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.

Heirloom Seed Presentation

Join us for on Monday, August 18 at 6:30 p.m. for a special presentation - "Growing Yesterday's Garden: Heirloom Seeds and Pennsylvania German Tradition."

The heirloom seed movement is becoming increasingly important to contemporary home gardeners. As Director of Research and Development of the Heirloom Seed Project of the Landis Valley Museum, Irwin Richman is intimately involved with the movement. The conservation of antique varieties and the processing and distribution of high-quality seed preserves an important part of Pennsylvania German cultural heritage. Enhanced by slides, this presentation will discuss heirloom varieties of flowers and vegetables. It also will describe their use in traditional gardens and how they can be adapted to modern needs. The presentation is an outgrowth of research done for Richman’s recent 2007 book Pennsylvania German Farms, Gardens and Seeds.
This presentation is a program of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. PHC inspires people to come together to share a life of learning. Since 1973, has provided resources that empower groups to help their communities explore history, literature, the arts, and to shape the human experience.

Photography Exhibit

Check out the hallway for an excellent photography exhibit by Donald Reese.

Donald Reese has been a photographer for over twenty years, and is well known in the local area for his creative and inspiring images. This exhibit will be a combination of color work and black and white infrared imagery. Subjects: nature, scenic photography, cemeteries across the East Coast. Explore the beauty that lies within these hallowed places. Exhibit runs through August 29th.

"August the First" on August 1!

On Friday, August 1 at 2 p.m., the library will host a screening of the independent film "August the First." The film is the winner of the Audience Award at the Urbanworld Film Festival.

It is the morning of Tunde's graduation party and things have already begun to unravel. Tunde has managed to alienate his sister, Simisola. His older brother, Ade, persistently plagues him with criticism, and their mother has started drinking again. Unbeknownst to most, Tunde has orchestrated the return of his long estranged father, resurrecting unresolved family anguish against the backdrop of Tunde's celebration. As the day turns to night, old wounds are reopened and bad habits are revived. Layer by layer, deception and half-truths are peeled away as secrets are uncovered in what will become the most unforgettable day the family has ever experienced.

Screening of The Violin

Join us for a screening of the independent film "The Violin" on Wednesday, July 23 @ 6 p.m.

Don Plutarco, his son Genaro and his grandson Lucio live a double life - on one hand they support the humble farmers, on the other they support the campesina peasant guerilla movement's armed efforts against the oppressive government. When the military seizes the village, the rebels flee to the sierra hills, forced to leave behind their stock of ammunition. While the guerillas organize a counter-attack, old Plutarco executes his own plan. He plays up his appearance as a harmless violin player in order to get into the village and recover the ammunition hidden on his corn field. His violin playing charms the army captain, who orders Plutarco to come back daily. Arms and music play a tenuous game of cat-and-mouse which ultimately results in painful betrayal.

Come to the Library and Welcome David Kipen to Ephrata!

As part of THE BIG READ EPHRATA, the library will host David Kipen, Director of Literature for the National Endowment of the Arts, on Monday, May 5th at 7 p.m.

David Kipen joined the National Endowment of the Arts in September 2005 as Director of Literature. More recently, he was appointed Director of Literature, National Reading Initiatives. David manages the Big Read, the Arts Endowment's largest literary initiative. Beginning in 2000, David was the book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, where he reviewed six to eight books each month. He was also a book critic and essayist for National Public Radio's "Day to Day" show and presented KCRW-FM's weekly commentary and podcast "Overbooked." Before working with the Chronicle, Kipen was senior editor with Buzz magazine about his native South California. He is also the editor and author of the recently published book "The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History."

To register for a seat, call the library at 717-738-9291 or email ptalbert@ephratapubliclibrary.org.

Screening of Arctic Son

April 14, 6:0o p.m.

Screening of Arctic Son

In the tiny village of Old Crow, 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle, a father and his son are reunited after almost 25 years apart. They share a name and a bloodline, but the worlds they know and the lifestyles they lead are as different as their respective hometown climates. Stanley Njootli Sr. is a hunter, a man of the land steeped in Native traditions. Stanley Jr., who has been raised by his mother in Washington State, immerses himself in hip-hop music and video games, and is drifting deeper into drugs and alcohol. After a lifetime apart, the two meet again in the raw, quiet beauty of the Canadian Yukon.

