Skin

Director: Anthony Fabian
Country: South Africa
107 min / Color / DVD
Genre: Biographic Drama
Year: 2008
Original Language: English / Zulu
Rated: PG-13

SKIN is one of the most moving stories to emerge from apartheid South Africa: Sandra Laing is a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners, unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, who lovingly bring her up as their ‘white’ little girl. But at the age of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society. The film follows Sandra’s thirty-year journey from rejection to acceptance, betrayal to reconciliation, as she struggles to define her place in a changing world - and triumphs against all odds.

MRS . . .what’s his name? / Señora De

Director: Patricia Ferreira
Country: Spain
80 mins / Color / DVD
Genre: Documentary
Year: 2009
Language: Galician & Spanish with English Subtitles

“Mrs. What’s- His-Name” shows the testimonies of several generations of women whom history did not even allow them to dream. The only thing they could do was to resign themselves and accept the fact they were born and brought up in those times when their voices, their desires and even their thoughts were silenced.

Incident at Tower 37

Director: Chris Perry
Country: USA
11 mins / Color / DVD
Genre: Animation
Year: 2008
Original Language: English

In the middle of a dry, desolate landscape stands Tower 37: a shimmering water processing station, siphoning every last drop of water from a once pristine lake. Day in and day out the station’s lone steward monitors the tower’s activities, never realizing that Tower 37 is slowly destroying an entire ecosystem. But when two unexpected guests arrive, the tower’s operator learns the high cost of his ignorance.

Soca Power in Trinidad and Tobago

Directed by Claude Santiago
Country: Trinidad & Tobago / France
60 min / Color / DVD
Genre:Documentry
Year: 2007
Original Language: English

The criticisms of Soca Power are obvious and valid: it seems a trifle unsure whether it’s for Us or Them; in it’s brief hour it follows four different musicians, each worthy of a considerably longer film in his or her own right; it over-explains where it bothers to explain (as in Fay-Ann Lyons discourse on wining) while leaving the camera on for fairly long passages, silent apart from background noise (as in her perambulations in Arima with hubby Bunji); and it does not touch Carnival itself at all. Half-an-hour longer, and/or with a narrator or more extensive use of sub-titles, it might have cured all these defects. The film’s strengths, though, more than compensate for its shortcomings: the subject performers are strong and very comfortable in front of the camera.(Fay-Ann Lyons manages to look even better with the camera behind her.) The music is strong, the concert footage captures all the excitement of Trinidad Carnival super-fetes – including fence-top wining. More than anything, the film is very strong visually – the least you’d expect of a partially French film. Yes, they could have thought it out a bit and shown us a lot more; still, if it doesn’t give you satisfaction, you should give up your passport. Recommended like pelau without pigtail.

Hope For Climate Change: Harpy Eagle

Director: Carol Farneti Foster/Richard Foster
Country: Belize
20 mins / Color / DVD
Genre: Documentary
Year: 2010
Language: English
Rated: G

A 19 minute educational/conservation video about the release of “Hope”, the Harpy Eagles into The Rio Bravo Conservation and Managements Area in the northern part of Belize. The release of “Hope” is symbolic of the need to preserve our natural environment to combat climate change and for the benefit of mankind. This story directly relates to the importance of the rain forest, not only to its wildlife but to humans and how when burning it effects the planet.

BREADWINNER by Kesha Peyrefitte