Cinema Politica – Being Osama and Shake Hands with the Devil by risa
This Halloween join Cinema Politica for two great films on one night, both for free, and one comes with the director! Films start at 7:30 PM in Room H-110. Following these two screenings, join us for the newly moved JAZZ NIGHT at Reggie’s for some live jazz and pitchers of überbrü.
BEING OSAMA (introduced by co-director Tim Schwab)
Being Osama is an intimate exploration of six men with highly diverse backgrounds, interests and personalities, united by their first names and their experiences as Arabs living in Canada in the post-9/11 world. Shot against the cultural backdrop of Montreal, the film follows the six Osamas from the time of the American invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 to the anti-WTO demonstrations in late July of the same year. Touching on subjects as diverse as Arab names, rock-n-roll, religion, Middle East politics, weddings, funerals and the meaning of identity, Being Osama is a sensitive and thoughtful portrait of six unique individuals and of the new Canada in which they live.
2004/Canada/45min
SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL
In 100 days – between April 6 and July 16, 1994 – an estimated 800,000 men, women and children were brutally killed in the obscure African country of Rwanda. The victims – many horrifically hacked to death with machetes – were Tutsi, and moderate Hutus who supported them.
One man was tasked by the United Nations with ensuring that peace was maintained in Rwanda – Canadian Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire. But unsupported by U.N. headquarters and its Security Council far away in New York, Dallaire and his handful of soldiers were incapable of stopping the genocide.
After ten years of mental torture, reliving the horrors daily and more than once attempting suicide, Roméo Dallaire has poured out his soul in an extraordinary book. Shake Hands With The Devil is a cri de coeur. The General pulls no punches in his condemnation of top UN officials, expedient Belgian policy makers and senior members of the Clinton administration who chose to do nothing as Dallaire pleaded for reinforcements and revised rules of engagement.
Dallaire is convinced that, with a few thousand more troops and a mandate to act pre-emptively, he could have stopped the killings. His impotence, at a time of extreme crisis, preys on his conscience still.
The experienced Canadian documentary production company, White Pine Pictures, secured the documentary rights to General Dallaire’s book and exclusive access to follow him during his first return trip to Rwanda, in April 2004 – the 10th anniversary of the genocide. We were there as he revisited the killing fields that haunt him.
SHAKE HANDS is the most powerful documentary produced about the Rwandan genocide. Unflinching. Gut-wrenching. Challenging. Hard-hitting. This is appointment television for viewers throughout the world who care about human rights and international justice.
SHAKE HANDS is co-presented by the Concordia History Department and the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies as part of the Canada and Darfur Conference. Romeo Dollaire will speak the following day of this screening…(info below)
2004/Canada/91min
For more details, visit: http://www.cinemapolitica.org
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