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As National Women's History Month comes to a close, Seventh Art Releasing wants to celebrate the incredible contribution that women have made to history by offering our films that deal with strong women who have made a mark at a discount. Any of the films mentioned below are available to purchase educationally through April 1 at the discounted rate of $149 (Punam is available at $99). These films are also available for personal use through our website. Please take a moment to read about these outstanding and often brave women.
DAUGHTERS OF WISDOM is a story of the nuns of Kala Rongo Monastery of Nangchen, Kham. The film is an experiential and transporting view of contemporary Tibet seen through the eyes of some of its most extraordinary women.
NO. 4 STREET OF OUR LADY tells the remarkable, yet little-known, story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust, while cleverly passing herself off as a Nazi sympathizer.
When Nahid Persson Sarvestani, an Iranian exile, set out to make a documentary, THE QUEEN AND I about Empress Farah Pahlavi, the wife of the Shah of Iran, she expected to encounter her opposite. Persson Sarvestani enters the Queen's world, planning to challenge the Shah's ideology; instead, she must rethink her own. The LA Times describes the film as, "A remarkable collaboration between two Iranian women of radically different backgrounds who, in the making of this captivating, unexpected documentary, discover more common ground than either might ever have imagined."
In FAMILY INC., filmmaker Emily Ting was asked by her father to return to Asia and take over the family business. Promising herself she would try it out for just one year, she traded in her friends, her filmmaking pursuits, and her love of New York for a grueling new life as a CEO in training in one of Hong Kong's most notorious toy companies.
Some other fantastic Seventh Art films that are centered around strong women include; THE BREAST CANCER DIARIES, The Oscar© Nominated SPEAKING IN STRINGS, THE NAZI OFFICER'S WIFE, PUNAM, THE HAPPY HOOKER, MARION'S TRIUMPH and RACHEL IS.
Click here for full list of 7th Art's Women films.
May is Jewish American Heritage Month! Celebrate Jewish Americans who have helped weave the fabric of American history, culture and society with 7AR Films!
From sports legends like Sandy Koufax (JEWS AND BASEBALL) to a Grammy award-winning band (THE KLEZMATICS) to the Hollywood tales of Yisrael "Izzi" Lifschutz (HAG) and all the way to the Golden Boy of Israeli boxing (MY CHAMPION), 7th Art is proud to offer these eclectic and powerful films to your community in commemoration of this very special month.
*SPECIAL OFFER* - Mention "Reuben" when booking any of our films and we will include it for your screening at no additional cost.
Click here for full list of Seventh Art Releasing's Jewish history and culture films!
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a day set aside for all of us to remember and learn about the horrors of the Holocaust. This year Yom HaShoah will fall on May 1st. Learn more about the Holocaust and commemorate those that suffered, those that fought, and those that died by checking out our wide range of Holocaust films.
Specializing in Jewish Films, Seventh Art Releasing is known for its numerous award-winning Holocaust-related titles in the last 15 years: STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME, a true-life love story that overcame impossible odds. MARION'S TRIUMPH, a harrowing story told through the eyes of a child inside one of Hitler's death camps. PHOTOGRAPHER, a mesmerizing account of the Lodz Ghetto in Poland Illustrated through slides photographed from that time. And the Academy Award nominated EYEWITNESS, a compelling examination of three artists who were forced to work in secret from within the Nazi death camps.
NO. 4 STREET OF OUR LADY tells the remarkable, yet little-known, story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust, while cleverly passing herself off as a Nazi sympathizer.
SONG OF THE LODZ GHETTO is a haunting musical program of street songs from the Lodz Ghetto serves as the backdrop of David Kaufman's definitive new film about the "first and last ghetto" in Poland. The film consists of chilling narrative, stirring concert performances, unforgettable photographs and extensive interviews with survivors of the Holocaust from Lodz.
*SPECIAL OFFER* -This year for Yom HaShoah, if you book or purchase one film we will give you an educational copy of The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City for no additional charge! Just mention the title when booking and we'll include a copy for educational use.
Click here for or a full list of Seventh Art Releasing's Holocaust films.
Seventh Art Releasing's documentary New Muslim Cool screened at Rutgers University on Thursday March 3rd. Puerto Rican-American rapper Hamza Pérez, subject of the film and director Jennifer Maytorena Taylor attended the screening and discussed Hamza's spiritual journey, Islam doctrine and living in a post 911 world. The two were mentioned in the Rutgers Daily Targum on Sunday.
