowarsky / Ram Loevi / Avi Mograbi / Jud Neeman / David
Ofek / Iris Rubin / Abraham Segal / Nurith Shareth / Julie Shlez /
Eyal Sivan / Yael Shavit / Eran Torbiner / Osnat Trabelsi / Daniel
Waxman / Keren Yedaya

Palestinian Filmmakers, Artists and Cultural Workers Call for a
Cultural Boycott of Israel

August 1, 2006

Dear Filmmakers & Artists,

During the past few weeks we have borne witness to the escalation of
Israeli aggression into open war on both Palestine and Lebanon.

With Israel’s invasion of Gaza on June 27th, 2006, ministries and
educational institutions have been destroyed, as has the plant that
supplies nearly 50 percent of Gaza’s electricity. Bridges, roads,
dozens of homes, and hundreds of dunams of agricultural land have also
been destroyed. Sixty-four elected Palestinian legislators, cabinet
ministers and officials have been detained without charge.

On July 12th, Israel brought its campaign of collective punishment
and military violence to Lebanon, with “Operation Just Reward”. A
complete assault, via land, sea, and air, of the Lebanese population
and infrastructure has led to total destruction. In just 3 weeks,
almost 1 million Lebanese civilians have been displaced and the death
toll has reached 900 Lebanese and 160 Palestinians, with a UN count
saying one-third of the dead are children.

Additionally, in violation of international law, Israel continues to
occupy Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and Syria’s
Golan Heights. In violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel
continues to hold 9,600 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli
jails and detention centers without due process, among them 130
Palestinian women and 388 children, many of them taken from their
homes in the middle of the night.

We, the undersigned Palestinian filmmakers and artists, appeal to all
artists and filmmakers of good conscience around the world to cancel
all exhibitions and other cultural events that are scheduled to occur
in Israel, to mobilize immediately and not allow the continuation of
the Israeli offensive to breed complacency. Like the boycott of South
African art institutions during apartheid, cultural workers must speak
out against the current Israeli war crimes and atrocities.

We call upon the International community to join us in the boycott of
Israeli film festivals, Israeli public venues, and Israeli
institutions supported by the government, and to end all cooperation
with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have
refused to take a stand against the Occupation, the root cause for
this colonial conflict.

We call upon you to take a stand in order to appeal to the Israeli
people to give up their silence, to abandon their apathy, and to face
up to their responsibility in the destruction and killing their
elected government is wreaking. To the Lebanese and Palestinians
terrorized by this Army’s planes, bombs and missiles, this silence,
apathy and lack of action from Israelis, are regarded as complicit in
the ongoing war crimes, as for those Israeli artists, academics and
intellectuals who continue to serve in the Israeli army they are
directly implicated in these crimes.

We call upon you to give way to action that would replace words
spoken too often and forgotten too quickly. We call upon you to make
your voices heard in calling for an end to this bloodshed and an end
to this oppression that has lasted too long.

To endorse or answer this call for a cultural boycott of Israel
please send an email with your name, position and country to
pal.filmmakers@gmail.com

Signatures (Alphabetical) 1. Adila Laidi, Lecturer 2. Anan Brakat,
Filmmaker, Arab Cinema School 3. Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker 4. Azza
El-Hassan, Filmmaker 5. Bahia Munem, Filmmaker 6. Dahna Abourahme,
Filmmaker 7. Dima Abu Ghoush, Filmmaker 8. Emily Jacir, Artist 9. Enas
Muthaffar, Filmmaker 10. Faten Farhat, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center
11. Ghada Terawi, Filmmaker 12. Hanna Atallah, Filmmaker 13. Hanna
Elias, Filmmaker 14. Hany Abu-Assad, Filmmaker 15. Haya Al-Jareedy,
Filmmaker 16. Hayan Charara, Writer 17. Hazim Bitar, Filmmaker 18.
Iman Aoun, Ishtar Theatre 19. Iman Hammouri, Popular Art Centre 20.
John Halaka, Artist 21. Juliano Mer Khamis, Actor & Director 22. Kais
Al-Zubaidi, Filmmaker 23. Kamal Boullata, Artist 24. Karma Abu-Sharif,
Writer 25. Khadijeh.H.Abu-Ali, Filmmaker 26. Khaled Jubran, Musician
27. Larissa Sansour, Artist 28. Leila Sansour, Filmmaker 29. Liana
Saleh, Filmmaker 30. Lina Bokhary, Artist 31. Mahmoud Massad,
Filmmaker 32. Mai Masri, Filmmaker 33. Mazen Saade, Filmmaker & Writer
34. Michel Khleifi, Filmmaker 35. Miguel Littin, Filmmaker 36. Nabila
Irshaid, Artist 37. Nahed Awwad, Filmmaker 38. Najwa Najjar, Filmmaker
39. Nizar Hassan, Filmmaker 40. Omar Barghouti, Dance choreographer
41. Omar Qattan, Filmmaker 42. Osama Al-Zain, Filmmaker 43. Rana
Bishara, Artist 44. Rania Elias- Khoury, Yabous Productions 45. Rashid
Masharawi, Filmmaker 46. Reem Fadda, Palestinian Association of
Contemporary Art 47. Riyad Deis, Filmmaker 48. Rowan Al Faqih,
Filmmaker 49. Saed Andoni, Filmmaker 50. Saleh Bakri, Actor 51. Salim
Abu Jabal, Writer 52. Salwa Mikdadi, Curator 53. Samia A. Halaby,
Artist 54. Sobhi al-Zobaidi, Filmmaker 55. Suleiman Mansour, Artist
56. Suzy Salamy, Filmmaker 57. Taghreed Mishael, Filmmaker 58. Ula
Tabari, Filmmaker 59. Vera Tamari, Artist 60. Wafa Jamil, Filmmaker

