Why Has Brussels Become The Terrorist Capital Of Europe?

Is it really the terrorist capital?

From the director of UC Berkeley's Institute of European Studies:

Belgium has a sad record. With some 450 jihadists, it is Europe’s largest contributor per capita of ISIS fighters in Syria. The country has also been mentioned in connection to a series of recent ISIS attacks: In May 2014, a returned jihadist from Syria opened fire at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. In January 2015, two suspected jihadists were shot by the police in the city of Verviers. In August 2015, two members of the U.S. military stopped a jihadist attacker who had boarded a train in Brussels.

Business Insider offers similar statistics  and then goes on:

Muslim immigrants are not well integrated into Belgian society despite decades of immigration there from countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, and Algeria. 

While Muslim Belgians make up only 4% to 6% of the country’s population, some politicians say their very presence threatens the Belgian way of life. 

Wearing a face veil can earn you a $200 fine in Belgium, and far-right anti-immigrant political groups have achieved healthy levels of support. 

Vlaams Belang, a Flemish political party that has advocated deporting Muslim immigrants who don’t renounce their faith, has achieved upward of 20% of the vote in some regional elections.

When I was a student in Germany back in the mid-60's one rarely ever saw a dark-skinned person.  Well, not unless you include Italians and Greeks as dark-skinned.  They were in Germany as guest workers because after the war, Germany had a shortage of men to work in the factories.  Then came Turks.  These folks, originally, were expected to return to their countries when the work was done.  But things don't work out the way you planned.

The rest of northern Europe had varying degrees of guest workers.  Some had immigrants from former colonies after liberation of the those colonies.  In any case, all these countries were relatively homogenous before all this.  I say relatively because there were Jews, Gypsies, and other stray populations.  And, of course, Switzerland is divided into three different language groups.

And the Belgians, even before 'others' came, were divided among the Flemish speakers and the French speakers.  The linguistic disagreements spilled over into policy disagreements and after the June 2010 election, it took 540 days for the Belgians to form a government.

My sense from the visits I've had in Belgium coincides with the Business Insider quote about poor integration.  This is true, of course, of the other European countries with large Muslim populations, but Belgium seems even worse.  Some may stem from the fact that the Flemish and the Walloons (French speakers) already don't get along that well and they don't have time for getting to know and understand their new citizens.  Instead the immigrants end up in ghettoes and feel unwelcome.  Ripe for recruitment.

It's tricky using US standards to judge what's happening in European nations.  Our history of race relations - from Native Americans, to African-Americans, to Japanese-Americans, and Latin-Americans - is pretty dismal and we have hundreds of years of history.

Original photos (bf) from Daily Mail  and (wf) here.

But this looks bad.  Again, most whites in the US know very clearly that blackface is insulting and demeaning.  I don't know the context in Belgium.   For them things we would consider blatant racism is stuff that they might think, "Oh, I didn't know that was offensive."  That, of course, is the case for more subtle things in the US, like telling someone with Asian features how good their English is (without considering that they might be native-born Americans.)   That's my short preface on this picture I photoshopped and the story below of the Belgian foreign minister, Didier Rehnders from last March.

From Al Jazeera

"Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders appeared in blackface at an annual folklore festival in Brussels on Saturday, causing an international media storm that put a spotlight on the country's race relations and led to calls for the former colonial power to grapple with its bloody history.
Dressed as an “African notable,” according to the City of Brussels, Reynders tweeted a picture of himself at the Noirauds event, a yearly festival dating back to 1876. At the rally, Belgium’s wealthy citizens don top hats, ruffs and blackface — all under the eye of Belgium’s Queen Paola, who presides over Les Noirauds, or The Blacks. The country’s elite collect money for disadvantaged children and a kid's trip to the circus.
 The images quickly circulated around the world after French broadcaster France2 reported on the event, noting that the tradition’s imagery could appear racist but that this didn’t dissuade Reynders from taking part.
 The minister told the broadcaster it was “a very enjoyable experience” to participate in the folkloristic tradition while raising money for the children. “I think that’s what counts most today,” he said."  [emphasis added]

Hey, it's just folklore, nothing racist.  Just imagine John Kerry showing up in blackface and saying it's just folk tradition.

So what folk tradition?  From an NBC story which says that Black Pete helps Saint Nicholas at Christmas time.  His picture on merchandise greatly boosts sales.  You know how touchy some American Christians get about tinkering with their Christmas traditions.  Here's from the NBC report:

Traditionalists say Black Pete is just part of an innocent children's holiday which also includes singing songs, exchanging poems, gifts and spending time with family. Some even say he only appears Black because he was covered in soot when he came down the chimney bearing gifts. For them, it is in no way associated with slavery or racism. 

However, those against the tradition quickly point out that the character comes from the 19th century children's book "Saint Nicholas and His Servant," in which the servant, Black Pete is described as a Black Moor from Spain. While Black Pete may be part of Dutch folklore, his portrayal is part of historically negative stereotypes of Black people dating back to colonialism.  [emphasis added]

And Belgium's history of colonialism is particularly nasty.  The Belgians were late getting colonies. In part because Belgium didn't gain its independence from Holland until 1830.  According to Wikipedia the Belgians tried to make a deal to colonize Hawaii, but that fell through.

"Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by his nation's lack of international power and prestige, tried to persuade the government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's creating a colony on his own account. With support from a number of Western countries, who viewed Leopold as a useful buffer between rival colonial powers on the Continent, Leopold achieved international recognition for a personal colony, the Congo Free State, in 1885."

And as I said, King Leopold's rule was particularly brutal.

