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The First Tuesday of each month at 7:00pm the UUCOC hosts free screenings of socially relevant films followed by a (usually intense) discussion of actions we can take.
CoSponsored by the Dallas
Peace Center
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Click here
to review the films we've screened almost every month since October of
2006
Coming May
6th:

Click to visit
the filmmaker's website
Click here to view the trailer
Dangerous
Living
Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the
Developing World is the first documentary to deeply explore the lives of
gay and lesbian people in non-western cultures. Traveling to five
different continents, we hear the heartbreaking and triumphant stories of
gays and lesbians from Egypt, Honduras, Kenya, Thailand and elsewhere,
where most occurrences of oppression receive no media coverage at all.
By
sharing the personal stories coming out of developing nations, Dangerous
Living sheds light on an emerging global movement striving to end
discrimination and violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered people.
“Be inspired, be very
inspired!”
– London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
“Uplifting!”
- Outtakes.net
“Tear-wrenchingly
powerful.”
– Citypages.com
“Heartrending and
inspiring.”
– San Francisco International
Lesbian & Gay
Film Festival
June
3rd:
Click to visit
the filmmaker's website and view the trailer
I Know I'm Not
Alone
Michael Franti, world-renowned musician and human rights worker, travels to Iraq, Palestine and Israel to explore the human cost of war with a group of friends, some video cameras and his guitar.
A compelling soundtrack, visual and musical montages and Franti's intimate voiceovers make the film speak to the MTV, X, Y & Z generations, as well as the baby-boomers. A true armchair travel film pulling the audience into these war zones in the company of Michael's guitar, eloquence and wit - you feel the humanity, artistic resilence and sometimes horrific experience of what it's like to live under the bombs and military occupation.
July 1st:

Click to visit
the filmmaker's website
Injection
The film's Director will be at the screening and available
for questions during our forum after the film
In this hard-hitting film, Mickey Grant
travels to Kenya, Bangkok, Sofia, Libya, Rome and London in an attempt to
discover the hidden truths. He follows the trail of syringes from hospital
to garbage dump, and then back into Africa's health care system. He
interviews leaders of the World Health Organization, Amnesty
International, government officials, the Kaddafi opposition, Bulgarian
journalists, medical scientists, and health care workers. We also hear
from two imprisoned Bulgarian nurses, the son of Moammar Kaddafi, and
families of the infected children.
Could these healthcare workers have
committed this horrific crime? Or, are they scapegoats to divert attention
from institutional shortcomings? Is Moammar Kaddafi ultimately responsible
for this tragedy? Is syringe reuse common in Libya and the rest of Africa?
If syringe reuse is spreading HIV, why is it allowed to continue? Bottom
line, millions more will continue to die unless the world health care
community addresses these issues.
August 5th:

Click to visit
the filmmaker's website
Two
Towns of Jasper
On June 7, 1998, the most
vicious racially motivated murder since the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till
occurred in Jasper, Texas. James Byrd, an African American, was chained to
a pick-up truck and dragged behind it for three miles until his body
disintegrated. Three white men from Jasper, with ties to white supremacist
groups, were arrested and later convicted for the crime.
Two film crews, one black
and one white, set out to record the repercussions of this modern-day
lynching by following the trials of the men charged with the crime and the
reactions of the community members. Two Towns of Jasper
integrates footage from an all white crew documenting the white community
and an all black crew filming the black community. Many documentaries and
dramatic films have been made about the racial divide in America, but none
have used segregated crews as a lens on the subject. Filming within the
respective races as opposed to across the races provides a unique and rare
occasion for audiences to have “insider” access, to witness intimate
moments typically not shared with anyone outside a closed community.
September 2nd:

Click to visit the website
Reel Bad
Arabs
This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic
history that has run virtually unchallenged form the earliest days of
silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed
author Dr. Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of degrading images
of Arabs -- from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs
and gun-wielding "terrorists" -- along the way offering
devastating insights into the origin of these stereotypic images, their
development at key points in US history, and why they matter so much
today.
Shaheen shows how the persistence of these images over time has
served to naturalize prejudicial attitudes toward Arabs and Arab culture,
in the process reinforcing a narrow view of individual Arabs and the
effects of specific US domestic and international policies on their lives.
By inspiring critical thinking about the social, political, and basic
human consequences of leaving these Hollywood caricatures unexamined, the
film challenges viewers to recognize the urgent need for
counter-narratives that do justice to the diversity and humanity of Arab
people and the reality and richness of Arab history and culture.
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