Rapper expresses spiritual revival, Islam through film
By Andrea Goyma - Sunday, March 6, 2011
Puerto Rican-American rap artist Hamza Pérez and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Jennifer Maytorena Taylor were present for the screening of their most recent collaboration "New Muslim Cool" Thursday night in the Graduate Student Lounge on the College Avenue campus.
"This film is about someone who's ignorant and who discovers they're ignorant by studying the character of the Prophet Muhammad and seeing how far away I am from these beautiful characteristics and how low I am to how he really behaves," Pérez said.
Since its 2009 premier in PBS' "Point of View", the film received several accolades including the Freedom Award from the 2009 Aljazeera International Documentary Festival and was screened at the 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival, said Carlos Fernandez, director of the Center for Latino Arts and Culture at the University.
"[Pérez's] experience of conversion and the work he's done has really created bridges among people, from his family to the broader community," said Robyn Rodriguez, associate professor of sociology at the University. "There's something important about that because I think we live in a context where there continues to be some irrational fears about Islam."
Pérez said he was already under FBI surveillance before he moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., where the film takes place, because he worked at a youth center in Massachusetts where many gang members were becoming Muslim at the same time he was converting.
"We all had a community in Massachusetts, it must have been more than 55 people who became Muslim and then we all moved here to Pittsburgh to create a Muslim community," he said.
Pérez, who previously lived a life as a drug dealer, converted to Islam was because he was influenced by someone who, through trial and error, only found the happiness he sought though Islam.
"I felt it was my responsibility to go to the same communities that I helped destroy and go and change them," he said. "So I began to do volunteer work in those same communities."
Pérez said since filming, his priorities have changed from music to his family and religious outreach.
"I feel religious outreach can happen, not just [through] music," he said. "I don't have the statistics of how many people join a religion because of music … but religious outreach has to do with your character and how you behave as a person."
Pérez credits his mother with his spirituality and his inspiration to stay faithful.
"I was telling [my mom] that the word for ‘sun' in Arabic is feminine and ‘moon' is masculine and how the light of the moon comes from the light of the sun that gives it," he said. "So whenever you see a good man, some woman is shining a light on him."
As a Puerto Rican-American, he said his heritage does not conflict with Islam faith.
"Puerto Ricans tend to have two characteristics — spiritual and revolutionary, which seeks out the poor and goes against oppression," he said. "When you put these two characteristics of someone who fights for the poor and is spiritual, you get the characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad."
Prior to filming, Pérez had an agreement with Taylor that he would not be involved in the editing of the film due to fear of altering the story.
"If you watch the beginning of the film, I'm saying and doing things that are ignorant and what makes me change is studying the character of the Prophet Muhammad," he said. "There's some stuff I wish wasn't in there."
Pérez, who considers himself a private person, had a difficult time being filmed because he was not comfortable with seeing himself on camera but feels his story can be used as outreach and inspiration to the spiritually poor.
"If I can check my intentions and keep my intentions good then I think [the film] can be good for outreach and for people to correct me when they see something wrong in my character," he said.
School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Catherine Torres thought the film was a good opportunity to learn more about Islamic culture.
"Through the film you learn how to educate yourself about the Muslim culture and I think everyone should take a [Middle Eastern Studies] class because there's a lot of negative Islamic stereotypes and that's not true — not every Muslim is an extremist," Torres said.
Click here to read the article on Rutgers Daily Targum.
Seventh Art Releasing's film LOVE DURING WARTIME has been selected to Tribeca Film Festival 2011 where the film will have its North American Premiere!
LOVE DURING WARTIME is the real, modern-day tale of Romeo and Juliet. Two fated lovers fighting against the world with their only weapon: Love.
In the middle of the smoke and debris, from the most well-known running conflict in the world, is Osama, a Palestinian Muslim artist. Jasmin is an Israeli Jew who is a dancer and a daughter of German Jewish immigrants. All they want to do is create a new life together removed from politics, religion and history. But, of course, this is not easy in a land where their societies have turned their backs on them, disapproving of such a union. And so, they leave in search of a new life.
Click here for more about Tribeca Film Festival 2011.
