[act-ma] Thursday 3/20: "Tears of Gaza" - Free UPandOUT film screening

[pf soto]

<http://rule19.org/download-film/film-140320-tears-of-gaza.pdf>

*Tears of Gaza
*

Showing Thursday, March 20, in Cambridge
[please download & distribute flyer 
<http://rule19.org/download-film/film-140320-tears-of-gaza.pdf>]

Disturbing, powerful and emotionally devastating, /*Tears of Gaza*/ is 
less a conventional documentary than a record—presented with minimal 
gloss—of the 2008 to 2009 bombing of Gaza by the Israeli military (with 
overwhelming approval and support of Israelis).

Norwegian director Vibeke Løkkeberg uses local Palestinian crews to 
provide footage of a Palestinian reality largely unseen by the Western 
media. Løkkeberg’s film tracks the everyday existence of a people living 
in a city ill-prepared to cope with a tragedy of such scale; it captures 
the stories of three children surviving in Gaza's impoverished 
infrastructure.

"/Few antiwar films register with the disturbing immediacy and visceral 
terror of Tears of Gaza. Almost purely observational, "Tears" doesn't 
take sides as much as obliterate politics: the bullet holes in the 
2-year-olds did not arrive by accident... The inherent cruelty of so 
much of the action, committed against civilians with very little 
infrastructure, services or commercial goods, much less equipment to 
fight fires, comes through loud and clear... Production values are good 
overall, but the cinematography is the standout../." ~ John Anderson, 
Variety

/“We must blow Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all the 
infrastructure Including roads and water/” ~ Eli Yishai, Israeli Deputy 
Prime Minister, 2001

"/The UN has repeatedly found Israeli’s actions in Gaza to be a war 
crime. [destroying infrastructure, targeting civilians, using 
indiscriminate force, using incendiary devices - white phosphorus ...]/  
~Washington's blog

*Excerpt from the film's press kit* (everyone at the screening gets a 
copy - while they last):

    Tears of Gaza demands that we examine the costs of war on a civilian
    populace. The result is horrifying, gut‐wrenching and unforgettable.

    *THE MAKING OF “TEARS OF GAZA”*
    The story of how the filmmakers made a film in Gaza without being
    allowed to cross the border. One night 2008 while watching the news
    on television, Vibeke Løkkeberg saw a story about a boy crying after
    his father was killed during an Israeli bombing in Gaza. Although
    the international press was not allowed into Gaza, she had been able
    to follow the bombings on TV.

    Løkkeberg was shocked that the world media did not work to do a
    better job to cover the attacks on civilians in a densely populated
    region with no place for them to escape. It reminded her of the US
    invasion of Iraq which was reported from a distance. The public was
    not allowed to see any war footage ‐ the damage, violence and
    victims of the attacks.

    Seeing the boy crying made Løkkeberg angry. She felt rage because of
    the devastation and the
    killing of innocent women and children. Løkkeberg decided then that
    she needed to break
    through the wall of silence. She wanted to get to know the people of
    Gaza and meet the
    women and children who are the victims of war. Løkkeberg felt that
    the population was being
    stigmatized as terrorists, yet these were ordinary man, women and
    children like her own family....

And while they last, you also get a free copy of /*Remember These Children*/
[thanks to Bob Cable!]

*When/where*
doors open 6:40; film starts promptly 7pm
243 Broadway, Cambridge - corner of Broadway and Windsor,
entrance on Windsor
rule19.org/videos <http://rule19.org/videos>

Please join us for a stimulating night out; bring your friends!
*free film & free door prizes
****[donations are encouraged]
*feel free to bring your own snacks and soft drinks - no alcohol allowed

"/You can't legislate good will - that comes through education/." ~ 
Malcolm X

*UPandOUT film series* - see rule19.org/videos <http://rule19.org/videos>

Why should YOU care? It's YOUR money that pays for US/Israeli wars - on 
Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Palestine, Libya. Syria, Iran, So America, etc 
etc - for billionaire bailouts, for ever more ubiquitous US prisons, for 
the loss of liberty and civil rights...