Excerpted from History Today:

Leopold’s hell operated by an insane logic. Villages were set quotas of rubber and the gendarmerie were sent in to collect it – a process that was sped up by looting, arson and rape. If a village failed to reach its quota hostages would be taken and shot. To ensure that the gendarmerie didn’t waste their bullets hunting for food, they were required to produce the severed hands of victims. As a consequence a trade in severed hands developed among the villagers and those police that couldn’t reach their quotas. . . 

. . . Sheppard, a Presbyterian missionary, recalled in his diary passing by more than a dozen burned villages. He was taken to the headquarters of a gendarmerie recruit called Mlumba Nkusa, described by Sheppard as ‘a most repulsive looking man’ because his teeth were filed into sharp points, his eyebrows were shaven and his eyelashes plucked out. Leopold had demanded that Mlumba collect 60 slaves and a huge amount of rubber, but only eight slaves and 2,500 balls of rubber had been gathered. ‘I think we killed between 80 and 90,’ said Mlumba of the local workers. He took Sheppard to a hut reserved for the rape of hostages and to another for the preservation of collected hands. Sheppard counted 81 hands hanging over the fire. The Congolese horror ended when international outrage compelled the Belgian state to take control of the colony in 1908. Estimates for the number of people killed range between two and 15 million, easily putting Leopold in the top ten of history’s mass murderers. When he died in 1909 the king’s funeral cortege was booed. Conceptually Leopold’s reign of terror was a bridge between the imperialism of the 19th century and the totalitarianism of the 20th.  [emphasis added]

Belgium is the home of the EU.  It's a modern country in many ways.  Its people are educated.  But on these issues, apparently not well-educated.  It has a bloody colonial history and its elite seem to be clueless about their immigrants' cultures and needs.   There's nothing here for Americans to get smug about since Americans are mostly unaware of their white privilege and bristle when it's pointed out.  American blacks are better integrated into our society.  They breast-fed and raised the kids of slave owners.  Yet they still get treated horribly by our justice system.  More horribly than others.

None of this is intended to excuse, in any way, ISIS terrorist attacks.  But I'm guessing that if immigrants to Belgium were treated with respect and helped to become part of Belgian culture, they wouldn't find ISIS recruiters so tempting.  But when the Flemish and the French in Belgium still take 540 days to agree on forming a government, it's understandable why they don't get along better with their immigrants.

And that doesn't mean that warm, hospitable treatment of each immigrant would eliminate every extremist among  their Muslim population.  After all, there are extremists among Christians and among Jews as well.  (And other religions too.)  I suspect you'll find, among these folks, a number of people using fundamental religion as a cover for whatever social and mental issues they have.

Note:  I'm not an expert on Belgium.  Over the last twenty years or so, I've been to Brussels maybe five times - for professional conferences and to visit a first cousin of my father.  I've done some googling to check my acquired knowledge.  I've also spent time talking to people about immigrant issues in Germany, both Muslims and ethnic Germans.  And I've looked around the internet to supplement what I know, also double checking the facts I've found to make sure I'm not quoting some  outliers nobody else agrees with.

AIFF 2015: Best of The Fest Friday Night Offerings

After the main part of the festival is over, the best films in key categories are shown again to give folks a chance to see them.  Here's the schedule for tonight (Friday, Dec. 18).  All the showings are at the AK Experience Theater - large or small.

This screenshot has no working links.  Original, here, gives details.

If you're interested in documentaries, you have to choose between one or the other.

Circus Without Borders is an uplifting story about acrobats in the Canadian Arctic who connect with acrobats in Guinea.  An enjoyable film about cooperation of people from distant lands who have a common bond.  It was the runner up in the documentary category.



It plays with the best short doc - which because of how things were scheduled I didn't get to see - that deals with the Canadian tar sands from a Native perspective.  It should be good.
7pm at AK Exp Large

Madina's Dream,  which was awarded best documentary, is  harder movie to watch, but with much more important information.  On the broadest level, it's about the consequences of the arms trade.  On a specific level, it shows us two views of the Nuba people of the south of Sudan.  One view is from the women and children in a refugee camp in the new country of South Sudan.  The other view is from their men who are still in Sudan fighting the Sudanese army who are taking over their traditional land.   7pm AK Exp Small








Orphans and Kingdoms  - Best feature winner.  Another I didn't get to see.  8:30 pm AK Experience Large.   Here's the trailer.







Also showing at 8:30pm  AK Experience small is top winner of the Alaska Made films - Heart of Alaska - a cross country trek with kids in Southcentral Alaska.


Enjoy.

AIFF 2015: Saturday Afternoon Report

It's been a hard day.  I started out at the Bear Tooth watching The Incredible Adventure of JoJo,  which wasn't bad.  Basically, it was a Little Red Riding Hood story of two very young kids - seven and maybe 18 months - finding their way back to grandma's house after mom drives off the road and doesn't wake up.  It started off with some snarky humor for the parents, but that faded away pretty fast and I got impatient.  I wondered whether it was a movie I'd take my three year old granddaughter too, and I think not.  Probably seven year old boy is perfect. 

Then downtown to watch the best film of the day, for me, The Descendants, an Iranian film that tells the story of less affluent students studying in the west from any country.  When his son has not contacted the family back in Iran, the father travels to Sweden to find his son and discovers a number of students whose lives are much less successful than the stories they are sending home.  Scholarships  don't exist, they are working many hours to support their studies, and living precariously from day to day.  The father was a strong character as were the students he meets in Upsala.  But I think of the much richer presentation of the same basic story that are in books like The Americanah and this film is pretty superficial in comparison.  We get told that things are hard, but but didn't get much detail of why.