See also: http://www.niamz.blogspot.com/ (blog of a Lebanese documentary filmmaker), http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5193.shtml (letter from Palestinian filmmakers to Locarno International film Festival), http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060801/ennew_afp/mideastconflictlebanon_060801170709 (article relaying Greece’s decision to pull all Greek films from Haifa film festival), http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3286067,00.html (controversy over screening of 5 Days and funding from Israeli Embassy for filmmaker travel),  http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/news/articles/five_facts_about_five_days (official statement from Edinburgh Film Fest regarding controversy).

The 2006 Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival Sterling Feature Grand Jury award went to JESUS CAMP by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, who also took last year’s award for their film BOYS OF BARAKA. ( Read more about the film in my CINEMA MINIMA review ). Honorable mention went to CHAIRMAN GEORGE, a film about a Greek-Canadian who sings in Chinese and wants to perform at the Olympics, by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin. The best short was the Polish film SEEDS by Wojciech Kasperski, and the best music film award went to ROLLING LIKE A STONE, by Swedish directors Stefan Berg and Magnus Gertten.

“The Creator and the creative process go hand-in-hand,” says Daniel Smith in the introduction to JL Aronson’s film DANIELSON: A FAMILY MOVIE (OR, MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE HERE). The film explores the faith and sounds of this fresh, enigmatic Christian indy rock band, made up of Daniel Smith (who refers to himself as Danielson because he is the son of the lord), his brothers and sisters, his wife, a childhood friend, the friend’s wife, and his sister’s husband. The splendid Sufjan Stevens toured with the band before making his first critically acclaimed album, so he is also featured heavily in the film. Stop-motion animation, cartoons, home archives, interviews, verite scenes, and concert footage combine to create a portrait of a true artistic original. Listen to the band and see the movie.

World Premiere of ADDICTED TO OIL: Thomas L. Friedman Reporting, directed by Kenneth Levis followed by a conversation with Thomas Friedman

“We are funding both sides of the war on terror,” Thomas Friedman begins, one side through tax dollars, the other by buying oil. The New York Times opinion columnist touches on all his favorite subjects in this treatise on renewable energy—globalization, the environment, the Middle East. One of his central premises is the theory of the inverse relationship between the price of oil and the pace of freedom, explained using the examples of Bahrain and Lebanon. In Bahrain, when the oil started drying up, democracy began to blossom; Lebanon has never had oil and has always been freer than other Arab nations. The film looks at the various possible sources of renewable energy—solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol—and shows the progress that is being made on each. Government and corporate impediments seem to be a major problem. Friedman points out that Brazil makes enough sugar ethanol to power their own country and sell surplus to the US, but the US government has placed a 100% tariff on it. The tariff on crude oil is 0%. Friedman works to reposition renewable energy as a patriotic, capitalistic issue of geopolitical import, rather than something girly, marginal, and vaguely French. “Green is the new red white and blue,” he concludes.

Thomas Friedman serves as the New York Time’s moderate editorialist, but if you have every wondered about his political loyalties, his speech made it clear that they lie squarely with the Dems. “We can’t give up on Bush,” he said in the Q & A session after the screening, “we don’t have two and a half years to waste.” But, he says later, when asked what individuals can do to help solve the problem, “the most important thing is, we have to elect someone who tells the truth.” “It’s amazing,” he says “what happens when you challenge people to do the impossible, and what doesn’t happen when you tell people to go shopping.”

ADDICTED TO OIL: Thomas L. Friedman Reporting will have its television premiere on the Discovery Times Channel on Saturday, June 24th, at 10 pm EST. If you don’t already have solar panels on your roof and drive a Prius, you better watch.

