Second Friday
Social Justice
Film Series

Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
February 8, 2008

SICKO
January 11, 2008

Past Films

“The Corporation"
May 11th

“The End of Suburbia"
April 13th

THE BIG BUY

Click here for more information about the film.

"Ma Vie en Rose" ("My Life In Pink") is the story of Ludovic, a little girl born in a little boy's body. For him, nothing is more natural than to change his gender. As a hopeful and sensitive child, he truly believes that a miracle is going to happen. He will be a girl, no doubt about it, and he's in love with Jerome, his school mate, and son of his father's colleague. Initially a source of amusement, an outrage begins in their suburb when the two boys are discovered pretending to get married. The family begins to realize with horror that his desire to be a girl isn't just a little boy's fantasy. They try to make him change his mind, to no avail. The situation turns into a real-life drama of intense reactions from neighbors, friends, and teachers, resulting in a profoundly optimistic ending.

BLOODLETTING is a tale of two countries, one rich, one poor; it's the story of two healthcare systems: one nationalized, one profit-driven; and it’s the personal story of regular people, working everyday jobs, who find themselves caught in a downward spiral because they're uninsured. 

Our story opens as director Lorna Green borrows a camera to make a documentary on Cuba's healthcare system. Joining an NGO of healthcare professionals learning about Cuba's nationalized system, we follow the group through the vibrant streets of Cuba, while investigating the pillars of Cuba's community-based health system. A picture emerges of a country fundamentally committed to the health of their people. 

When Lorna returns home, she finds herself pulled from editing as she attempts to support her family, struggling with their own healthcare. Her mother, a teacher, and her brother, a manufacturing worker, have no health insurance and find themselves caught in a downward spiral. 

Positing two healthcare systems in two countries, this powerful cinema verite documentary asks the question: what is the cost of continuing business as usual in the American healthcare system? With an international perspective and a compelling personal story about an uninsured American family, BLOODLETTING succeeds in exploring very timely political issues of healthcare and human rights.

When young Chuck Murdock (Joshua Zuehlke) visits a nuclear missile site, he learns that one bomb would destroy the earth in less time than it would take a piece of silverware to drop from his hand to the floor. This information sends the sensitive boy into existential angst. Wondering why anybody should do anything when the world can be destroyed so quickly, and hoping to raise consciousness about nuclear weapons, Chuck quits his Little League team. He gains a little bit of local press. One of those stories is read by NBA star "Amazing Grace" Smith (Alex English), who is so moved by the boy's story that he too quits playing his sport. This produces a great deal of national press, as well as a handful of stars from other sports that decide to join the ranks of Amazing Grace and Chuck. Some powers that be in the sports world, as well as the government, do not look kindly upon these "strikes" and set about to end the movement.

"Amazing Grace and Chuck" was made in 1987, yet has a timeless quality.  Here is a recent testimonial:

This movie, in my opinion, is one of the most overlooked and unappreciated movies in film history. Most people have dismissed it as being unrealistic and far fetched. I think that they have missed the point. I don't think this movie was intended to be received as a potentially plausible solution to the menace of the Nuclear threat presented by the Cold War, but rather an idealistic fairy tale about how one, seemingly ordinary boy, could change the world . . . Believeable or not, you cannot leave this move without having ridden a rollor coaster of emotions from joy to sorrow; amusement to greif; desolation to elation. You will laugh. You will cry and your faith in humanity will, in someway, be changed forever . . . I highly recommend this movie for the entire family.

"Nobelity"

A special "2nd Friday" film on Earth Day

on Saturday, April 22nd, 6:30 pm

"Nobelity" is a new feature documentary which looks at the world's most pressing problems through the eyes of nine Nobel laureates, including Jody Williams, Sir Joseph Rotblat and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The film follows film maker Turk Pipkin's personal journey to find enlightened answers about what kind of world our children and grandchildren will know. 

Filmed across the U.S. and in France, India and Africa, "Nobelity" combines the insights of nine distinguished Nobelists with a first person view of the world's problems and the children most challenged by them.

KUUF's presentation of "Nobelity" is part of a nationwide grass-roots premiere on Earth Day Weekend, April 22, 2006, with screenings all over the country.  