I do have audience reaction on video for the filmmakers who couldn't be here, but did, through an intro before the film, ask for such feedback.  Look for that later - both in English and Farsi.

The last film I saw was Madina's Dream.  This is the sort of documentary that everyone who lives comfortably in a nation that sells arms to the rest of the world should see.  It's just video of kids and their mom's in the Yiba refugee camp in South Sudan and the men fighting against the Sudan national army to keep their land in the Nuba Mountains.  I don't recall any narrative, just subtitles to translate for us.  This film didn't create a story to package this for us, like many docs do, and that was refreshing.  But it was pretty depressing.  And this sort of thing is repeated here and there all over the world.

OK, my last show is about to begin - Midori in Japan.  I hope this is a little lighter.

[Reposting for Feedburner issues.]

AIFF 2015: Documentaries In Competition -Tsunami, Circus, Whales, Murder, Genocide, Poland, Family, And More

AIFF 2015: Documentaries In Competition 

The Documentaries have been one of the strongest parts of the Anchorage International Film Festival and this year looks like no exception. I've been working on this post on and off for two weeks now and I need to move on to other parts of the festival.  

"In competition" means these films were selected by the screeners to be eligible for awards at the festival.  "Features" are 'stories' that are full length. While there are always other features which different folks like better than those in competition, it's a good bet these are among the best features at the festival.  This year's picks are all from outside the US.

The point of this post isn't to tell you what each of the features in competition are about, but rather to just give you a glimpse of something about the film I found interesting.

I've added when the films play with the overview of each film.  (Let me know if you catch any errors.)  If you have to make hard decisions, I'd recommend going to the films where the filmmakers will be present, which I've marked in red.  When you're using the festivals schedule program - you need to put the name of the film into search to be sure you're seeing all the times it's playing (usually two.)

Here's the whole list and below I look at each film. 

Docs in Competition	Director	Country	Length
Children of the Arctic	Nick Brandestini	Switzerland	93 min
Lost & Found	Nicolina Lanni, John Choi	Canada	82 min
Love Between the Covers	Laurie Kahn	Australia, United States	83 min
Circus Without Borders	Susan Gray, Linda Matchan	United States	69 min
Madina’s Dream	Andrew Berends	United States	80 min
Bihttoš	Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers	Canada	14 min
Man in the Can	Noessa Higa	United States	38 min
Superjednostka	Teresa Czepiec	Poland	20 min
The House is Innocent	Nicholas Coles	United States	12 min

Director Brandestini from film's press kit photos

Children of the Arctic
Nick Brandestini 
Switzerland √
99 min
1.  Sun Dec. 6:00-7:00 pm
5pm   Filmmakers Attending 
Bear Tooth

2.  Wed Dec. 9
6:00- 8:00pm  Filmmakers Attending
Museum

Outsiders coming to a place are often derided by people who live there.  They don't really understand what is happening.  They don't know the history.  But outsiders also see things that insiders take for granted.  Last year's Shield and Spear was a wonderful film by a Swede, Petter Ringbom,  who spent a relatively short time in South Africa looking at the fringe art scene.   Children of the Arctic is a

" is a year-in-the-life portrait of Native Alaskan teenagers coming of age in Barrow"

Below is a Santa Barbara tv interview with director Nick Brandestini that includes the trailer.  Having a Santa Barbara perspective gives it an extra twist.

Lost & Found

Nicolina Lannie, John Choi 

Canada √

82 min

1.  Wed. Dec 9

5:30am –  7:30pm  Filmmakers Attending

Bear Tooth

2.  Sun Dec. 13

11:30 am - 1:30 pm

AK Experience Small

I'm sure the filmmakers are sick of hearing about Ruth Ozeki's book, A Tale For The Time Being
about a Canadian woman who finds a diary on the beach that has come over from Japan along with other tsunami debris.  But it's what I thought of as I saw the trailer of this film, which tells the story of people finding the debris in the US and Canada and getting some of it back to the people it belonged to.  But the novel and this film appear to treat these events very differently.  Looks like a film worth watching.


Lost & Found Official Trailer from Frank Films on Vimeo.


Lost & Found Official Trailer from Frank Films on Vimeo.

From Circus w/o Borders website

Circus Without Borders
Susan Gray, Linda Matchan 
United States √
69 min
1.  Sunday, Dec. 6
 12:00pm - 2:00pm 
 Bear Tooth
2.  Thursday, December 10
7:00pm –  8:45pm
AK Experience Small

"CIRCUS WITHOUT BORDERS is a documentary about Guillaume Saladin and Yamoussa Bangoura, best friends and world-class acrobats from remote corners of the globe who share the same dream: To bring hope and change to their struggling communities through circus. Their dream unfolds in the Canadian Arctic and Guinea, West Africa, where they help Inuit and Guinean youth achieve unimaginable success while confronting suicide, poverty and despair.
Seven years in the making, this tale of two circuses — Artcirq and Kalabante — is a culture-crossing performance piece that offers a portal into two remote communities, and an inspiring story of resilience and joy." [from CWB website]

Love Between the Covers
Laurie Kahn 
Australia, United States √
83 min
1.  Sat Dec. 5
2:30pm –  4:30pm  Filmmakers Attending 

Bear Tooth
2.  Sat Dec 12
8:00 - 9:45
AK Experience Small

This is the story of the women who write romance novels.  From  a USA today interview with film maker Laurie Kahn:

"Christyna: What prompted you to make the documentary Love Between the Covers?
Laurie: I want to bring the lives and work of compelling women to the screen, because any industry dominated by women is typically dismissed as trivial and “merely domestic.” My previous films — A Midwife’s Tale and Tupperware! – are very different from one another, but they were both shaped by my desire to look honestly at communities of women who haven’t been taken seriously (but should be), who deserve to be heard without being mocked.
I think there’s a lot to be learned by looking at the communities that women build. As you and your readers know better than I do, the romance community has been dismissed for decades, even though romance fiction is the behemoth of the publishing industry."