In Old Crow, there are no strip malls, restaurants, bars, movie theaters or even roads in or out. What Old Crow does have plenty of is natural beauty, isolation and a punishing climate. As Stan Sr. says, "There are two kinds of people in Old Crow, those who want to be here and those who can't afford to live anywhere else." He is one of the former. After youthful experiences with urban modernity "down south," which included his own bouts with alcohol and drugs, he returned to Old Crow. This tiny village, population 250, would enable him to live the traditional fishing and hunting life of his First Nations' Gwitchin people, the "good life" he had known as a child. Now he's hoping to instill these same traditions in his adult son to help give him a new direction and repair the distant relationship that has existed between the two for so many years.

As evocatively portrayed in "Arctic Son," Stanley Sr. believes that connecting with the land and ways of his ancestors will give his son identity and a sense of purpose. Stan Jr. goes along, but only begrudgingly. And the father realizes his son isn't the only new thing in Old Crow. The Internet and satellite television — and the desires they inspire in young people everywhere — increasingly challenge long-standing traditions.

"Arctic Son" allows the two men to tell their own stories. The father is soft-spoken and philosophical, convinced that the rigors of living close to the natural world instill self-discipline and a respect for knowledge. He makes his way by daily and seasonal rounds of work that would be crushing — and a life that would be austere — to most of us, but which leave him invigorated and at peace. Although he wasn't there for most of his son's upbringing, he wants to pass on the ancestral wisdom that, perhaps, saved his own life.

Despite having a flair for art, Junior is a self-described "black sheep" who would rather party than be serious about anything, even his drawing. He pretends he doesn't care about his father's absence, and he views going to Old Crow with an amused cynicism. Yet he also seems to want to be rescued — above all by the father he's lacked till now.

What follows in "Arctic Son" depended on a remarkably candid relationship between filmmakers and subjects. The film captures a halting, moving reunion, one that includes the conflicts between Native and Western ways, between tradition and modern life, old and young, nature and technology. Stanley Sr. tries to impart the knowledge needed to live in Old Crow — how to shoot a gun, hunt caribou, skin a rabbit, make a fire, catch a fish. Junior goes along reluctantly, even petulantly at first, frustrated and cutting a forlorn figure in a wilderness he is clearly unprepared for. Although Old Crow is a "dry town," he finds some home brew, falls in with the wrong crowd and begins reverting to his old ways.

But gradually something begins to change in Junior's attitude. His father's patience and abiding faith, the grandeur of the land and Junior's own curiosity begin to take him in. He starts showing youthful glee in conquering some of the survival tasks he has been handed, and the new landscape and culture begin to show up as inspirations in his art. His respect for his father's outlook and abilities grows, and their relationship warms. Though neither man can quite let his guard down, Stan Jr. goes from treating Stanley Sr. as a virtual stranger to accepting him as a father he wants to know.

"Arctic Son" is a documentary, of course, and not Hollywood fiction. There comes a time for Junior to return to Seattle, where all he has learned "up north" loses clarity in a world of lights, asphalt and social pressures. What, after all, does skinning a rabbit have to do with the temptations of drugs and alcohol? Back in Old Crow, the father is left to ponder not only his son's struggles, but the fact that retreating to this place may no longer hold off the distractions and temptations that in many ways underlie his son's conflicts.

As Junior struggles to decide where he belongs and what he values, it becomes clear that the Stanleys' story is a metaphor for larger issues of identity, choice, change, redemption and ties that bind to us all to family and place.

"'Arctic Son' is the result of 10 years of hard work and was inspired by my chance meeting with a former Gwitchin Chief named Johnny Abel," says director Walton. "Johnny felt that a film about the Gwitchin lifestyle could be a valuable tool in preserving the culture. I didn't plan to tell this story through a father and son who had been estranged for most of their lives, but this story emerged as one of the strongest cultural lessons I witnessed.

"That is the nature of vérité filmmaking," Walton continues. "You begin with an idea, and the final film is defined by the characters as their lives unfold before the camera."

Independent Film - "Her Name is Sabine"

Join us on Wednesday, April 9th for a screening of the independent film "Her Name is Sabine. The screening will start at 6 p.m. in the library's multipurpose room.

