HI-HO MISTAHEY!, Alanis Obmsawin (Canada 2013), In English with French subtitles, 100 minutes.
Following the viewing there will be a discussion led by the filmmaker Alanis Obmsawin (TBD).
In her documentary Hi-Ho Mistahey!, Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Shannen’s Dream, a national campaign to provide equitable access to education for First Nations children, in safe and suitable schools. She brings together the voices of those who have successfully brought the Dream all the way to the United Nations in Geneva.
FROM MOHAMMAD TO MAYA, Jeff Roy (USA 2012), 75 minutes
Mohammed to Maya is a feature-length documentary that examines issues of transsexualism, religion, and traditionalism against the backdrop of a single person’s dramatic story. The film follows one year in the life of Maya Jafer (formerly Mohammed Jafer), a 42 year-old Muslim from Chennai, India, as she undergoes sexual reassignment surgery in Bangkok, Thailand.
It’s snowing in Kabul, and gregarious waiter Mustafa charms a pretty student named Wajma. The pair begin a clandestine relationship—they’re playful and passionate but ever mindful of the societal rules they are breaking. After Wajma discovers she is pregnant, her certainty that Mustafa will marry her falters, and word of their dalliance gets out. Her father must decide between his culturally held right to uphold family honor and his devotion to his daughter.
Missing is a political filmmaker extraordinaire Costa-Gavras’s compelling, controversial dramatization of the search for American filmmaker and journalist Charles Horman, who mysteriously disappeared during the 1973 coup in Chile. Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek give magnetic, emotionally commanding performances as Charles’s father and wife, who are led by U.S. embassy and consulate officials through a series of bureaucratic dead-ends before eventually uncovering the terrifying facts about Charles’s fate and disillusioning truths about their government.