I'd note today's (Nov 14)  LA Times story about a romance novel cover model that says,

"The debate over the relative merits of the romance genre is so tired it’s not even worth having anymore. The market is huge, generating an estimated $1.4 billion, making it by far the top-selling literary genre, outperforming mysteries, inspirational books, science fiction and fantasy, and horror.    Romance has spawned an academic discipline with its own forum, 'The Journal of Popular Romance Studies,' which describes itself as 'a double-blind peer reviewed interdisciplinary journal exploring popular romance fiction and the logics, institutions, and social practices of romantic love in global popular culture.'”

I'm guessing these showings will be packed. 

Here's the trailer:

Screenshot from trailer

Madina’s Dream

Andrew Berends 

United States √

80 min

1.  Sat. Dec. 5

4:00pm –  6:00pm

AK Experience Small

2.  Wednesday, December 9
AK Experience Large
6-8pm

From Indiewire:

"Berend's film follows the inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains, who are under a constant barrage of attacks from the Sudanese government (the instruments of war are so commonplace, that the children even mold toy models of RPGs and machine gun-mounted tanks out of clay). This unflinching look at a war-torn group of people focuses on Madina and her fervent dream to return home -- if only a pair of ruby slippers could do some magic here.

Short Docs - colors show which programs they're in

Bihttoš
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers 
Canada √
14 min
Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8
7:00pm –  9:00pm  
AK Experience Small
Warning:  This is the only showing I see for this one.

This film about a father/daughter relationship has been called 'unconventional' and is both live and animated.  It won the GRAND JURY PRIZE | Best Short: Documentary. at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Everywhere I look they have the same description of the film.  So I'm going with a bit of description about the film maker from her website.

"Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is an emerging filmmaker, writer, and actor. She is both Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation as well as Sámi from Norway. After studying acting at Vancouver Film School in 2006, she went on to work in film and TV with credits in Not Indian Enough, White Indians Walking, The Guard, The Reaper, Shattered, and Another Cinderella Story. In 2009, she appeared onstage in the Presentation House Theatre’s production of Where the River Meets the Sea."

From what I got out of reading that same description over and over again. I can tell you it's short, about a woman and her father, And there's animation.



"Bihttoš" Trailer from Elle-Maija A. Tailfeathers on Vimeo.

Czepiec winning Special Mention at GoShort Festival

Superjednostka 
Teresa Czepiec 
Poland √
20 min
1.  Short Docs Program Tuesday, Dec. 8
7:00pm –  9:00pm  
AK Experience Small
2.  Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11
2:30 - 4:30 pm
Bear Tooth 


If you're like me, as you wander the world, you wonder about things like, "who lives in this town, in this building, in this house?"   Well this film answers that question, apparently, for a large block of apartments in Poland. 

Superjednostka to ogromny blok mieszkalny zaprojektowany zgodnie z ideą Le Corbusiera  jako "maszyna do mieszkania".  Na 15 kondygnacjach budynku może mieszkać nawet 3 tysiące ludzi. Winda zatrzymuje się co 3. piętro więc mieszkańcy, żeby dojść do swoich mieszkań, muszą pokonać prawdziwy labirynt korytarzy i schodów. Głównymi bohaterami filmu dokumentalnego są  ludzie zamieszkujący wnętrze Superjednostki i przeżywający w niej ważne chwile swojego życia. Tu pulsują ich emocje, rodzą się oczekiwania i spełniają się - lub nie spełniają- ich pragnienia.

Here's what google translate does with that:

"Superjednostka a huge block of flats designed in the spirit of Le Corbusier as a "machine for living" . At 15 floors of the building can accommodate up to 3000 people. The elevator stops at the third floor so the inhabitants to come to their homes , they must overcome a maze of corridors and stairs. The main characters of the documentary are people living in the interior Superjednostka and surviving in the important moments of your life . Here are flashing their emotions , raise expectations and meet - or not fulfilling their desires ."

From an interview with the film maker at Polish Docs:

Before shooting the film, I spent a year meeting the inhabitants. The formal assumptions behind the film were already agreed upon. I knew that we were looking for interesting people of various ages, from children to the elderly. What worked was chance and methodical actions. The first person I met was Zbigniew, one of the conservators, who was busy closing the window of his workshop. At first he was reluctant, but in the end he was persuaded to allow us to shoot here for the documentation. We were also looking for the protagonists by going from door to door. Sometimes it happened that we had already arranged to meet someone, and they changed their plans and declined. But going to the corridor or to the lift, we met someone else, an equally interesting person, who wanted to participate in the documentary film. I know that I did not include some of the stories, but it was impossible to do so, taking into account the huge number of them. What is in the film is the result of months of preparations and of chance, of what we managed to observe on location and during editing. Paradoxically, it seems to me that it reflects the substance of the case rather faithfully.

SUPER-UNIT/ (Superjednostka) - trailer for documentary film by Teresa Czepiec, 2014' from Wajda Studio on Vimeo.

The House is Innocent
Nicholas Coles 
United States √
12 min
1.  Short Docs Program - Sun.  Dec. 6
5:30pm –  7:30pm 
AK Experience Large 
2.  Martini Matinee Friday Dec 11
2:30 - 4:30 pm Filmmakers Attending
Bear Tooth 



Here's another film that explores who lives in the house you pass walking down the street.  This house was owned by a serial killer and now there are new owners trying to make it their home. They'll be on the same program at the Martini Matinee, Friday at 2:30 at the Bear Tooth. 





