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Screening of "The Trap"

Screening of the Independent Film
"The Trap"
Tuesday, January 13 - 6 p.m.

A modern film noir reflecting the true face of Serbian "society in transition," It's a story that could happen to you. An ordinary man is forced to choose between life and death of his own child. THE TRAP is a film about post-Milosevic's Serbia, in which there is no more war, only a moral and existential desert. This is Serbia in transition, in which human life is worth little, and normal life remains almost unreachable. English subtitles.

Screening of "The Choking Man"

Join us on Wednesday, December 3 at 6 p.m. for a special screening of the independent film "The Choking Man." The social anxiety of a morbidly shy Ecuadorian dishwasher working in a Queens diner provides the psychological engine that powers this intense blend of drama and magical realism from famed music video director Steve Barron. Newcomer Octavio Gomez Berrios gives a quietly effective performance in the "title" role. Also starring Mandy Patinkin.

Screening of the Documentary "Critical Condition"

Screening of the Documentary "Critical Condition"
Monday, November 17 - 6 p.m.

What happens if you fall sick and are one of 47 million people in America without health insurance? "Critical Condition" by Roger Weisberg ("Waging a Living," P.O.V. 2006) puts a human face on the nation's growing health care crisis by capturing the harrowing struggles of four critically ill Americans who discover that being uninsured can cost them their jobs, health, home, savings, and even their lives. Filmed in verite style, "Critical Condition" offers a moving and invaluable expose at a time when the nation is debating how to extend health insurance to all Americans.

Screening of the Documentary "Soldiers of Conscience"

November 5
6 p.m.

Soldiers of Conscience is a dramatic window on the dilemma of individual U.S. soldiers in the current Iraq war — when their finger is on the trigger and another human being is in their gunsight. Made with cooperation of the U.S. Army and narrated by Peter Coyote, the film profiles eight American soldiers, including four who decide not to kill, and become conscientious objectors and four who believe in their duty to kill if necessary. The film reveals all of them wrestling with the morality of killing in war, not as a philosophical problem, but as soldiers experience it — a split-second decision in combat that can never be forgotten or undone.

Soldiers of Conscience is not a film that tells an audience what to think, nor is it about the situation in Iraq today. Instead, it tells a bigger story about human nature and war. The film begins with a little-known fact: After World War II, the Army's own studies revealed that as many as 75 percent of combat soldiers given a chance to fire on the enemy failed to do so. The studies showed that soldiers, despite training, propaganda and social sanction, retained a surprising inhibition when it came to taking human life. The statistics surprised and alarmed America's generals, who developed training techniques to overcome the reluctance to kill. But if the military found a solution to its problem, the moral contradiction for the individual soldier remained. The mental and emotional burdens carried by soldiers who have killed affect America's families and communities after each of its recent wars. As this film shows, every soldier is inescapably a "soldier of conscience."

The military's very success in "reflexive fire training," which has steadily raised firing rates in combat to as high as 90 percent, may well have intensified the soldier's personal burden. Major Peter Kilner, a West Point professor of ethics and former 82nd Airborne Infantry Commander, addresses the issue in the film: "When you train them reflexively, they learn to make those decisions much more quickly, but the price of that is they're not thinking through the great moral decision of killing another human being."

Major Kilner is clear that, at times, there is a moral imperative to kill. "The million people who are out defending our country, fighting our wars, and the millions who have done it throughout history are not immoral people. No one likes to kill — no healthy person.... It may be nasty, it may be unpleasant, but the alternative is worse." But facing the brutal responsibility to kill another person compels some soldiers to undergo a profound transformation that turns them into conscientious objectors. The film follows the transformation of four such soldiers. Two are honorably discharged from the Army as conscientious objectors: Joshua Casteel, an Evangelical Christian, and Aidan Delgado, a Buddhist. The other two go to prison: Camilo Mejia, the first combat veteran to come back from Iraq and publicly refuse to return and Kevin Benderman, a 10-year veteran Army sergeant from Tennessee.

All four — Mejia, Benderman, Casteel and Delgado — had little in common when they volunteered to serve in the Army except a sense of duty and patriotism.

Mejia joined the military at age 19, believing he would be bringing "freedom to other lands."

Sgt. Benderman comes from a military family steeped in a Southern devotion to honor and duty. He was already a 10-year veteran when he went to Iraq. Casteel was raised as a deeply religious, highly engaged Evangelical Christian who carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket as a boy. Delgado signed up just before 9/11 and felt proud that he'd seen the need to serve before the Twin Tower attacks.