This unforgettably dramatic and powerful documentary relates the extraordinary story of a young Iowa housewife who discovers she is a survivor of one of the most horrific massacres in Guatemalan history, committed in 1982 against Maya Indian villagers who resisted a dam project funded by the World Bank. The film follows her remarkable journey of transformation and discovery as she returns to Guatemala in search of her heritage and ultimately joins efforts to bring the perpetrators of the massacre to justice and to promote peace and reconciliation in her native country.

Dominga Sic Ruiz was nine years old when, during the bloody Guatemalan civil war, she escaped while paramilitary and army forces murdered her mother and 76 other women and 107 children in the Maya village of Rio Negro. She was eventually adopted and grew up in small-town America, where she became a "normal" teenager named Denese and later married. She buried her past so deeply it became transformed in adulthood into doubts and nightmares, until events brought her to face the truth.

Beautifully photographed in Iowa and amid the stunning landscapes of the Guatemalan highlands, the film follows her emotional reconnection with lost relatives, with a rich indigenous culture, and with the violent history in which her beloved adopted country -- the United States -- played a sinister role. Dominga joins the Maya community in the dangerous effort to demand the exhumation of a clandestine mass grave, and later provides testimony in a landmark genocide case, thus becoming part of a global grassroots struggle for justice and human rights.

From the Oscar-winning Directors, Allie Light and Irwin Schraf, this fascinating documentary follows a group of women - all breast cancer activists who are fighting or have survived the disease - who are on a personal mission to unearth the causes of breast cancer. The result is RACHEL'S DAUGHTERS, an engaging detective story and detailed analysis of the science and politics of this epidemic.

Seeing themselves as spiritual heirs of author Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book SILENT SPRING warned of the dangers of DDT exposure, they focus on issues including chemical contamination, radiation, and electromagnetic exposure to find breast cancer's causes. Addressing environmental racism, inequalities in research funding, and disparities in cancer rates for women of color, they track the effects of social biases on cancer incidence and health care delivery.

Incorporating interviews with prominent scientists, documentary footage from high cancer rate areas, and the investigating women's' personal battles to stay healthy, RACHEL'S DAUGHTERS offers a scientifically rigorous and intensely affecting view of this growing epidemic. An unprecedented warning of the dangers of industrialization; it is an inspiring rallying cry for those working to change current views about women's health. 

The film is 107 minutes long and will be followed by an open discussion, led by a guest speaker. The film is free and child care is available. Contributions to the pot luck table are always welcome. For more information, email socialjustice@KUUF.org or call Ann Lovell, (360) 373-8303.

Speaker:  TBA

The basic message of this video compilation is that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the military-industrial-complex, the Pentagon, the multinational corporations, the media and the Government of the United States are responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the third world, not to mention the poverty and oppression of millions more. We support, arm, and train dictators and militaries that do these evil actions to their own people. All of this is to insure that we control the natural resources of these countries and their market place, use the people for cheap labor and keep the business of war (which is our biggest business) ongoing.

It includes the following segments: 

			John Stockwell   Former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1975, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. A 13 year veteran of the agency, Stockwell provides a short history of the CIA, estimating over 6 million people have died as a direct consequence of the agency's covert operations since its inception in 1947. This talk was given in the late 1980's.
			"Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair"  This investigative documentary has been seen in theaters worldwide. The Iran-Contra scandal is not an aberration of U.S. foreign policy. It has been estimated that between 20 to 30,000 Nicaraguan men, women and children were killed in U.S. sponsored terror conducted by the CIA backed right-wing Contra forces.
			"School of Assassins"  Our own terrorist training school right here in the United States. This documentary is narrated by Susan Sarandon and features Father Roy Bourgeois, talking about this U.S. Army school located in Fort Benning, Georgia, where soldiers from Central and South America are trained in the art of torture, terrorism, and assassination.
			"Genocide by Sanctions" This segment features former Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark, as he goes to Iraq to show the terrible conditions that the bombing has caused there. Over 1.5 million Iraqi’s have died! Clark goes into the hospitals and talks with Iraqi doctors, who say that these deaths could be prevented if they had medicine to give to the children. We bombed out their way of life, their water system, their food system, their sewer system, their communication systems and more. Americans were lead to believe that this was a good thing.
			Philip Agee, former CIA Case Officer  Philip Agee spent 13 years as a case officer in the CIA, resigning in 1969. In this speech given in 1991 after the first Gulf War, Agee analyzes why the U.S. invaded Iraq. He also describes "the war against the third world" as being fought for the natural resources, the labor and the markets of these third world countries the United States has invaded either overtly or covertly since the end of World War II.
			Amy Goodman   Journalist and host of "Democracy Now" on Pacifica’s WBAI FM Radio in New York . Amy is the best at what she does! On this section of the tape, Amy is talking about two genocides Indonesia committed. First against its own people in 1965, then against the people of East Timor in 1975. Both of these mass slaughters were sanctioned by the United States government and aided by the CIA.