The film is an intelligent, moving and beautiful portrait of Sabine, a 38-year-old autistic woman, filmed by her sister, the famous French actress Sandrine Bonnaire. Through personal footage filmed over a period of 25 years, it is revealed that Sabine's growth and many talents were crushed by improper diagnosis and an inadequate care structure. After a tragic five-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, Sabine finally finds a new lease on life in a home together with other young people living with similar mental and emotional illnesses. This very intimate film also sends an urgent message to a society that still does not know how to properly take care of its citizens with physical and psychological disabilities.

Screening of the Independent Film "Fraulein"

Screening of Fraulein

Wednesday, March 12
6:00 p.m.

A story of the friendship among three women from Yugoslavia. Reza left Belgrade more than 30 years ago to seek a new life in Zurich. Now in her fifties, she has completely detached herself from the past. She owns a cafeteria and maintains an orderly, joyless existence. Mila, a waitress there, is a good-humored Croatian woman who also emigrated decades ago. But unlike Reza, Mila dreams of returning to a house on the Croatian coast. Both of them receive a jolt when Ana, a young, itinerant woman who has fled Sarajevo, breezes into the cafeteria looking for work. Reza hires her but is annoyed by Ana's impulsive and spirited efforts to inject life into the cafeteria. But the acrimony dissipates as Ana begins to thaw Reza's chill.

Prison Town, USA Screening

February 25 - 7 p.m.

What happens when a struggling rural community tries to revive its economy by inviting prisons in? The story of four families living in a modern-day prison town, as told in "Prison Town, USA," is a riveting look at one of the most striking phenomena of our times: a prison-building and incarceration boom unprecedented in American history.

The Tyler family was just passing through Susanville, California, when father Lonnie was arrested for shoplifting $40 worth of groceries and diapers. Lonnie got a 16-month sentence, leaving his wife Jen and their kids stranded in "prison town." Dawayne Brasher worked in Susanville's lumber mills for nearly 20 years until the last one closed in 2004. His only choices were to leave his hometown or seek work at the huge prison complexes that have sprung up in the area. Gabe Jones liked his job at Mike O'Kelly's Morning Glory Dairy, but the prospect of earning much more money as a prison guard finally proved irresistible — sending him off to guard academy. O'Kelly, a third-generation dairyman, finds his business endangered when the prisons threaten to abrogate their "good neighbor" buy-local policy.

Stories like these are increasingly common in rural America where, during the 1990s, a prison opened every 15 days. The United States now has the dubious distinction of incarcerating more people per capita than any other country in the world. Yet this astonishing jailing of America has been little noted because many of the prisons have opened in remote areas like Susanville. "Prison Town, USA" examines one of the country's biggest prison towns, a place where a new correctional economy encompasses not only prisoners, guards and their families, but the whole community.

Nestled in the picturesque foothills of the California Sierras, Susanville once thrived on logging, ranching and agriculture. Even today, the town offers a postcard image of small-town America under majestic peaks — if you keep the prisons out of the frame. Susanville, along with much of rural America, has seen its local agricultural economy go the way of the family farm. And like other communities that don't want to become ghost towns, Susanville decided to take a chance on the only industry that came calling — California's burgeoning prison system, hungry for space, new guards and low visibility.

The town was promised jobs and a large institutional buyer for local services. Today the Susanville area hosts three prison complexes housing more than 11,000 inmates, with plans for more to come. The inmate population is more than one-and-a-half times the number of local residents.

"Prison Town, USA" follows the fortunes of Dawayne, Gabe, Mike, Lonnie and their families over the course of two years, weaving in a chorus of voices from other townspeople along the way. The resulting story is one of hard choices and unanticipated consequences. As Susanville's good-hearted country-boys-turned-prison-guards soon learn, life outside the walls is developing eerie parallels to life on the inside.

As locals are quick to point out, no one grows up dreaming of becoming a prison guard, but the high pay and benefits of corrections work, especially by rural standards, are irresistible. At correctional officer training academy, Dawayne and Gabe have to learn new skills and attitudes, often quite foreign to their upbringing. Besides the obvious dangers of the job, the constant tension spills into the guards' home lives, changing how they relate to their families and friends. In a sense they, too, are imprisoned — a reality that is hard to shake once they leave work. High rates of substance and domestic abuse are well-known hazards of the profession.