On Friday, June 16, 1976, Tsietsi Mashinini led a student uprising against the Apartheid government in Soweto, the depressed black townships of southwest Johannesburg. Days of unrest ended with tear gas and open police fire, which led to the deaths of over 500 people. But a movement was born. Director Portia Rankoane was 13 years old at the time, and Tsietsi was her hero. But through the years, his name slipped out of the public discourse, and he died in exile under somewhat mysterious circumstances. In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the June 16th uprising, Portia Rankoane looks at the events that led up to and followed that day through archival footage of the protests and interviews with Tsietsi’s family and friends, including his ex-wife who now lives in the DC area. Unfortunately, the producer explained, they finished editing the film about 3 hours before they got on the plane in South Africa to head to Washington DC for the premiere, and this was evident in the cut that we saw. Still, the film told a powerful, important story. The audience, which included many South Africans, a Liberian woman, and a man from Sierra Leone, was extremely grateful for this African perspective on a story from colonial South Africa.

Gore’s speech, about the empowerment that comes with the ability to write and create media, echoed a lot of the themes addressed in our film, The Alphabet Book, so I was determined to try to slip him a copy of our trailer at the cocktail party which followed his presentation. It’s not at all in my nature to try to do something like that, but I honestly thought that he’d be interested. I made several aborted attempts to approach him before finally managing to shake his hand.

The guy was amazing. As I told him a bit about our film, he sipped his wine and listened with what seemed to me like an honest interest. The he started asking questions. “Did they use a phonetic Alphabet?” he asked. “Yes, and this was a conscious decision made because they wanted to be able to transition easily to English.” I explained. “You know what Ataturk did, right?” he said. We discussed how Ataturk had decided that the Turkish language should be written in a Latin rather than Persian script, and overnight, Turkey had joined the West. Then he recommended a book called “The Alphabet and the Goddess” which talks about how the introduction of alphabets has altered human cognition. I was completely awed by his willingness and ability to talk in such depth about an obscure subject to a total nobody at a cocktail party. He accepted the DVD of our trailer, promised to take a look at it, and suggested that I submit a piece to Current TV.

Former Vice President Al Gore, whose film An Inconvenient Truth is now in theaters, presented the keynote speech at the Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival.

Gore opened with a few self-deprecating jokes, then launched into a whirlwind history of how media has been used to affect political change from the Guttenberg to the Internet (well, pre-Guttenberg actually—he noted the fact that the Koreans and Chinese had actually been using movable type for centuries). Gore was witty, inspiring, and highly intellectual. My jaw dropped hearing a main-stream American politician refer to Habermas and Adorno in a public forum. He clearly knew his audience. The speech, which focused on the idea that in order for democracy to thrive the people have to be a part of the national conversation, passed through the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the American Revolution, the Second World War, and Mussolini’s assertion that radio was his most powerful weapon, before arriving at 1980, when America elected an actor as president. “All questions of fact become questions of power,” Gore said, quoting Theodor Adorno. At times, such as classical Greece, Renaissance Europe, and revolutionary America, the people have been empowered by the fact that they were a part of the conversation. But the age of print dominance ended in the 1960s, and “television, until now, has been more medieval monastery than Guttenberg.” In Medieval times, only monks could read and write, but after the invention of the printing press, those skills became widespread. Likewise, television has always been a medium practiced and controlled by a select few. But we are now at a crucial moment where people finally have access to the tools needed to participate. As documentary filmmakers, Gore concludes, “we have an opportunity to fix the democracy crisis and restart the conversation in America, to recreate a marketplace of ideas through documentary film.”

JESUS CAMP by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

Driving along a middle-American road lined with fast food restaurants and gas stations, a conflict is introduced via radio—President Bush announces that Sandra Day O’Conner has just resigned from the Supreme Court; the station changes and a Christian evangelist proclaims that now is the time to reclaim America for Christ.

Next we are at a meeting of evangelicals led by Becky Fisher, a Pentecostal children’s minister. Becky invites the children to come to a summer camp. Before camp begins, the film follows three precocious alpha-children who become main characters along with Becky herself. Becky talks a bit about why she ministers to children: “they are so open, they are so usable in Christianity,” she says, “I want to see young people as committed to Jesus Christ as they are to Islam.”

At camp, the children sing songs about Jesus, speak in tongues, and are introduced to some of the major political questions of our time from an evangelical perspective. The kids cry for aborted babies and learn that according to the Old Testament, Harry Potter should have been put to death. The children evangelize themselves, imploring strangers at a bowling alley or in the park to accept Jesus. One child preacher proclaims “I really feel that we are a key generation to Jesus coming back.”

The film is truly eye-opening for those of us who have lived our lives on either coast and rarely encounter members of the 30 million strong American evangelical movement. The most striking element is the real passion and fervor of these children, which is visible in their faces and audible in their eloquent words. The depth of their faith is clear.

Credits for this film go almost entirely to talented women. The cinematography is intimate and skillful, the editing tight and clean, if a bit heavy-handed. The directors, who explained in the Q&A that they didn’t know any born-again Christians before this, managed to maintain an open rapport with their characters while allowing the audience to laugh at them, an impressive feat. In fact, they explained, the characters feel that the film is helping them get out their message about Jesus Christ.