Truth vigilante.
Tim Hetherington was a real inspiration to me, & Sebastian Junger (author of The Perfect Storm and War, who co-directed the incredible documentary Restrepo with him) made a portrait of the heartbreakingly short life of the fearless photojournalist, coming to HBO on the 18th.
Hetherington died in a mortar strike covering the civil war in Libya in April 2011 at the age of 40. Ajdabiya, a city near where he died renamed its largest public square after him, calling him one of their martyrs.
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An inspiring reminder of the power of music to change lives, and evidence that upcycling is more than just a hipster art trend. An upcoming documentary feature about a youth orchestra from a slum in Paraguay that’s surrounded by a landfill, the adults in the community make their living from salvaging materials to sell, the music students build their own instruments to learn & perform on.
(Source: vimeo.com)
Coming soon to theaters: Orchestra of Exiles
I’ll admit this is one that wasn’t on my radar until this morning, but I’m quite intrigued & can’t wait to see it.
Academy Award nominated director Josh Aronson (Sound and Fury) brings the story of Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman standing up to fascism & saving the lives of hundreds of Jewish families to theaters with his new feature Orchestra of Exiles. Amongst those he saved were dozens of Jewish musicians with whom he would form the Palestine Philharmonic (which would become the current Israeli Philharmonic).
Aronson describes the narrative thusly: “In the early 1930s Hitler began forcing Jewish musicians out of orchestras across central Europe; never before had so many experienced players been jobless simultaneously. The Nazis unwittingly presented a unique opportunity and with the short window of time still available, Huberman dedicated himself to fulfilling a dream.
The struggle to create the Palestine Symphony is a densely layered story with a range of key characters that could hardly be more diverse. Among them: a high Nazi official, Goebbels; renowned conductors, Furtwangler and Toscanini; a future head of state, Chaim Weizmann; and the families of victimized Jewish musicians who made up the ranks of orchestras across central Europe. Even the most famous Jew in the world played a role; a man who, among other pursuits, was an amateur violinist who liked to read music with Huberman - Albert Einstein.”
The film starts its theatrical release on October 26th, to find out more visit distributor First Run Features. Here’s a list of specific upcoming playdates.
Hear an interview with Aronson about the film conducted by WAMC Northeast Public Radio.
Haiti is very near & dear to my heart (in fact I’ll be there in a few weeks) & is a country made up of resilient people, resilient in the face of so much pain following a burst of promise. But despite that spirit it seems Haiti is always in a position to be kicked harder when it’s already down. It took an earthquake that claimed 100,000 lives to get the world (including the US, its next door neighbor) to pay attention to the island nation & from the outpouring of both care & opportunism careless lead to an epidemic of cholera, a bacterial infection that’s simple to prevent with proper sanitation and to cure with fast hydration, can be quickly lethal in a country without clean water and much of its population living on a flood plain the fans out from the source of the contamination. In October of 2010 Nepalese peacekeepers for the United Nations tasked with relief following the earthquake carelessly let their sewage into the Artibonite River, Nepal had just been through its own terrible cholera epidemic & microbiolgical studies have confirmed the strain in Haiti is identical to the one from Nepal & since then 100’s of thousands have been infected and thousands of people have died. The UN & Nepal refuse to acknowledge respsonsibility for something that could have so easily been prevented & each rain storm brings a new surge in infections almost 2 years later.
It’s hard to convey this to people who are not already wired into the situation, nor should any aid campaign use guilt as a motivator, so that’s why it’s a great blessing that these filmmakers have put together a short documentary (it appeared in April’s Tribeca Film Festival) that conveys the sadness of the scenario and the hope instilled by those fighting for justice through the intimacy of one boy’s story.
It promotes action that can be taken even by the busiest people, to petition the UN to take responsibility.
Please take some time to watch the film, or at the very least visit www.UNdeny.org
It’s synergistic for me because this film will do a lot to help a cause I care greatly about, and helped reinvigorate my drive to use short form and alternate media documentary to awaken people to issues & work for change with actionable requests.