The correctional facilities also introduce new divisions in this once tight-knit community. Tensions arise between those who work for the prisons and those who don't, between locals and prisoners' family members and between prison employees and paroled former inmates. That's where Lonnie and Jen's travails take a twist that must call into question the underpinnings of the prison boom itself. Sixteen months in prison for a $40 larceny might seem excessive — and excessively expensive for the taxpayer. The cost is even higher for the struggling couple and their children — the kids not only lose their father, but are taken away from their temporarily homeless mother and put in foster care.

With the help of Crossroads Ministries, a local group that assists families of prisoners, Jen manages to recover the children and rent a small hom whiel she awaits Lonnie's release. Lonnie gets out on parole after nine months — but is forced to serve that parole in Susanville. Now he must somehow find work in a town where there are few jobs outside the prisons, while living under the strict scrutiny of his parole officer, where the smallest infraction can send him back to prison.

Meanwhile, Mike O'Kelly mounts a campaign to stop Prison Industries from forcing the prisons to cancel their contracts with Morning Glory Dairy, which relies on the account for more than a quarter of its business. The other local merchants, who face similar consequences from Prison Industries, are sympathetic. But the people of Susanville seem to have little power against the economic and political behemoth that the corrections industry has become in California. Mike is only able to win a reprieve, extending his contract through June 2007.

"Prison Town, USA" lays bare the economic and political dynamics behind the prison-building frenzy that is changing the landscape of rural America, shedding light on some of the little-understood human costs of the nation's criminal-justice policies.

"There are now over 7 million people incarcerated, on probation or on parole in the United States," says co-director Katie Galloway. "We hope this film will awaken people to the real consequences of prison expansion, particularly in rural areas that have been so important in forming the history and character of California and the country."

"Across the country prisons are transforming our economy, psychology and culture," says co-director Po Kutchins. "We hope our film promotes much-needed dialogue about the wisdom of America's policies."

49 Up!

Screening at the library on February 6th @ 7 p.m.!

How do people change over the years? Can the adult already be found in the child of seven? What account would you give that child of the life you have lived since? These are the questions that have been explored, with mounting tension and surprise over four decades, in one of cinema's most remarkable enterprises, the Up series. Inspired by the Jesuit maxim "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man," England's Granada Television began in 1964 what would become a unique record of English life and Western culture at the end of the 20th century.

In 1964, Granada's "World in Action" team, including a young Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorky Park, Gorillas in the Mist), interviewed a diverse group of seven-year-olds from across England, asking them to describe their lives and hopes. The original "7 Up" was a beguilingly unselfconscious social self-portrait from a time when cinema was still young and television an infant — in fact, "7 Up" was television's first experiment in recording real people living their real lives.

Over the years, as Apted has tenaciously pursued the Up series, revisiting the children every seven years as they have grown up, navigating the divides between childhood dreams and adult reality, not all have participated in each succeeding film. Some have reacted against the series' intrusiveness. Others have embraced their roles. As "49 Up" revisits questions of love, marriage, career, class and prejudice — deftly inter-cutting footage from earlier films with contemporary interviews — it discovers surprising ruminations about the Up film series itself as well as unexpected turns in individual lives.

Apted has come a long way from his beginnings as a researcher at Granada Television to directing major award-winning feature films in both England and the United States. But he has never flagged in his dedication to the Up filmsand the pure documentary impulse they represent. In "49 Up," Apted, of course, rounds up the usual suspects. In fact, he manages to round up more of them than for any of the earlier sequels. The last time the series saw John, for example, he was a new barrister just graduated from Oxford. Married to Claire, he decided to stop taking part in the films. In "49 Up," John reveals why he has come back to the series and tells the tale of his life from then until now.

More familiar to the series' fans will be Tony, who, as a seven-year-old, wanted to be a jockey. He became a cabbie instead. Still, it was a good life for an "Eastender." In "42 Up," Tony showed viewers around the solid middle-class home he shared with his wife, Debbie, and their three children. But he never quite gave up dreams of glamour — embracing his role in the series and even trying to break into show business. "49 Up" reveals how Tony and Debbie, now grandparents, saved their marriage from infidelity and just what has become of Tony's acting ambitions.