The House is Innocent - Trailer from Blackburn Pictures on Vimeo.

Man in the Can
Noessa Higa 
United States √
38 min
Short Docs Program - Sun.  Dec. 6
5:30pm –  7:30pm 
AK Experience Large 
Warning:  This is the only showing I see for this one.

This film took the award for the Best Texas Film at the Hill Country Film Festival

From Wrangler Network:

"While the film focuses on the tight-knit rodeo community and small-town America, it tells a more universal story about following your dream, second chances and the sacrifices that can come from following your passion.
“Ronald was really open to the process of being filmed,” Higa said. “He gives people a glimpse into rodeo culture, which is fascinating and wildly entertaining. Everyone can relate to having a dream, and I think audiences will be pulling for him to get into the PRCA.”

According to Ronald Burton's website, he performed at a rodeo in Anchorage SEPTEMBER 5 & 6.  State Fair maybe? Anyone see him there?



[Once again, reposting because of Feedburner problems, sorry. But there's lots in this post so if you saw it already, I bet there's stuff you skipped the first time.]

Why Wasn't I Surprised That The Guy Who Killed Cecil The Lion Was A Dentist?

It's been a while since I noticed the DDS on the ends of the names of people who have trophy bears in the Anchorage Airport. 

These are only two bears representing two dentists over a 40 year period so let's not jump to conclusions about dentists. Yet.  .  .
Not all the stuffed bears at the airport had their shooters identified, but a couple that did were hunting or fishing guides.


Dr. Walter Palmer of Minnesota, is reported to have said of the death of Cecil:

“I hired several professional guides, and they secured all proper permits,” read a statement from Palmer to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted.”
He added: “I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favorite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt. I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt. I deeply regret that my pursuit of an activity I love and practice responsibly and legally resulted in the taking of this lion."

Let's remember that most of us know almost nothing about Dr. Palmer and we're filling in the details to fit our own belief systems.  I think we all have a tendency to believe what we want to believe - those of us reading the stories and Dr. Palmer himself..  He wanted a lion and the guys he contacted said they'd get him one.  How carefully did he look into their credentials?  How would an American hunter even check Zimbabwean credentials?  As for the rest of us, many are blasting some version of the evil hunter killing innocent animals.   Others are praising the good hunters and singling Palmer out as the bad apple that gives all hunters a bad rep.

While I'm not likely to let this guy off easily, the real issue to me is: what is it that causes grown men, with a good education to want to go out and kill animals, not for food, but for trophies?  (And a follow up question that I won't explore here, is how this sort of killing connected to killing human beings?)   My representative in Congress is known for his wall full of animal heads and hides. He even missed a key subcommittee vote because he was on safari in South Africa.  I had a student once who explained how hunting was a bonding experience between him and his dad.  I get that, and I'm glad my dad and I bonded over other things, like hiking, books, art, baseball, and movies, rather than killing animals.

Some defend hunting as part of their cultural tradition and point out how hunters help protect the environment where animals live.  I think there's merit to those arguments, up to a point.  There are lots of traditions that modern societies no longer openly practice - like slavery, like beating kids as punishment, like cock and dog fighting,  like burning witches, like exorcising demons, or child labor and child marriage.

I look at that picture of Dr. Eberle and wonder what he was thinking at the time.  I too like to shoot animals, but with my camera rather than a gun.  That allows me a connection with the animal, but allows the animal to go on living and for others to enjoy seeing them too.   What causes grown men to want to kill big animals and display them?  Is it some sort of feelings of inadequacy, of lack of power?  Is it part of the DNA  they inherited from ancestors who hunted for survival?

A New Zealand study, done to help a government agency prepare to manage hunting on public estates, looked at lots of previous studies to try to determine motivations and satisfactions of hunters. 

Decker and Connelly (1989) proposed three categories of motivations; achievement oriented, affiliation oriented, and appreciation oriented.

• -Achievement oriented hunters are motivated by the attainment of a particular goal,  which may be harvesting an animal for meat, a trophy or a display of skill.

• -Affiliation oriented hunters participate in hunting with the primary purpose of fostering personal relationships with friends, family or hunting companions.

• -Appreciation oriented hunters are motivated by a desire to be outdoors, escape everyday stress or to relax.

The study goes on to list a much wider range of specifics, that tend to fall into these categories.  It doesn't seem to get into deeper psychological reasons such as the need to demonstrate power (maybe getting a trophy is the proxy for this) or where these needs come from.  Why some people (mostly men) have such a need to kill animals and others do not.  There's lots to ponder here. 

I'd also note that the Alaska Dental Association strongly opposed the use of dental aides to perform basic dental work in rural Alaska.  Most, I'm sure, believed that dentists would give better care and that aides lacked the extensive training necessary to make critical decisions.  They didn't seem to weigh the benefits of many, many more kids and adults getting very simple basic dental care and education that local aides could provide in an area where few dentists lived.    I think their belief was genuine, but colored by their own conscious or unconscious self interests.  As are most all of our beliefs. One such interest was simply the same as all professional licensing - limiting the amount of competition.  Also dentists could fly out to rural Alaska and see patients and also go hunting and fishing on the side.  That is true of many urban, non-Native Alaskans who provide professional services in rural Alaska.  And my saying it shouldn't cause people to question the motives of people who do such work.  But we should be aware of how such side benefits might bias one's beliefs about what's right and wrong, good and bad.

