2002 Highlights

Baker’s Men
Producer/Director Harriette Yahr 
Meet five-year old Brianna and Cindy in a delightful film about boys, girls and playground philosophy. (2 min.)

Border
Producer/Director Annette Solakoglu
Imagine you are walking on a lonely, deserted road, putting one foot in front of the other. The next step will put you in a different place, even though the terrain, the sky and the road don’t change. A haunting short about the arbitrary lines we’ve drawn on the earth. (7 min.)

Cheek to Cheek
Producer/Director Beth Armstrong
Popcorn for dinner, tap-dancing in the dark, skinny-dipping in the ocean—the usual behavior of a bereaved widow after 42 years of marriage! This sweet story is both funny and confronting as it explores taking control of your own happiness. (38 min.)

A Child’s Century of War 
Producer/Director Shelley Saywell 
At the beginning of the last century nine out of ten people killed in war were soldiers. At the beginning of this century nine out of ten killed are civilians, and most of them are children. Around the world and through the generations, war has affected more and more children. What they have lived through defies imagination. Told only in their voices, this powerful film centers on three modern yet ancient conflicts: the Chechen Wars, Martyr Street in Hebron and Sierra Leone. (90 min.)

The Collector of Bedford Street
Producer/Director Alice Elliott
Larry Selman is an activist, fundraiser extraordinaire, and developmentally disabled. Meet his neighbors who bring new meaning to the term community. This film humanizes the story behind abstract statistics revealing how a community builds tolerance and understanding. (34 min.)

A Conversation With Haris 
Producer/Director Shelia M. Sofian
Eleven-year old Haris has a foot in two worlds. He’s trying to be a “normal” American kid, but the Bosnian immigrant has a history that most children can’t begin to comprehend. Unusual painted animation lends an emotional undercurrent to the voice of this wise beyond-his-years young boy. (6 min.)

Daughter From Danang
Producer/Director Gail Dolgin and Vincente Franco
In 1975, as the Vietnam War was ending, thousands of orphans and Amerasian children were brought to the United States as part of Operation Babylift. Well meaning on the surface, but causing untold ripples in peoples’ lives, the saga continues today. This is the dramatic story of one of those children and her Vietnamese mother reunited 22 years later. Through intimate and sometimes excruciating moments, this film shows how wide the chasms of cultural difference can be. (Grand Jury Prize, Best Documentary, Sundance Film Festival 2002) (80 min.)

Georgie Girl 
Producer/Director Annie Goldson and Peter Wells
Hey there, Georgie Girl, walking down the street so fancy free . . . How would you like to hold one of the highest offices of power in New Zealand? You say you are a cabaret entertainer, a Maorian and you didn’t start out as a girl? No matter . . . we want you! So said the “natural” conservatives in the rural communities who elected her first as mayor and then to Parliament. Follow the charismatic, intelligent and highly capable woman, Georgina Barr, in this unique film highlighting an extraordinary story in an extraordinary country. (52 min.)

Mavis and The Mermaid 
Producer/Director Juliet McKoen
A small girl, who doesn’t believe in fairy tales, finds unexpected help in coming to terms with changes in her life when she meets an elderly woman who claims to be a mermaid princess. It is a simple tale about love and loss and grief. 
(14 min.)

Meeting with a Killer 
Producer/Director Lisa F. Jackson
This film holds out the redemptive possibility of forgiveness and the power of compassion and restorative justice. “Meeting with a Killer” focuses on an innovative Texas program that brings together convicted violent criminals and the families whose lives have been forever impacted by their actions. (44 min.)

Miss America
Producer/Director Lisa Ades
The Pageant: a seeming anachronism in post feminist America. Yet more than any other institution it mirrors our confusion about what is the “ideal” American Woman. This superb documentary manages to be funny and poignant, respectful and critical, as it explores the pageant’s intersection with race, sex and women’s liberation. The historical footage will bring back memories of certain Saturday nights in September when “there she goes . . .” could set off an indefinable yearning in little girls everywhere. (60 min.)