Speaker TBA

Tonight's speaker is Dean Ritz is an ethics consultant with an MA in Philosophy from the University of Montana. He co-teaches the Seattle ‘Democracy School’ and co-produces the ‘Ethically Speaking’ radio show.

Local veterans will be our speaker this evening, giving voice to their personal experiences:

Tonight's speaker, Lois Kroehler, worked with the Presbyterian Church in Cuba from 1949 - 1992, and has continued annual visits there since her retirement. She served as National Director of Music from 1962 until 1992, and she promises to bring her guitar!

"Rising Waters"
Global Warming and the Fate of the Pacific Islands
June 10th 

Through personal stories of Pacific Islanders, RISING WATERS puts a human face on the international climate change debate. For 7 million people living on thousands of islands scattered across the Pacific ocean, global warming is not something that looms in the distant future: it's a threat whose first effects have already begun.

Policy makers and scientists argue about how much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next twenty years, while Pacific Islanders wonder if they will have a future. One thing is known: the longer emission reductions are delayed, the harder it will be to curb the effects of global warming, and prevent sea level rise from devastating the Pacific Islands.

The United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, bears a special responsibility in the debate yet has failed to formulate a consistent government policy on the reduction of emissions. Some U.S. experts have resisted taking action because they fear a global economic slowdown if stringent measures are taken. 

The problems facing the islanders serve as an urgent warning to the rest of the world.

Tonight's speaker is Jim DiPeso, Policy Director of Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP America), working to improve the republican party’s positions on environmental issues.

“The End of Suburbia"
May 13th

Tonight's speaker, Mark Wilson, was the Green party candidate for the US Senate in 2004 for Washington state. He is organizing a peak oil symposium in August, focused on regional workforce development and centered on the alternative energy industry. The symposium will bring together major players who can implement large scale projects, many in this region.

“The Wall”
April 8th

“Invisible Ballots: A Temptation for Electronic Vote Fraud"
March 11th 

“Trading Democracy”
 and “In Their Own Words” 
February 11 • 7 pm • KUUF

Tonight's speakers are Lucy Bukrey and Scott Dubble. They are street savvy peace and global justice activists, and are members of a street action group called the Living River. In the last 5 years, they have participated in some of the major social justice mobilizations: Quebec (FTAA), Ontario (G20), Washington DC (IMF/World Bank), Calgary (G8), Sacramento (WTO), and San Francisco (Bio-Tech) They have been known to eat tear gas, brave riot squad police, do civil disobedience, and get arrested. They are well-schooled in the issues of fair vs. "free" trade agreements, and acutely aware of the issues of injustice on a global scale. Lucy is also a preschool teacher and nanny, Scott Dubble is an environmental field scientist. They believe another world is possible, and necessary. 

Joining them is Beth Poteet, the Washington State Coordinator for Witness for Peace, a Latin American solidarity organization that works for justice and  peace. She has traveled extensively throughout Central America, Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia and has been involved in the movement to close the School of the Americas.

Palestine is Still the Issue
January 14 • 7 pm • KUUF

Documentary filmmaker John Pilger returns to the West Bank and to Israel to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was affirmed by the UN more than half a century ago, are still caught in a terrible limbo--refugees in their own land. In a series of extraordinary interviews, Pilger weaves together the issues of Palestine. He speaks to the families of suicide bombers and their victims; he sees Palestinians humiliated at myriad checkpoints, with a permit system not dissimilar to apartheid. This is a film about a nation of people, traumatized, humiliated and yet resilient. 

Two members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) of Seattle, who have spent time in Israel and the Occupied Territories, will introduce the film and provide a presentation afterwards. Peter Lippman traveled to the Middle East in 2002 and 2003, and Carla Curio spent time in both Gaza and the West Bank in late 2002. Both worked alongside Palestinians, witnessing their living conditions, and participating in non-violent resistance to the occupation. 

PSC is a grassroots organization that works to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. The presentation will include a description of some of the more prominent aspects of the occupation, as well as thoughts on ways American citizens can become active on the issue. An open question and answer period will follow.