SXSW screening times of Seventh Art Releasing's The First Movie have now been announced:
Friday March 11th at 6:00pm, REGAL ARBOR @ GREAT HILLS Sunday March 13th at 4:00pm, ROLLINS THEATRE Wednesday 16th at 8:15pm, ALAMO LAMAR
"A terrifically enjoyable and engaging film: open-minded and open-hearted, and utterly unlike the material on regular commercial release" -Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"The First Movie is an achingly lyrical story of honesty, honour and hope" -Ken Russell, The Times
"Engrossing and genuinely revealing." -The Independent
"A refreshing, unusual take on the war-zone documentary. Rewarding and thought provoking." -Anna Smith, Time Out
*Official Selection Telluride Film Festival *Official Selection Palm Springs Int'l Film Festival *Official Selection Dubai Int'l Film Festival
THE FIRST MOVIE is a tribute to the imaginative resilience of children. When filmmaker Mark Cousins and his crew travel to Goptapa, a small Kurdish Village in Northern Iraq devastated by Saddam Hussein's regime, they discover children who have known nothing but war their entire lives and have never experienced the magic of cinema. The filmmakers sew together a movie screen from old sheets and set up a projector, instantly creating a movie theater that plays children's classics in the village center. But the real magic happens when the children receive Flip camcorders and create their own movies filled with a child's wonder and boundless imagination. The resulting films are the true gift of the THE FIRST MOVIE; they are tickets to see a different Iraq, and the world, through a child's transformative eyes. The film conveys the power of cinema to enchant and inspire, even amidst the bloodshed of war.
Click here for more information about SXSW Film Festival & Conference
Life Is Rigged For Oligarchs As Well As Ordinary Russians
Robert Lenzner, STREETTALK
Feb. 25 2011 - 6:25 pm
In 2004 Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the richest man in Russia, according to Forbes, but Premier Vladimir Putin froze the shares of Yukos, his energy giant and drove his fortune down to a fraction of what it had been. Like all the oligarchs, who had more or less stolen their fortunes in assets once owned by the state, Khodokorvsky was warned by Putin not to interfere in politics and he would never be prosecuted for his economic crimes. But, the oligarch, a soft-spoken man, refused to submit to this threat from Putin, according to a documentary film called "VLAST (Power)" that I have seen prior to its official distribution. (It was directed and produced by Cathryn Collins. Pilar Crespi, the executive producer and wife of my friend Stephen Robert, former CEO of Oppenheimer & Co., gave it to me).
The multi-billionaire oligarch Khodokorvsky was sentenced to a long prison sentence then and just weeks ago, when his case was on appeal, the oligarch's sentence was extended to 2017. It's a primitive system of justice that could never exist in the U.S. When the 47 year old Khodokorvsky appeared in court in November, he exclaimed that he was "ashamed for my country - the bureaucracy and law enforcement machine can do whatever it wants. There is no right of private property."
An aide to the judge who just extended the sentence, Natalya Vasileya, has just taken her life in her hands by appearing on television in Russia and explaining that it is "a rigged case” that the presiding judge did not even write the decision.
I profoundly hope that Ms. Vasileya will be safer than Forbes' fearless Russian editor, Paul Klebnikov, who before he was assassinated on a Moscow street in 2004, had given several oligarchs grief by investigating and revealing their ruthless ways. This took place just weeks after Forbes published its first issue in Russia, listing the 100 richest men in that nation.
At the time, Alexander Lebedev, listed at 25th richest in Russia, asked a friend to put him in touch with a Forbes senior editor. For hours uin a New York hotel I had to listen to Lebedev's complaint that Forbes had endangered him and the other 99 oligarchs by publishing estimates of their wealth. I seem to recall that Lebedev, a former KGB officer stationed in London, was worth $1.4 billion from his holding in Russian airline, bank and hotel businesses. Nothing came of my meeting which was before Klebnikov was murdered, a crime that has never been solved. Paul was the only American journalist to be killed in Russia, and to this day it is utterly scandalous that no-one knows why. Shamefully, Putin has done nothing.
What irony that today Lebedev believes he is Putin's newest oligarch target. This week Lebedev sent an open letter to Putin that got little if no publicity “complaining that was being persecuted and threatened with damages to his business empire. Lebedev owns two London newspapers ,The Independent and the London Evening Mail. His bank in Russia was raided last November, perhaps because he is supporting an opposition publication in Russia itself.
No wonder few American citizens invest in the Russian stock market, where its energy giants sell at a 40-50% discount from their US competitors. No wonder that my friend, the author Susan Richards, tells me that Russia's "entire edifice is infected, utterly corrupted. It's not just property, business, governance; you buy your way out of your kid being conscripted; you buy your idiot kid into the best college."
Ms. Richards, the author of a recent well received book on Russia, "Lost And Found In Russia, Lives In A Post-Soviet Landscape," has written a perfectly brilliant blog for Forbes, entitled "It's The Corruption, Stupid." I recommend it and the book heartily.
Have a look at her blog; "It's The Corruption Stupid," which is going up with this piece.
Click here to read this article on Forbes