In "7 Up," upper-class public schoolboy Bruce wanted to be a missionary in Africa to "teach people who are not civilized to be, more or less, good." The series followed Bruce from Oxford to teaching in Bangladesh. At "35 Up," returned from foreign missionary work, he was unmarried and lonely. By "42 Up," Bruce had met a fellow teacher, Penny, while working in London's East End, and the pair had tied the knot. Has the couple managed to have the family they dreamed of?

Sue, Jackie and Lynn began the series as girlhood friends, voicing the half-realistic, half-dreamy hopes of working-class girls for good husbands and decent jobs. The Up series subsequently saw Sue marry at 24 and divorce by 35. In "42 Up," she was a struggling, single mother with a son and daughter from her marriage. But she had met a new man. "49 Up" asks if Sue has finally found a stable life with Glen.

The series similarly followed Jackie through marriage in her 20s and divorce by age 35. In "35 Up," she had a son from a brief relationship after her divorce. By "42 Up," she'd had two more sons from passing encounters, and she was living with all three boys in a council flat near Glasgow. "49 Up" finds Jackie and sons in Scotland. Surviving on benefits and suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, she says wistfully that Scotland reminds her of the close-knit world of London's East End when she was growing up.

In "7 Up," Lynn's ambition was to work in Woolworth's. Instead, she went to work in a library and by "42 Up" was still there, a rock of stability among the three friends. But "49 Up" finds Lynn devastated by news that her job as a children's librarian might be abolished. The mother of two wrestles with her anger over losing her life's work and with her fears over how it will change her family's life.

The young Suzy had had a difficult upbringing and dreamed of raising her own children in a more stable environment. By "42 Up," however, Suzy was having problems getting along with her own children. Has she managed to break the cycle of miscommunication between generations?

The series saw Paul, who lived in a children's home as a seven-year-old, emigrate to Australia in his early teens. Now, in "49 Up," he has a wife and children, and talks proudly of his daughter, the first member of his family to go to university. But there are clouds in Paul's sky — a change in career by his wife bodes ill for his own hopes.

Symon lived in the same children's home as Paul in "7 Up." By "42 Up," Symon had a new wife and son — and children from a first marriage who refused to see him. In "49 Up," he is back with a touching update.

In "7 Up," farmer's son Nick said he wanted to learn about the moon but firmly refused to answer any questions about girls. In "14 Up," the shy teenager stuck to his guns. By "21 Up," Nick had met Jackie, and in "35 Up" they were married and living in America. By "42 Up," the couple had a son, but Jackie was missing home. Both the marriage and Nick's career were at stake.

The series also catches up with the fortunate Andrew. In "42 Up," he had been happily married to Jane for over 15 years and was a partner at a law firm. The eldest of his two sons was planning to go to the same boarding school he attended. How fortunate has Andrew remained?

And what's happened to Neil? A happy child in "7 Up," he was, by age 28, wandering lonely and homeless in the Highlands. He surprised viewers when, in "42 Up," he was rediscovered working as a Liberal Democrat councillor in Hackney. The once-homeless man hoped to win a seat in parliament. Has he succeeded? Has he still got a roof over his head?

"49 Up" is a marvelous jewel box of stories as individual as they are entwined. It is a reminder of just how real cinema can be.

"The Up films had a modest beginning," says director Michael Apted. "The first was just an episode in the groundbreaking, in-your-face 'World in Action' series. It had a sly, ingenuous surface, the charming and amusing thoughts of a group of seven-year-olds ruminating on sex, money, school, race, love, mum and dad, the future and each other. It's a cruel trick to confront people with the cold reality of the past. Despite that, some enjoy being in the film and claim it as a thing to treasure; others take part under sufferance, persuaded that the films are unique and we should finish what we started. I thank them all for their generosity and courage in making these films possible. For me, the Up films are a priceless gift."

Screening of "The Camden 28"

Ephrata Public Library to Host
Screening of “The Camden 28”

Monday, January 21
7 p.m.