Each of these men later underwent what military regulations call a "crystallization of conscience" that turned them against war and allows them to apply, under rules first promulgated by the Continental Congress in 1775, for conscientious objector status. Says Mejia: "Nothing ever prepares you for what that does to you as a human being, you know, to kill an innocent person." The shock of what he saw and did in Iraq turned Mejia into the first combat veteran to come back from Iraq and publicly refuse to return; he appeared on 60 Minutes before turning himself in to the Army.

Benderman had a similar experience seeing "how war affects civilians." It put him in mind of the warnings his father gave against going to war, despite the elder Benderman's own service in World War II. After one tour in Iraq, followed by "a lot of deep down reflection, and I guess the term is soul-searching," Benderman applied for conscientious objector status and then did not return to Iraq with his unit, instead reporting for duty at his U.S. base to await his fate. Casteel's turnaround came when he worked as an interrogator at Abu Ghraib and the faith of an admitted jihadist deeply challenged his own faith. Soon he found "my position as a U.S. Army interrogator contradicted my calling ... as a Christian."

Delgado's doubts began in basic training when he was first exposed to "the venom" of reflexive fire training. They crystallized when his unit was assigned guard duty over Iraqi soldiers, whom he saw as men like himself. "It's the nature of war to set the other apart, because you can't kill someone who's like yourself." Buddhism, which Delgado had already been studying — and whose first precept is not to take life, without exception — became his guide as he applied for conscientious objector status and became an outspoken antiwar activist.

But the film extends equal sympathy to the viewpoint of soldiers who are willing to kill, including three who served in Iraq and are still on active duty as drill sergeants, Thomas Washington, Todd Savage and Jaime Isom. Like Major Kilner, each of these men in his own way justifies the killing in war as inevitable and necessary if the world is to be made a moral place. They see the pacifism of conscientious objectors as utopian, as a dereliction of duty not only from the soldiers' military oath but also from the duty to protect their families and the weak. "When you're out there in the middle of combat, sometimes it's kill or be killed," says Sgt. Washington, who also admits, "When you first do actually get into the first battle and you actually wound or kill someone, it starts messing with your head ... it's just like shaking up a pop bottle with your thumb over it; [the stress] just keeps building and building."

The film's surprising revelation is how many beliefs these soldiers, in fact, share. All are eloquent about the moral dilemma of having to kill in war. Where they disagree is how each should act — as soldiers and as human beings. Mejia, Benderman, Casteel and Delgado are strong spokespeople for the idea that peace need not be an unrealistic idea, and that achieving it must begin as an individual responsibility — just as, in the field, the decision to kill becomes a devastatingly personal one. Major Kilner and the three drill sergeants feel their responsibility differently. "War is necessary sometimes because it's been brought upon peace-loving people by people who are ... not willing to let another society ... live in peace," says Major Kilner. "You can't say that you believe in human dignity and human rights if you're not willing to defend them."

Soldiers of Conscience is a timely and powerful look into a central drama of our time — how the soldier decides to kill or not — and the life-changing consequences that come with either choice.

"This film is about the burden of conscience," says co-director Gary Weimberg. "If you break the taboo and talk to a soldier about killing in war, as we did for this film, you'll learn that if soldiers have to kill, almost every single one suffers the rest of his or her life for doing so. We previewed the film for West Point cadets and for Quaker pacifists, and both audiences learned something new about the question of ‘to kill or not to kill.'"

"Another goal we had in making this film was to build respect for one another — even when we disagree," says co-director Catherine Ryan. "We tried to make a war film that examines and explores our common ground. Where we can find common ground, we can eliminate problems. Perhaps even war."

Screening of the Documentary "Election Day"

Monday, October 27 - 6 p.m.

Forget the pie charts, color-coded maps and hyperventilating pundits. What's the street-level experience of voters in today's America? In a triumph of documentary storytelling, P.O.V.'s Election Day combines 11 stories — shot simultaneously on November 2, 2004, from dawn until long past midnight — into one.

To make Election Day, award-winning director Katy Chevigny fielded 14 film crews to capture the action vérité-style in a diverse range of locations, including Chicago; the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Dearborn, Mich.; Cincinnati and Shaker Heights, Ohio; Orlando and Quincy, Fla.; St. Louis; New York; the little town of Sapulpa, Okla.; and the even tinier Stockholm, Wis. Election Day is as fast-paced and suspenseful as a thriller, with vote counts and political activism substituting for shootouts and car chases. The heroes of the day are ordinary Americans determined to vote, to turn out others to vote, and to see that the voting is legally and fairly done.

The good news in Election Day is that more and more Americans are bringing their passion for democracy to the polls, drawing unprecedented numbers of voters eager to make the most of their right to cast a ballot and have it counted. Taking place in the long shadow of 2000's bitterly contested presidential vote, the 2004 election also brought more scrutiny of polling-place practices from citizens as well as international observers. One beacon of democracy and validation of the electoral system captured by the film came when little Quincy, Fla., a town in the state's panhandle with a 70 percent black population, finally elected its first black sheriff since the 1800s.