When it comes to endangered species, there are bigger issues  - like resource extraction that destroys habitat, like overpopulation that impinges on wild habitat for housing and food.  And climate change which is changing the landscape world wide.  We should be concerned with individual abuses such as luring a well known collared lion out of a refuge to be shot.  But the bigger environmental trends are much more impactful and threatening to all living things, including humans.  These are the least immediately visible and seemingly the hardest to fight.  But there are ways and many people are pursuing them.  One just has to look, and the internet makes that easy. 

Anchro-Pop Closes Out Diversity Celebration In Anchorage Today

Henna painting at the Somali table.

















The Hmong table had embroidered history lessons, as well as a book on the role of Laos and the Hmong in the Vietnam War. 








The Norwegian table.

The politicians who worked with the community to set the festival up.  Elvi Gray-Jackson (black dress), Assembly member Anchorage, Geran Tarr, state representative from this district, and Ethan Berkowitz, mayor elect.  The pastor was presiding over a vigil in memory of the Charleston church shooting victims.  The recent Supreme Court decisions had also been lauded.

Yu'pik (I think) dancers. 






















And this young man got his face painted with what looks like an old Yu'pik mask design. 












And the title of this post?  Well, it's what I thought of as I listened to Gambian born Anchorage singer, Ousman Jarju (OJ), and the Rebel Clef.   It's Afro-pop with an Anchorage flavor. He transformed a mall parking lot on a gray day into the place to be.



The Rebel Clef  FB page lists the band members.

"Johnnie wright III-Keyboardist /Music director Elivis Crenshaw- Base player Kiah Ward- Drums Ousman Jarju- lead singer Benjamin Blunt- Percussionist Freddie Stokes- saxophone player Angel Wright- Manager ."

 I've posted before about Anchorage having the most diverse census tracts and high school in the nation.  Chad Farrel, the sociologist who's written about this, explains this part of Anchorage, unlike more racially segregated cities, Anchorage has districts with whites as well as a full flavor of ethnic origins.  A follow-up post covers Professor Farrel's presentation at the Alaska Press Club 2014.  I've only highlighted a few that were out this afternoon.  

So, it seems to me, this music is something we can start calling Anchro-pop.  Enjoy the video - I decided to leave the footage as I got it, giving you a sense of being there, and getting it up today. 

AIFF 2014: My Saturday Highlights

I started at the short narratives program Love and Pain.  I missed the first film and came in during the second one.  Of the rest, I particularly liked two:

• Universal Language
• Reaching Home

Based on what I'd read and seen about Universal Language, I was a little unsure if the director would really be able to pull it off.  And at the beginning I still wasn't sure, but it worked very nicely.  An American in Paris meets a Parisian woman - they don't speak each others' languages.  

Reaching Home was just a very good short family drama - family gathering at Thanksgiving - some sibling rivalry among the two adult sons - as they try to resolve what Mom should do about Dad.  Sailing plays a big role in this movie.  This shorts program plays again Thursday evening.

Rocks In My Pockets

Then on to the museum for Rocks In My Pocket.  I was looking forward to this one - an animated feature film where we learn the history of Latvia in the 20th Century through a family in which depression and suicide  are passed on from generation to generation.  This is a film that has had the programmers and judges divided.  The animation programmers didn't even select it to show in the festival.  The feature programmers not only picked it, but made it one of their films in competition.  

The  animation is playful, and relatively simple (not pixar-like) and the story does go on awhile, but all the history gives us context for the end.  This is probably the most unique film in the festival, but if you like Hollywood action films, this one may not be your cup of tea.  

Rocks in My Pockets plays again Sunday (today), Dec. 7, at 5 pm at the Alaska Exp Theater.

Petter Ringbom after showing of his film Shield and Spear

Shield and Spear

Then to the Bear Tooth for the 5:30 film Shield and Spear, a film about cutting edge, generally below the radar artists in South Africa.  The Swedish born director, Petter Ringbom, who lives in New York was here.  Just very briefly, this a beautifully shot film - wonderful images - of artists on the edge in South Africa.  Petter did this as a solo film crew, something that he says helped him gain the trust of the people who filmed.    Interesting topic, well done.  

Shield and Spear plays again today - Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014 at the Alaska Exp Theater (large) at 1pm.

AIFF 2014: Documentaries In Competition - From Seeds and Shields to North Dakota,Coney Island, Mala Mala, Water, and Dismantling Dams

This is an overview of the documentaries the jury selected to be in competition.

How Do Films Get Selected? 
First the films are selected from all those submitted.  Then a certain number from each category is  chosen to be 'in competition'' meaning these are the finalists eligible for an award in the category.

How Many Docs Are There?
The documentary category has, if I counted right, 20 selected films (5 under 30 minutes and 15 over 30 minutes)  and 7 are 'in competition.'  Five are longer documentaries (77-89 minutes) and  two are shorter (20 and 35 minutes).

Most of the documentaries are from the US.  There's one identified as Puerto Rico/US, one as Switzerland, and two as Canada.  Not all that international this year.  


My Goal Here: I haven't seen the films.  So I'm just trying to give you a sense of what the films are and how they are scheduled.  I'm trying to find  interesting info on the films, but I'm also recognizing that time is ticking and there are other categories and films to cover.  And these are just the films in competition.

The documentary category has been very strong in recent years.  Even though films aren't in competition, it doesn't mean they aren't worth seeing.  

So check them all out. Here's a list of all the documentaries selected for the festival.

1)  Coney Island: Dreams For Sale

Alessandra Giordano

USA√

80m

Fri. Dec. 12  7pm    Alaska Exp. Small

Sat Dec.  13 12pm  Anchorage Museum

From the Brooklyn Daily, here's the start of their article on how this film was made:>

"The movie is the first feature-length work by filmmaker Alessandra Giordano, who originally intended to make a five-minute short. Giordano, who hails from Italy, was taking a film course at New York University in the summer of 2008, when the fight over Coney’s future was raging, and a friend suggested that she should visit the area.

