Santa Cruz Film Festival
www.santacruzfilmfestival.com

Monday, May 9
www.santacruzfilmfestival.com/html/program.html

Riverfront Theater

4:30 PM WORLD CITIZENS (Riverfront Theater)

CITIZEN STAN Patty Sharaf 62 min
CITIZEN STAN profiles the life of Stanley Sheinbaum, who has shaped foreign policy with Prime Ministers, Presidents and Kings. His negotiating skills have put him in league with gang leaders and students. As co-director of the Vietnam Project at Michigan State U, he hired men to set up the police force of South Vietnam in the 1950’s. He later spoke out against the Vietnam War, and was the defense strategist for Daniel Ellsberg during the Pentagon Papers trial. When a coup in Greece imprisoned his friend, Andears Papandreou, Sheinbaum took great personal risks to save his life. During the LA riots, acting as President of the Police Commission, Sheinbaum sparred with Chief Daryl Gates, ultimately forcing him to resign. In a bold move, this same Citizen Stan met with Yasser Arafat and persuaded him to denounce terrorism against Israel. At the request of President Clinton, Sheinbaum traveled to Damascus to set up a summit with Syria. His life holds lessons for all who are interested in peace and understanding among the world’s citizens.
He’s a man you ought to know about.

THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES JUDI BARI v. the F.B.I. Bernadine Mellis 54 min
In 1990, Earth First! Organizer Judi Bari’s car was bombed. Within three hours of the bombing, Bari was accused of transporting the explosives that nearly killed her. Still in the hospital, she was arrested, and labeled a terrorist in the national media.
THE FOREST FOR THE TREES follows the bombing and arrest of Judi Bari, and her subsequent civil suit against the FBI. At the heart of the film, made by Bari’s lawyer’s daughter, is Bari, a folk hero with an electrifying on-screen presence, and the legal battle against law enforcement that few believed she could win.

PINK the RNC 11 min Annie Newman 11 min
In August 2004 CODE PINK, a women's anti-war group went to New York to protest at the Republican National Convention. This eleven-minute documentary, Narrated by Medea Benjamin, shows how CODE PINK used humor, imagination, and daring to take on the Republicans.

PLANET USA Marlene Winell 7:45
This short doc briefly covers US world domination and its devastating effect on the planet. The myth of the “global good guy� is explored, along with the question of why Americans are so disconnected from what is going on. Interviews with Amy Goodman, Medea Benjamin, Jim Garrison and others.

7:15 PM MIDDLE EAST CALLING (Riverfront Theater)

Bikvot Hakol Havud LOOKING FOR THE LOST VOICE ISRAEL Zipora Trope 70 min
On August 4, 2002 at 8.45am Omri Goldin was killed in a suicide bombing. Many dreams were shattered that morning. Omri's father, Amiram, a peace activist, had a dream to build a commercial district, a joint Israeli -Arab venture, in the Galilee. Amiram's Arab friends are not sure if he will pursue their shared dream. Omri's grandmother always wanted a large family. She is a Holocaust survivor. Omri's friends are all members of the punk- rock band 'Lucy's Pussy'. Omri was the soloist of the band. They were waiting for him to finish writing his new song. All of the band members are sons of Israeli army generals and F- 16 pilots. The sons are angry, their fathers, the heroes, are lost and tired. They admit that they can no longer protect their sons. Tilda, Omri’s mother, delivered a baby a year after the suicide bombing. She is 53 years old. This is a film of contradictions: Death and a punk-rock group, suicide bombing and a holocaust survivor, desperate Arabs and Jews sharing their pain. And in the center is a one man’s journey for peace that starts with death and ends with a new life
PEOPLE.

AN IRAQI LULLABY Irving Saraf and Allie Light 6 min
In memory of children killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Palestine, Israel, Russia, Chechnya, Oklahoma City, Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, Waco, East Timor, Vietnam, Angola, the Nazi holocaust in Europe and in all the other wars of hate and destruction.

WINNING THE PEACE Eli Kaufman 18 min
On June 14th, 2003, The New York Times ran a photograph on its front page of an American soldier kneeling and embracing one of his fellow men. Upon reading the caption, the reader discovers the cause of the soldier’s anguish: Iraqi children have been maimed by unexploded battlefield ordinance. This image of war in the 21st Century begs for a back-story. Beyond the immediate tragedy of the destruction of innocent lives, the events that produced this image had to reflect something fundamental about this particular war, for both the men in the photo and for us, their fellow Americans.

In our story the weeping man is Lieutenant Charlie Latif, a proud member of America’s peacekeeping mission in Iraq. But this war has a much deeper meaning for Charlie. As the soldiers patrol a small village, an embedded reporter learns that Charlie is the son of Iraqi immigrants exiled from their homeland by Sadaam Hussein’s regime. Charlie is not just a professional soldier “doing a job,' he is on a personal crusade to redeem his place of birth.

As Charlie struggles to fight a just war in Iraq, his son Jordan competes in a youth league championship game in idyllic suburban America. Jordan plays with an unmatched ferocity and scores the winning goal. But the jubilation of his victory is cut short. The image of his weeping father runs on the evening news and for the first time Jordan and his mother must confront the reality of Charlie’s tragic bind.

9:00 PM A WORLD REJOYCING (Riverfront Theater)
sponsored by seebrightproductions.com

IMAGINING ULYSSES
David Blake Knox, Shimmy Marcus, Dearbhla Walsh, Hilary Fennell, Neasa Hardiman and Ruth Meehan
1 hr 29 min Ireland
‘Imagining Ulysses’ marks the centenary of Bloomsday, the imaginary day on which all of the action in James Joyce’s great novel takes place. Like Joyce’s novel, ‘Imagining Ulysses’ comes in 18 different episodes and, like the original, each of these is designed to have its own distinctive theme and style. Narrated by Oscar Winner Brenda Fricker, with Patrick Bergin as the voice of Joyce, the overall intention of the film is to honour the spirit of the book – in an imaginative, accessible and original way.
One of them for example features a tabloid TV talk show – á la Jerry Springer – where Virginia Woolf and D.H.Lawrence defend their harsh critiques of Joyce. Another film tells the story of a love affair in communist China, between translators Wen Jieruo and Hsaio Ch’ien, with Ulysses as the backdrop. A performance by Gavin Friday forms the backdrop for a piece on racism in Ireland - in 1904 - and 100 years later. The final film for ‘Penelope’, Molly Bloom’s famous speech, features lines read by more than 30 women including Samantha Mumba, Hilda Faye, Anna Nolan and Tatianna Ouliankina.

RIDEO ERGO SUM US FRANK FOREMAN 1 min
RIDEO ERGO SUM (I Laugh Therefore I Am) was inspired by painted crucifixes at the Pinacoteca National Museum in Siena in 1961, and later by a contemporary crucifix in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Franks’ personal credo is RIDEO ERGO SUM, which captures the playful spirit of this film.

Director’s dinner sponsored by Café Mare
740 Front St.
458.1212

After Party at The Blue
Pass holders free
Blue Lagoon 923 Pacific Ave.