Photos To Send 
Producer/Director Dierdre Lynch
1954, County Clare, Ireland—World-renowned photographer Dorothea Lange creates a lasting record of the rural Irish people for Life Magazine. Almost fifty years later cinematographer Dierdre Lynch returns to visit some of the same people whose photos have become the face of Ireland to many of us. Filmed with remarkable grace and enhanced by the humor and honesty of the subjects, this film encapsulates a large past of the Irish experience. (87 min.)

Real Women Have Curves 
Producer/Director Patricia Cardoso
Ana, a first generation Mexican American teenager living in East Los Angeles, has just graduated from high school. Although Ana is excited about the possibility of going to college, her overbearing and hypercritical mother, Carmen, insists that it is time for her to help provide for the family by working in her sister's sewing factory. This film is a humorous and warmhearted look at a young girl coming of age in a boiling cauldron of cultural expectations, class constrictions, family duty and her own personal aspirations. (85 min.)

Refrigerator Mothers 
Producer/Director J.J. Hanley and David Simpson
Imagine watching as your seemingly perfect baby slips slowly into a world of it’s own. At first the doctors reassure you that nothing is wrong. Then when it’s all too apparent that something is terribly, terribly wrong they tell you it is your fault. For decades after autism was finally named, doctors presumed the bizarre behaviors—rigid rituals, nonexistent or strange speech, extreme isolation—stemmed from the mothers’ emotional frigidity. They even developed a name, “Refrigerator Mothers.” We now know autism is a brain disorder. While honoring the strength and courage of these branded women, the film raises awareness of this disorder and helps dispel the image that lives on today among many health care professionals. (54 min.)

Ruthie & Connie: Every Room in the House
Producer/Director Deborah Dickson
1959: A working class Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. Two young married women, both raising children, meet and become friends -- and soon after, the best of friends. They are Ruthie Berman and Connie Kurtz, conventional housewives of the 1950's, with two noteworthy exceptions: their passionate interest in community issues gradually turns them into community leaders … and their passionate interest in each other suddenly turns their world upside down. This is a film about love and friendship -- and the price two women paid to be themselves. (55 min.)

Señorita Extraviada 
Producer/Director  Lourdes Portillo
Marina Flores, 1990, Norma Aguilar, 1991, Maria del Rosario Gomez, 1993, . . . 
These are the names of young women, many working in the maquiladoras—assembly plants that line the Mexican-American border near Ciudad Juarez. All slender, dark-skinned, and long-haired, they began to disappear in 1990. At the time this film was completed, 230 girls have gone missing. This gripping, investigative documentary by Academy Award nominee Lourdes Portillo is not only a tour de force of criminal investigation, social commentary and political criticism, but also a masterful work of cinema, both for its sensitive visual poetry and poignant musical score. (74 min.)

The Smith Family 
Producer/Director Tasha Oldham
The Smiths of Salt Lake City were living, by their own account, an idyllic life. Secure in their Mormon Church, their community and their love for each other; the Smiths had it all. That is until Steve Smith revealed he had been unfaithful to his wife . . . with men. Three years later he developed AIDS and Kim Smith tested positive for HIV. This story is a mesmerizing treatise on forgiveness and love. Kim determines to not only keep her family together, but to actually have them thrive. We find ourselves confronting our own fears, anger and doubts. In the end, it is simply a love story. (80 min.) 

Uphill All The Way 
Producer/Director Khin May Lwin and Robert Nassau
Take five teenaged girls so troubled that they are in a school where they are not allowed to wear shoes (so they can’t run away). Add the 2500 miles of the Continental Divide and five bicycles. Tell them they can’t quit unless everybody quits and you have a recipe for the challenge of a lifetime. As they struggle up the mountains of Canada, Montana and Colorado they grow and mature in ways visible, thought provoking and completely unexpected. (79 min.)

The Wormhole 
Producer/Director Jessica Sharzer
Sometimes things happen in our lives that are so profound or so tragic that there is forever a “before” and “after.” But if you are a grieving ten-year-old boy raised in an era when science reigns, then there must be a way to merge anguished desire and possibility. [Winner, 2002 Student Academy Award Narrative Gold Medal.] (19 min.)