“They told me it was a place I would enjoy, a place that’s different and interesting and quirky,” said Giordano.

On that trip, Giordano met one of the main characters of her film, Coney carny Anthony Raimondi, owner of the now-defunct Jones Walk booth Gangster Cigars."

And the trailer:

Adapted from images in Divide In Concord press packet

2)  Divide In Concord

Kris Kaczo

USA√

82m
Fri. Dec. 12  3pm Bear Tooth

Sat.Dec. 13  3pm Alaska Exp. Small

From the film's press packet, here's part of the synopsis:

"Jean Hill, a fiery 84-year-old widow and mother of four, wants to ban the sale of bottled water from Concord. Her path begins when her grandson tells her about the disastrous environmental effects of the empty plastic bottles.
Jean presents a bylaw to ban the sale of single-serve plastic bottles at the 2010 and 2011 Town Meetings. After losing by seven votes in 2011, she vows to continue the crusade with neighbor and Harvard Law Grad, Jill Appel. If enacted, the law would be the first of its kind in the world.
But all are not in agreement with the ban. Merchants are wary of the bylaw. Philanthropist, mother, model and celebrity publicist Adriana Cohen takes the fight to the spotlight, calling the ban an attack on freedom. With billions of dollars at stake, The International Bottled Water Association sends in the cavalry."

 The site also includes words from the director, Kris Kaczo:

"The entire documentary was self-funded. It was tough; our van was broken into and died the day of Town Meeting, our hotel almost burnt down and we had two eerie ghost experiences at the Colonial Inn. But we battled on and feel that we honored the story and the town.
Concord is the home of the American Revolution as well as significant literary and environmental movements. Residents are expected to know about Thoreau. A favorite quote became “Heaven is under your feet as well as over your head.” The film is a tribute to Concord. We do not take sides on the ban. Both sides have compelling arguments. "

I'd note that anyone who would like an answer to Adriana Cohen's question, might want to check out the documentary Tapped which was in  AIFF 2009. 



3) Mala Mala
Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini
USA√ 
87m
Mon. Dec. 8,   8pm Bear Tooth
Wed. Dec. 10  7:30 pm  Alaska Exp Small

From their Kickstarter page:

"As a trans person in Puerto Rico, not only does your experience beg the question “am I Puerto Rican, am I American, or am I both?” but also “am I a male, am I a female, or am I both?” This vagueness, this in-betweenness is what most fascinates us as filmmakers, and with this project we hope to share the stories of people who's voices may not otherwise be near enough to reach your ears.

At its core, this film is a people piece.  We are interested in the relationship between the internal and external being, the dynamics between performance and gender, and the power of self-discovery." 

Excerpt from an interview with the designer/fashion website Oak:

"OAK: What do you think was the biggest revelation, or biggest thing that you learned about the trans community and yourselves, when you reflect on the entire experience?

DS: One thing for me personally is that I feel so much more confident in terms of how I understand my own gender. I’ve started to look at certain aspects of myself as maybe being a bit feminine, and I love those parts of myself now. And thinking about myself along those lines puts me in a more complex and interesting position than someone who identifies as something that exists inside a box. I think I’ve learned a lot about the ways we can play with, and grapple with, and fuck gender. Deconstructing gender gives us more room to play with it and understand it and have fun with it.

AS: For me, throughout the project, I think [our subjects] didn’t realize we were watching them living [over the course of 2 1/2 years]. It was like studying. I don’t think we normally do that to other people, so it was kind of a privilege being [so present] in these private lives. One thing about it was that we were seeing their transformations. They had something they desperately needed that was either going to lead themselves to killing themselves, or total depression, or to [becoming who they were]. And we were able to meet them on the other side, and see them about to become what they wanted to become. That power of choice was something I really didn’t understand fully until I met them.

DS: During one interview Ivana told us that in school people would ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she would always say a police man just to get by. What she actually wanted to say was that she wanted to be a woman when she grew up. That really reminded me that the trans experience is universal in a sense that it’s achieving a goal, and becoming what you want to be. It’s no different than that."

4)  Seeds of Time
Sandy McLeod
USA√

Adapted from images at Seeds For Time website

77m
Sat Dec.6  1pm  Anchorage Museum
Thu Dec. 11  5:30pm  Alaska Exp. Small

From the California Academy of Science about McLeod's visit there:

. . . It began in 2007, when McLeod discovered an article in the New Yorker about Cary Fowler, Senior Advisor to the Global Crop Diversity Trust. McLeod was immediately hooked on the story. For the filmmaker, it was time to buckle down and learn about agriculture—both pre- and post-industrialization. “You immerse yourself in the subject,” she explains. “You come to it like an audience member, not knowing much and learning all the time. It was a great learning experience.”

McLeod challenges the audience to think about the industrialization of our food system. “We don’t grow for nutrition to begin with: why? Everything nutritional is taken out, including the antioxidants. Taking out the nutrients can cause the food to go rancid, so then you have to add preservatives. If you just took the whole grain and milled it with all that good stuff still in it, we would have all the nutrients.” She points out that vitamin companies profit from the ‘enriching’ process of reintroducing vitamins, and also reminds us that the entire processed foods industry is not about creating nutrient-rich foods, but about monetizing food production.