The bad news in Election Day is that close scrutiny of American elections finds a surprisingly antiquated system, which often works as much to frustrate voter participation as to encourage it and which harbors wide disparities in access between rich and poor neighborhoods. The presence of international observers suddenly seems not so out-of-place when one observer finds confusion and two-hour waits in St. Louis's poor, predominately black precincts while wealthier white neighborhoods have smoothly operating polling places.

Election Day takes viewers around the country to capture the drama unfolding on November. 2, 2004. In Chicago, Republican committeeman Jim Fuchs swims against the city's legendary political tides to make sure Republican voters aren't intimidated at prevailingly Democratic polling stations. At Pine Ridge, S.D., Jason Drapeaux leads a volunteer organization working hard to increase voter turnout on the reservation. He and his cohorts succeed in raising turnout to 55 percent in 2004 from a dismal 33 percent in 2000, but it's not difficult to find the cynicism that keeps many Native Americans from voting. One man explains that he will vote that day in the tribal election only, having been disillusioned by promises from politicians at the federal level over the years.

Rashida Tlaib devotes her day in Dearborn, Mich., to turning out her family and Muslim friends to vote: some, like her Palestinian immigrant husband, for the first time. Bob and Traci Buzbee in Sapulpa, Okla., work opposite shifts at the same factory to be able to meet the high costs associated with their son's kidney disease. They watch the elections with some trepidation, wondering what impact, if any, the outcome might have on their needs. Paula Thompson, a first-time volunteer at a crowded and chaotic polling place in Shaker Heights, Ohio, finds herself confronted by frustrated voters who aren't on her rolls.

Up in remote Stockholm, Wis., the Fisher family, organic farmers who supplement their income by selling homemade pizzas, prepares for a bonanza of orders from neighbors settling in for a long night of results-watching. Their youngest daughter, 18-year-old Franny, goes down to the one-room polling station where her neighbor, who lives just up the road in the little burg (pop. 97 at the time of filming), registers her and lets her vote all at the same time, as allowed by Wisconsin law.

Voting is more of a challenge in St. Louis. Australian observer Shanta Martin of Fair Election International is surprised to witness poor, black precincts mired in confusion and long waits — where people are nonetheless determined and anxious to vote and more vocal than ever about the obstacles they face — whereas in richer neighborhoods the polling stations run smoothly. In New York City, Leon Batts, an ex-felon who just regained his right to vote, is preparing to cast his first ballot; he sees his vote as one representing all ex-convicts denied the right despite having served their time. But Batts finds casting a vote more problematic than he anticipated.

In Florida — a state that until recently effectively banned all ex-felons from voting — former Democratic state legislator Alzo Reddick welcomes Kerry campaign volunteers to his Orlando restaurant while ex-felon "Bossman," the dishwasher, laments his ineligibility to vote. In Cincinnati, Dan "Buzz" Deters is running a write-in campaign for his Republican brother for county prosecutor. Deters employs an imaginative tactic using imprinted pencils, a tactic with which he runs into conflict with poll station workersover that always-contested line where campaigning should stop and voting begin.

In Quincy, Fla., it looks like the town, with a long-held African-American majority, might elect a black sheriff for the first time in more than 100 years. Brenda Holt, a local activist mindful of Florida's infamous role in the 2000 elections, is on hand to make sure the people are not robbed of that possibility.

Just as Americans prepare to go to the polls again, Election Day offers a vivid, expansive and sometimes unsettling account of the last presidential election, when America's voting practices, once taken for granted, came under new and intense observation and challenge.

"In making Election Day, we set out to depict the real people who make our democracy work, but whose actions are not the stuff of the evening news," says director Chevigny. "Our jumping-off point was the 2000 election, which had brought the failures of our voting systems into sharp focus. We decided to look at how the shadow of that election would affect the attitudes and experiences of voters and poll workers across the country in 2004. We hope that viewers find the film to be a nuanced portrait of the attitudes and experiences of the citizens who make this democracy tick."

Screening of the Film "Noise"

Join us on Monday, September 9th at 6 p.m. for a screening of the independent film, "Noise."

This is a story about the wrong person in the right place at the wrong time. Two heinous crimes have left a suburban town reeling. Police quickly connect them but are desperate for witnesses as the local community enfolds itself in a shroud of secrecy, borne from fear and an untrammeled mistrust of authority. A young police constable, Graham McGahan, suffers from a chronic hearing problem and applies for worker's compensation. To his chagrin, he is stationed at a police caravan near the crime scene. Living on the periphery of the investigation, McGahan crosses paths with the various people affected by the tragedies and uncovers an unraveling nightmare of guilt and suspicion.