NEO•GRIOT

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Featured Films

THE SARI SOLDIERS
Directed by Julie Bridgham
Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties. When Devi, mother of a 15-year-old girl, witnesses her niece being tortured and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army, she speaks publicly about the atrocity. The army abducts her daughter in retaliation, and Devi embarks on a three-year struggle to uncover her daughter’s fate and see justice done. 

The Sari Soldiers follows her and five other brave women, including Maoist Commander Kranti; Royal Nepal Army Officer Rajani; Krishna, a monarchist from a rural community who leads a rebellion against the Maoists; Mandira, a human rights lawyer; and Ram Kumari, a young student activist shaping the protests to reclaim democracy. The Sari Soldiers intimately delves into the extraordinary journey of these women on opposing sides of the conflict, through the democratic revolution that reshapes the country’s future.

SISTERS OF THE GOOD DEATH
Directed by Yoruba Richen
Sisters of the Good Death is a short documentary that follows the filmmaker’s journey to the town of Cachoeria in the northeast of Brazil to uncover the origins of a 3-day Catholic festival that has taken place for more than 200 years. What she discovered was that the festival is the longest running celebration of emancipation from slavery in the Americas, and deftly mixes Catholicism with the African religion of Candomble.  The result is a celebration of freedom, women’s resistance and Afro-Brazilian culture.  It is called the Festival of Good Death.

POTO MITAN: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy
Directed by Renée Bergan and Mark Schuller
Narration by Edwidge Danticat
Told through the lives of five courageous Haitian women workers,Poto Mitan gives the global economy a human face. Each woman’s personal story explains neoliberal globalization, how it is gendered, and how it impacts Haiti. And while Poto Mitan offers in-depth understanding of Haiti, its focus on women’s subjugation, worker exploitation, poverty, and resistance demonstrates these are global struggles. Marie-Jeanne details dual struggles as a woman and worker: employed in a garment factory, she toils under miserable conditions to give her children the schooling she was denied because of education’s high costs and gender discrimination. Living and braving death in Cité Soleil, Solange details how Haiti’s current violence stems from a long-brewing economic crisis and the global apparel industry’s inherent instability. Frustrated with male-dominated unions, Frisline joined a woman’s organization, offering a gendered and class analysis of Haiti’s contemporary situation. Working for thirty years,Thérèse brings a historical perspective and a comparative analysis. Thérèse’s ailments also highlight the critical state of public health. Pushed off her land by foreign agricultural policies, Hélène leads a new grassroots campaign against violence, encouraging women to defend themselves.

These five brave women demonstrate that despite monumental obstacles in a poor country like Haiti, collective action makes change possible. Initiated by the subjects themselves, Poto Mitan aims to inspire solidarity activism to end injustice in the global economy. Our struggles have a common thread. Fighting for justice: for women, workers, or Haiti can’t help but bring about our own liberation.

THE GREATEST SILENCE: Rape in Congo
Directed by Lisa F. Jackson
Violence against women in conflict has been called one of history’s greatest silences. The Greatest Silence, filmed in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo over several months in 2006 and 2007, breaks the silence that has surrounded the tens of thousands of women and girls who have been kidnapped, raped, sexually enslaved and tortured in that country’s intractable civil war. The film travels to hospitals, shelters and remote villages to find rape survivors, all of whom have been shamed and abandoned. The filmmaker, herself a survivor of gang rape, shares her experience with the women she meets. They in turn recount their stories with an honesty and immediacy that is pulverizing, describing in intimate detail the unimaginable. Activists, peacekeepers, priests and physicians give their perspectives on the fate of Congo’s women, and in several chilling segments the filmmaker confronts Congolese soldiers who are unabashed, even boastful, about the rapes they have committed. It is a journey into “a Hell on earth for women”, a search for the brave survivors of sexual violence who pay witness to their own experience and break their silence, providing a piercing perspective on the horror, struggle and ultimate grace of their lives.

FRONTRUNNER: The Afghan Woman Who Surprised the World
Directed by Virginia Williams
The setting: Afghanistan’s first democratic election—ever.  In the aftermath of 9/11, America’s military might has set the stage.  But who will determine the fate of democracy in Afghanistan? Is it possible, a woman running for President? Where unspeakable cruelty to women had become part of day-to-day life under the Taliban? “Vote for the mother,” Dr. Massouda Jalal shouts to the crowd.  Frontrunner tells the heroic story of this medical doctor and mother of three and the first presidential bid by a woman since the ouster of the Taliban.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS AT RISK: Telling Their Untold Stories
A screening of short films by Pulitzer Center journalists followed by a panel discussion and Q&A moderated by Jon Sawyer. Panelists to include Lisa Armstrong, Andre Lambertson, Dawn Sinclair Shapiro and, Marcus Bleasdale.
Video: Olga’s Girls: The Indentured Daughters of Nepal, by Meredith May and Carlos Avila Gonzalez (Nepal)
Video: The Edge of Joy, by Dawn Shapiro (Nigeria)
Video: One Voice One Thousand Children: Girls of War, by Marcus Bleasdale (Congo)
Video: Dear Obama, by Marcus Bleasdale (Congo)
Video: Little Girls Lost, by Lisa Armstrong and Andre Lambertson (Haiti)
Video: Mother of Mothers Video Poem by poet Kwame Dawes and photographer Andre Lamberston (Haiti)

PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL
A film by Abigail E. Disney and Gini Reticker  
  Introduced by Abigail Disney, this acclaimed documentary is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women who demanded peace for Liberia, a nation torn to shreds by a decades old civil war. Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the remarkable story of the courageous Liberian women who came together to end a bloody civil war and bring peace to their shattered country. Thousands of women — ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about a agreement during the stalled peace talks. A story of sacrifice, unity and transcendence, Pray the Devil Back to Hell honors the strength and perseverance of the women of Liberia. Inspiring, uplifting, and most of all motivating, it is a compelling testimony of how grassroots activism can alter the history of nations.

Thousands of women — ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters, both Christian and Muslim — came together to pray for peace and then staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war. Their actions were a critical element in bringing about a agreement during the stalled peace talks.