Entre Nos

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2009. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

A Latino mother and her two children are stranded in Queens when their philandering, irresponsible father deserts them. There English is almost nil and now they must support themselves asap. First the wife tries selling homemade Espanadas on the street. Then she tries getting day labor by standing on Latino labor street corners. And finally ends up collecting cans for their deposits with her young son and daughter beside her. They are barely making it when they get evicted from their apartment. And then they become homeless and have to sleep outdoors.

What keeps them going under these awful circumstances? Their closeness and love for each other sees them through these difficult times. Also,they are helped by sympathetic strangers who see their heart-wrenching plight.

Through it all they never lose their dignity or morality. They always act honorably and treat others with respect. Their sacrifices and courage and desperate situation make them more appealing as time goes on. The viewer is filled with admiration for what the human spirit can endure and still not be broken.

The story is wonderfully told. It is realistic and understated and believable. You are often moved deeply as the story unfolds.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Welcome

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2009. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

Bilal is a 17 year-old Kurdish boy from Iraq, who has just taken an arduous, three-month journey to Calais in France desperately trying to get to his girlfriend/fiancée in London. But in Calais he becomes stuck with many other clandestines or illegal immigrants. These are people without a country. The French won’t send them back to the Mid-East because there is a war going on. But they are not welcomed in France because they are clearly illegals. Even the local French people will violate French law if they help these clandestines.

With this backdrop, Bilal comes up with the idea that he can swim the English Channel to get to his girlfriend. There is only one problem. He can’t swim. He goes to a middle-aged French swim instructor, Simon, who not only teaches him how to swim, but also befriends him. Simon has his own problems. He is divorcing his wife and is terribly lonely. Bilal and Simon need each other and form a strangely beautiful symbiotic relationship.

This is a quiet and powerful statement on the individual courage and sacrifice of normal human beings. Bilal and Simon are single-minded in trying to do the right thing and will not be put off their objective. This is a very moving film that haunts you afterwards. It does not take a stand on legal or illegal immigration. It merely shows that these clandestines are human like the rest of us and have their own stories.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Pediatrics Magazine Reports Linkage between Internet Violence and other Media Violence with Violent Behavior in Youth

Below is their link.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/short/122/5/929

Their conclusion .... "Exposure to violence in the media associated with concurrent reports of seriously violent behavior across media (e.g., games and music). Newer forms of violent media seem to be especially concerning.

From USA TODAY - TV Sex is linked to Teen Parenthood

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY - 11-3-2008

Could the amount of sex teens see on TV predict whether they'll become a teen mother or father? A study in today's Pediatrics says it's a distinct possibility.
The study is the first to draw a direct link between sexual content on TV and the likelihood that teens who watch it will become parents. Researchers examined survey data from about 2,000 teens. They plucked out 23 popular shows and asked how much teens watched each. They coded the replies to established indicators of sexual content for each show — everything from nudge-nudge jokes on network sitcoms to full-blown intercourse on steamy cable dramas.
What they found: By age 16, teens who watched a lot of sexually charged TV were more than twice as likely to be pregnant or father an out-of-wedlock baby as teens who watched very little: 12% vs. 5%. The gap holds steady through age 20. Researchers controlled for parents' race, income and education and teens' total TV time.
Previous studies have linked sex on TV to earlier initiation of sex; this is the first to link TV sex to pregnancy.
"I don't find it surprising," says Jane Brown, who studies media and adolescent health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Most teenagers watch about three hours of TV a day, so the likelihood that they'll encounter sexual content is high. "It's a cumulative effect," she says. "It's probably not any one portrayal that makes the difference, but it's a consistent, and now unhealthy, sexual script that adolescents do see as a depiction of appropriate behavior."
Psychologist Dave Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family sees parents "delegating sex education to Hollywood. … If I'm a 15-year-old kid and no one's really talking to me about sex and I'm watching a lot of sex on TV, it's not a direct, conscious decision — but over time I start to think, 'That's what people do. That's the norm.' "
Lead researcher Anita Chandra of the Rand Corp. says even sex talk has an effect. If a child is watching more than just an hour of TV a day, she says, he is getting "a pretty substantial amount of exposure" to sex.
Brown says most TV shows portray sex as having few life-altering implications, such as pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. She calls it a dearth of the three Cs: commitment, contraceptives and consequences.
Even a tame sitcom joke takes a toll, she says. "It says, 'Everybody's thinking about it, everybody's doing it … nobody's suffering any negative consequences.' "

Captain Abu Raed

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2008. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

Raed is an elderly, Jordanian man who seems to be a simple janitor at an airport. But things change for him when he finds a discarded Captain’s hat that he wears home. The neighborhood children promote him to a world savy pilot and he promotes himself to being an excellent and imaginative storyteller.

But Raed is not a simple man. We slowly find out that he is wise and well read. And, he has suffered tragedies in his life that would break most men and make them bitter. Raed resists being morose and adds positively to the world around him. He is kind to strangers, he mentors children with exploitive parents, and he makes other’s lives easier and more fun.

But this wouldn’t be much of a story if there weren’t a strong conflict. Next door to Raed there is a family dominated by a husband and father who is a wife-beater, child-beater, and drunk. What can an old man do to help?

It reminds one of the quote – “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Raed is a good man of courage and sacrifice. He does something.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Second Hand Wedding

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2008. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

Amal is a 30ish autorickshawdriver in New Delhi. He appears to be simple and quiet and even naïve. He dutifully lives with and supports his Mother, and works long hours to make ends meet.

He is so out of place with the rest of the huge city of New Delhi. His fellow autorickshawdrivers seem to be hustlers and cheats. And his passengers and Delhi citizens are even worse. They include conniving lawyers, loan sharks, thieves, bribers, and spoiled adult children.

