This touring program of films runs Friday through Thursday, May 6 through 12, at Facets Cinematheque. Unless otherwise noted, all screenings will be video projection. Tickets are $9, $5 for Facets members; for more information call 773-281-4114.
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Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson built their video documentary about capital punishment around Governor George Ryan’s decision to empty death row before his term ended in January 2003, and the sleekly tooled narrative is so rich with political history, moral argument, and raw emotion that I found myself on the edge of my seat even though I already knew the outcome. The molten core of the story is the clemency hearings Ryan held in 2002, at which family members of both the condemned and their victims pleaded for justice in the most intimate terms; Chevigny and Johnson balance this with a cool assessment of how crime and the death penalty became a national issue in the 1970s. At 92 minutes this could hardly be considered a definitive statement, yet its combination of high drama and carefully articulated principle delivers quite a punch. (JJ) (Sat 5/7, 1 PM; Sun 5/8, 4 PM)
Montreal’s Concordia University made international headlines in September 2002 when a student rally protesting a campus visit by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu resulted in a small-scale riot. The school’s temporary ban on all Middle-East-related activism further kindled political passions, which eventually reignited and led to the suspension of the Jewish student league Hillel. Shot on digital video, Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal’s Discordia (2004, 71 min.) is a textbook case showing how easily young people on either side of the conflict can be blindsided by emotion and manipulated by the media. In English and subtitled French, Hebrew, and Arabic. Jon Nealon’s inspiring Goodbye Hungaria (2003, 56 min.), in English and subtitled Arabic, profiles a Palestinian human rights advocate interned at a refugee camp in Debrecen, Hungary. (AG) (Sat 5/7, 6:30 and 9 PM)
Saints and Sinners
