Big Sky Film Fest features Indigenous Films

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival features Indigenous Visions, films by Native American filmmakers
Photo: 'Weaving Worlds' by Navajo Bennie Klain

Big Sky Documentary Film Festival has announced the Official Selections for the seventh annual festival in Missoula, Montana, February 12-21, 2010. Culled from 1000 entries, the ten-day event, which will be held at the historic Wilma Theatre in downtown Missoula, features 130 short and length non-fiction films from over thirty countries.
Special features at this years event include Indigenous Visions: Film By Native American Filmmakers (Sponsored by The Academy Foundation, Humanities Montana, The Native American Studies Department of The University of Montana, ITVS & NAPT) a retrospective of films by prolific filmmaker Doug Pray (Art & Copy, Scratch, Hype!) a presentation of ephemeral documentary shorts by archivist Rick Prelinger, and live musical accompaniment to Dziga Vertovs Soviet propaganda classic Man With A Movie Camera (1929), performed by Alloy Orchestra. Along with parties, receptions, panel discussions, industry events and filmmaker visits to area high schools and university classrooms, the festival anticipates an audience of 10,000 for this years event.
Indigenous Visions: Film By Native American Filmmakers
Century of Genocide (Dir. Rosemary Gibbons)
Indian (Dir. Monica Lowe)
Miss Navajo (Dir. Billy Luther)
Reel Injun (Dir. Neil Diamond)
Trail Of Tears (Dir. Chris Eyre)
Trudell (Dir. Heather Rae)
Unreserved (Dir. Tracy Rector)
Weaving Worlds (Dir. Bennie Klain)
Wounded Knee (Dir. Stanley Nelson)

More Big Sky films at:

http://www.bigskyfilmfest.org/

Obama selects George Bush for Haiti disaster

Obama's selection of Bush for Haiti relief, ties with Obama's Nobel Peace Prize as the most horrendous error. Profiteering from misery is what Bush does best.

'Face of the Empire'
By Brenda Norrell
Narcosphere

President Obama selected war criminal and corporate thief George W. Bush to head up US relief efforts to Haiti, along with Bill Clinton.

No, this is not a joke or satire. It is not a Saturday Night Live spoof. It is a fact.

Now, the Clinton and Bush duo is pleading with Americans to donate to Haiti relief by way of them.

What percentage of donated money and goods will ever reach those in need if Bush and his circle of thieves are involved?

Remember Hurricane Katrina? Remember the people on rooftops, waving for rescue, day after day on the television news? Remember when day after day no one came to their aid? Remember Katrina. Remember who sent Blackwater assassins to New Orleans during Katrina relief? Remember the toxic FEMA trailer houses for the poor? Remember the good ole boys that said shooting blacks after Katrina was like "pheasant hunting in South Dakota" (as documented in film)?

This is George Bush's legacy during Katrina relief.

Remember the Bush/Cheney years, with torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions, with kidnappings and secret prisons and the corporate warmongering and genocide that caused the US to become one of the most hated nations in the world?

Why bring back Bush?

For anyone who doubted who Obama is, and what he is up to, the choice of Bush should make it clear.

New York Times article on the selection of Bush for Haiti relief:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/14/us/politics/politics-us-quake-haiti-obama.html
--Censored News

Israel reveals fears of non-violent activists, international boycott and the Zapatistas

This article on the imprisonment of Palestinian human rights activists, reveals Israel's fear of non-violent activists, an international boycott and the Zapatistas. It also speaks of Elbit Systems, Israel's defense contractor. Elbit is the border wall/surveillance contractor at both the Apartheid border wall of Palestine, and at the US/Mexico border wall by way of a subcontract with Boeing.

ISRAEL RELEASES PALESTINIAN BOYCOTT ACTIVISTS
The Media Line
http://www.themedialine.org/news/print_news_detail.asp?NewsID=27721

International campaign ends in release of two prominent Palestinian activists.
Excerpts:
A prominent West Bank activist said by Palestinian groups to be the first Palestinian imprisoned for promoting an international boycott of Israel has been released after being detained by Israel for over 100 days without charge. Mohammad Othman, a 34 year old resident of the West Bank village of Jayyous, was released Wednesday after 113 days in Israeli custody.
Palestinian advocacy groups believe Othman to be the first Palestinian imprisoned solely for advocacy of the international boycott movement against Israel. "I was interrogated every single day for 75 days from 8am until 6.30pm and sometimes until midnight," Othman told The Media Line. "The entire time I was held in isolation. Physically they did not touch me, but it really damages a person to be in isolation. They also played all kinds of games, telling me they will arrest my brother, my friends and the journalists writing about me."
Despite being a legal resident of Jerusalem entitled to legal rights similar to those afforded to Israeli citizens, Juma was processed in Israel's military court system in the same legal procedures used by Israel for West Bank Palestinians like Mohammad Othman.
"This experience made it much clearer to me how much the non-violent Palestinian movement freaks them out," Juma told The Media Line. "They see how our movement is opening the eyes of the world to the oppression of the Palestinians and they are determined to stop it but they don't know what to do. They can't call us terrorists so they bring people like me into jail without any real legal way to charge us."
"They accused me of incitement and contact with terrorist organizations," he said. "It's so silly they even accused me of contact with the Zapatistas [laughing]. I told them 'Do you think that when I meet 60,000 people at conferences I ask everyone there 'Do you have a problem with Israel? Are you part of a terrorist organization?' In the end they dropped it of course and didn't charge me with anything at all because none of it made any sense."
Read article:
http://www.themedialine.org/news/print_news_detail.asp?NewsID=27721
By Benjamin Joffe-Walt on Thursday, January 14, 2010

UN Report paints grim picture of conditions for world's Indigenous Peoples

UN report paints starkly grim picture of conditions of world’s Indigenous Peoples
http://www.unobserver.com

Photo: Guatemala Health Care Project

2010-01-14 The world’s 370 million Indigenous Peoples suffer from disproportionately, often exponentially, higher rates of poverty, health problems, crime and human rights abuses, the first ever United Nations study on the issue reported today, stressing that self-determination and land rights are vital for their survival.Startling figures contained in The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples include: MORE http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33484&Cr=indigenous&Cr1 The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/sowip.html UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii
"True, the white man brought great change. But the varied fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of civilization to maim, rob, and thwart, then what is progress? I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.... " -- Chief Luther Standing Bear, in his 1933 autobiography