One day Amal chases a little girl who has stolen a purse from a regular passenger. Amal accidently causes her to be hit by a car and seriously hurt. Amal, out of the goodness of his heart, takes on the welfare of the child in a hospital. We begin to see Amal’s incredibly generous and giving nature.

Amal also has another chance, life-altering encounter when he picks up a surly old man who hates the world and tries to negotiate hard. Amal won’t play his game, and cheerfully acquiesces to the old man’s wishes. Unbeknownst to Amal, the man is rich and is so moved by their brief encounter that he leaves Amal in his will.

There is a painful irony between Amal needing money to help the hospitalized girl and almost being wealthy by a kindness of a curmudgeon. This irony drives the story, and
keeps your interest high.

Amal is unaffected by worldly matters that consume everyone else. He is centered by his goodness and honesty and integrity. Sacrifice is all he knows – except for his rich life in the help of others.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Amal

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2008. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

Amal is a 30ish autorickshawdriver in New Delhi. He appears to be simple and quiet and even naïve. He dutifully lives with and supports his Mother, and works long hours to make ends meet.

He is so out of place with the rest of the huge city of New Delhi. His fellow autorickshawdrivers seem to be hustlers and cheats. And his passengers and Delhi citizens are even worse. They include conniving lawyers, loan sharks, thieves, bribers, and spoiled adult children.

One day Amal chases a little girl who has stolen a purse from a regular passenger. Amal accidently causes her to be hit by a car and seriously hurt. Amal, out of the goodness of his heart, takes on the welfare of the child in a hospital. We begin to see Amal’s incredibly generous and giving nature.

Amal also has another chance, life-altering encounter when he picks up a surly old man who hates the world and tries to negotiate hard. Amal won’t play his game, and cheerfully acquiesces to the old man’s wishes. Unbeknownst to Amal, the man is rich and is so moved by their brief encounter that he leaves Amal in his will.

There is a painful irony between Amal needing money to help the hospitalized girl and almost being wealthy by a kindness of a curmudgeon. This irony drives the story, and
keeps your interest high.

Amal is unaffected by worldly matters that consume everyone else. He is centered by his goodness and honesty and integrity. Sacrifice is all he knows – except for his rich life in the help of others.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Terra

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2008. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

This is an animation film clearly aimed at adults. There is a separate alien planet called Terra. Terra has different air, different plants, different animals, different terrain and different “people.” The “people” are physically different from humans, but emotionally and mentally are very similar to humans. They have no legs and move with a dolphin kick motion and have a tail attached to the back of their heads. They also use their own air and cannot use oxygen.

The Terra people are attacked by the remains of the human race. Earth and its warring neighbor planets have left our environment dead and the humans are on a giant space station desperately searching for oxygen to maintain what’s left of the human race.

We understand the Terra people through a teenage girl named Mala. We understand the humans through a downed fighter pilot named Lt. Stanton. Mala causes Lt. Stanton to crash on Terra and then she helps save Lt. Stanton’s life in their non-oxygen world.

But there is a terrible moral conflict facing the Terra people and the human race. It appears only one of them can survive. The Terra planet can stay as it is and support the Terra people or the planet’s air can be changed to oxygen to support the remnants of human beings who only have a short time left. Which side should the viewer take?

This is a powerful story, well told. The music and animation are more than satisfactory, but it is the pushing forward of the story that matters. There are good people by any definition on both sides who wrestle with what the right thing to do is. And the viewer is forced to dwell on what is right also. Powerful stuff.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Karla's Wedding

I am a judge for the Indianapolis-based Heartland Film Festival. This feature film is a Crystal Heart Award Winner and is eligible to be the Grand Prize Winner in October of 2008. The Heartland Film Festival is a non-profit that honors Truly Moving Pictures. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.”

Karla is a 10 year-old Danish girl that faces an all too common problem around Christmas-time. She wants to have a traditional, old-fashioned holiday season, but is part of an extended family. She has a father with a drinking problem who lives alone. She lives with her Mother and Stepfather and brother and step-brother. The logistics are hard and everybody is so busy.

She finally concludes, “…grown-ups don’t care about Christmas.” And this will be “… (her) worst Christmas ever.”

Karla finds a respite with an eccentric older man called Buster. It’s hard to tell whether Karla is watching over Buster or Buster is watching over Karla. But at least they have each other.

Karla’s despair and quest for holiday joy might make her family re-examine their lives …
or maybe it won’t. Karla has a lot to teach all of us if we will only stop being busy and listen and watch.

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

I saw this film on September 20th, 2007 in Indianapolis. I am one of the judges for the Heartland Film Festival’s Truly Moving Picture Award. A Truly Moving Picture “…explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life.” Heartland gave that award to this film.

This is a fantasy tale of a magical toy store. It’s big. It’s weird. The toys perform! And there are live animals too! But above all it’s magical. The owner (Dustin Hoffman) is 243 years old and has had the store for 113 years. But he has decided to “depart” and leave it to his store manager (Natalie Portman). He, in the meantime, has hired a straight-laced accountant (Jason Bateman) they affectionately call “mutant” to help out. And they have one other retail clerk, a nine year-old boy.

The humans are as motley as the toys and animals!

All the humans have issues. The store manager was a child piano prodigy, but now she can’t compose or perform. The accountant only knows how to work and has no life. The nine year-old boy has no friends. How are they to manage when Mr. Magorium “departs”? And…that’s the story.

The cinematography and sets are lavish and gorgeous. The acting is superb. Realism and fantasy are a blur.

Can the remaining threesome rely on each other? Can they grow into their new roles when the owner “departs”? Can their hope sustain them? Can they be optimistic? See for yourself!

FYI – There is a Truly Moving Pictures web site where there is a listing of past Truly Moving Picture Award winners that are now either at the theater or available on video.