This is the first in a series of articles about some of the films scheduled for this year’s Socially Relevant Film Festival that I have been covering since its inception in 2014. This year I am proud to be on its Documentary award jury. I must admit, however, that my tendency would be to give a blue ribbon to everybody whose film is being shown in SR 2016 since making such films as an alternative to much of the junk receiving an Oscar tomorrow night is to be celebrated in and of itself.
As the founder of the SR film festivals, Nora Armani is blessed with an uncommon ability to curate some of the most important films being made today. As I have made clear in my survey of SR 2014 and SR 2015, these are films that are focused on the real problems of ordinary people and a welcome alternative to Cineplex escapism. It is not just that films about refugees or oppressed nationalities demand your attention as thinking and caring adults; it is that they are intensely dramatic as the struggles of refugees and the victims of national oppression tend to be. These are issues obviously very close to Nora Armani’s heart given her Armenian ancestry. Indeed, she resolved to create such an annual film festival to honor two relatives that were killed by religious fanatics in Egypt. Given my strong identification with her artistic and social mission, I thought it would be appropriate to start off with two films about the Armenian genocide that were made a full century after it occurred. After watching them, it dawned on me that they are not just about a terrible crime committed against an innocent people. They also help to shed light on the phenomenon of ethnic cleansing that is tearing apart the social fabric of the Middle East and Anatolia today just as it did a century ago and for the same reason: to create a “pure” nation-state in whose name the elites can protect their own narrow class interests using the kind of demagogy that Hitler made infamous. full: https://louisproyect.org/2016/02/27/2016-socially-relevant-film-festival-previews-part-one/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