These discoveries made McLeod an advocate of sustainable agriculture. She champions the concept of seed vaults—the process of cataloging information about the variety of seeds on the planet and saving physical samples for perpetuity. She discusses the idea of a seed library from which users could ‘check out’ seeds, cultivate the plant, and then re-file the next generation of seeds. “Growing the same things in different environments will help to get some diversity back.” She is also a proponent of citizens getting involved in policy changes that protect seed diversity, limit the amount of food processing, or otherwise help us return to a more robust food systems model. “Resilience is what you need. We cannot sustain this, it’s not sustainable, how do we get it to a place where it supports itself.”

A movie about saving earth's genetic kitchen in the face of climate change.  Nothing too serious here.  You can see the trailer here.

Here's a bit from the director's statement:

"When I met Cary Fowler a whole new world opened up to me. I realized that, although I thought I knew a thing or two about food, the issues that he was grappling with were entirely new to me. And that those issues, largely concerning food security, are issues that anyone who likes to eat should not only know about, but have a say in too.

Cary Fowler is a guy who has almost single-handedly created something of great value for the Global Community. I can’t think of many other global projects that have that kind of absolute value for all of us that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds."

More on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault here.




5)  Shield and Spear
Petter Ringbom
USA√
89m
Sat. Dec 6  5:30pm Bear Tooth
Sun. Dec 7 1:00pm  Alaska Exp. Large

Excerpt from OKayafrica just before the African premiere of the film in Durban, South Africa July 2014.

". . . In gaining that trust, Ringbom has tapped into many of the important dialogues taking place in South Africa, the result being the coherent and incisive conversation central to Shield and Spear.What do you think?

“In some ways the outsider-ship can work both in your favour and against you,” reflects Ringbom. “I think people are more comfortable opening up to a complete outsider. But there’s a duality to it also, where you encounter that question of why are you coming here and taking our stories? It’s something I thought about a lot. It comes with a responsibility not to be exploitative essentially.”What do you think?

Remaining firmly behind the camera, Ringbom has allowed his accomplished cinematography to tell one story, leaving the rest up to the earnest dialogue of his subjects. Together the two combine effectively in capturing the paradoxes present at the heart of any discussions pertaining to freedom in South Africa.What do you think?

“Something which surprised me the most was how emotional this project would be for me,” admits Ringbom. “Maybe it was due to how inspiring, genuine and open the people I met were. All I know is that I haven’t felt this emotionally overloaded in any other project I’ve worked on.”

6)The Strong People
Heather Hoglund
USA√
35m
Sat. Dec. 6  3:30pm Alaska Exp Small   (with White Earth, and other short docs)
Fri. Dec. 12 5:00pm Alaska Exp. Large (with White Earth, and other short docs)

From The Strong People website:

"The Strong People is an award-winning documentary chronicling the largest dam removal project in US history on the Elwha River in Olympic Peninsula, Washington. It is told through the eyes of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe that has long resided in the area, looking specifically at how these dams have affected the life ways of their people. 

The indigenous Klallam have long had their way of life impeded by the dams’ existence. The disruption the dams caused to the river’s salmon runs were not only an economic disaster for the tribe, who relied on the fish for commerce, but also wreaked havoc on the Klallam’s cultural beliefs, of which the salmon are an integral part."

From what I can tell, Heather Hoagland is working at Wander, Wonder, Wilderness in Boston.  Here's what their website says about Hoagland:

"Heather graduated from Emerson College in 2013. She is currently a freelance documentary filmmaker in Boston. Her senior thesis project, The Strong People, documenting the largest dam removal in United States History, has picked up numerous accolades at film festivals and events worldwide. Heather’s passion lies in creating cross platform projects concerning environmental issues. An avid runner and cyclist in the city, your only chance of seeing her is in brief glimpses as she zips around the city to her next destination." 

Here's the trailer:






7) White Earth
J. Christian Jensen
USA√
20m

Sat. Dec. 6  3:30pm Alaska Exp Small   (with The Strong People, and other short docs)

Fri. Dec. 12 5:00pm Alaska Exp. Large (with The Strong People, and other short docs)

This film won  a  2014 STUDENT ACADEMY AWARD Silver Medal in the Documentary category.

From a review by Whitney McIntosh in the Stanford Arts Review:

"Although he initially wanted to interview workers in the oil industry, he met resistance in a suspicious bureaucracy of permission-giving and media-anxiety. He thus “shifted to looking at the way that these industrial processes existed in the landscape,” a landscape both natural and emotional. He said that he “wanted it to be a nuanced, intimate exploration of people, and children,” spurring more prevalent themes of juxtaposing industry against environment, technology against nature. The male oil workers exist in the background, while what are normally peripheral voices of children and family members are brought center stage, and express themselves with remarkable clarity. 

Although Jensen had made plans to focus on a single family, a week before he was to start production, Jensen received a call from the father explaining changed family circumstances and their inability to continue with the film. He recalls, “I had to sort of pivot really quick to do something else. And fortunately I had cast a really wide net when I was doing my research, and I had met a couple children, and there was one child in particular, whose name was James that I met by chance.” We meet James, an adolescent boy living with his father, from the outset of the film. His commentary is unusual and compelling, as he is sharply conscious of the central paradoxes of the circumstances of the town of White Earth, which is slowly growing, but without the infrastructural capacity for this growth."

>


Scheduling
It's often hard to figure out how to see all the films in competition in a category.  At least the documentaries aren't scheduled at the same time (except the two shorter ones  - White Earth and The Strong People which play in the same program so it's easy to seem them both.)

I've made a calendar of the documentaries in competition.

Click to enlarge

This makes it look easy.  But there are lots of other documentaries you might want to see.  And then there are feature films, animated films, shorts, etc.  But this is a starting point.  Once more, here's a list of all the documentaries selected for the festival.