Early Sunday morning, August 22, 1971, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell announced that 20 antiwar activists had been arrested the previous night attempting to break in and vandalize a Camden, N.J., draft board office. Five days later, eight more plotters were indicted. Charged with conspiracy to remove and destroy files from draft, FBI and Army Intelligence offices, destruction of government property and interfering with the Selective Service system, members of the “Camden 28” faced up to 47 years in federal prison. Who were these dangerous radicals that America’s premier law enforcement agency so proudly took down? They included four Catholic priests, a Lutheran minister and 23 members of the “Catholic Left.”

The Camden 28 were a far cry from bomb-planting Weathermen or even fist-waving militants. But the very difference of these “Catholic Left” conspirators — their religious motives — as shown in the new documentary The Camden 28 may well have made them more dangerous opponents in the eyes of the Nixon Administration. A growing Catholic and religious opposition to the war could not be dismissed as extremist to mainstream America, so they had to be brought down.

The Camden 28 reveals just how far the government was prepared to go in the cloak-and-dagger story leading up to the arrests, including the participation of a 29th man who was wonderfully adept at solving practical problems that otherwise baffled the well-meaning but un-handy activists. But “the best-laid plan of mice and men often go awry,” as Nixon, Mitchell, Hoover and the nation would learn from the ensuing trial.

Participants in the religious antiwar movement shared the belief that killing, even in war, was morally indefensible. Led by the charismatic Berrigan brothers, the “Catholic Left,” though it included many non-Catholic religious and lay people, had conducted over 30 draft board raids, destroying close to a million Selective Service documents by 1971. But they were hardly a centralized or even structured movement. Actions were carried out by independent groups of activists, angered by the war’s mounting toll and its collateral effects on poor cities like Camden.

This was the case with the Camden 28. The group’s earnest dedication to stopping the war was hindered by a lack of resources, practical capabilities and the temperament to carry out a covert operation, but that didn’t stop them.

And their aspirations likely would have remained more fantasy than reality if Mike Giocondo, a former Franciscan brother, hadn’t brought a good friend, Bob Hardy, also an active Catholic lay person, into the plot. Hardy — the 29th person — was a professional handyman who had the practical skills and tools to turn the group’s ideas into action. Some members had been involved in other draft board raids and had perfected the skill of “casing” a target. But they needed to know how to get into the building. By going in with Camden 28 member Gene Dixon, Hardy managed to secure building plans, including those for security. Under Hardy’s direction, the group assembled a plausible plan of action. Even now, over 35 years later, members of the group, including Giocondo, can’t help but express the empowerment they felt as Hardy lent them the skills to throw a wrench into the gears of an “immoral and unjust war.”

Of course, after hearing what Giocondo and the others, including his parish priest, Father Michael Doyle, had in mind, Hardy had gone straight to the FBI — in the very building that housed the targeted draft office. He offered himself as an informer, and the FBI promptly accepted. The Camden 28 were allowed to get inside the building and destroy files for over two hours under FBI surveillance before the FBI moved in to catch them red-handed.

One of the fascinating aspects of The Camden 28 is hearing from so many of the participants, then and now, especially as they gather for a 2002 reunion in the very Camden courtroom where the government brought them to trial. Giocondo still can’t quite get over his excitement at taking action, and his sense of betrayal at Hardy’s double-cross. Doyle recounts his “conversion” to activism, and how weeks after the break-in and arrest, despite everything, he performed the funeral rites for Hardy’s son after the boy’s tragic death. Navy veteran John Swinglish remembers facing the stiffest penalty.

Even Bob Hardy, still unapologetic, explains why he was bound to uphold the law — which, for many of the 28 does not really explain why he volunteered for such an active role in exposing — some would say entrapping — his friends. He had been expected to be the government’s star witness. Instead, he wrote an affidavit for the activists in which he maintained that the FBI had helped carry out the action by enlisting him as an agent provocateur.
What happened in the courtroom after the arrests, however, may be the most astounding thing recounted by the film. In a trial that lasted 63 days, the plotters proclaimed their guilt. “I ripped up those [draft] files with my hands,” declared the Rev. Peter D. Fordi, adding, “They were the instruments of destruction.” In the best tradition of civil disobedience, and fully expecting to pay for their stand, the Camden activists asked the jury to “nullify the laws” against breaking and entering in this case, and to acquit them because citizens had a right to stop an “illegal and immoral” war. They also asked the jury to acquit them on the grounds that the raid would not have taken place without the help of an admitted FBI double-agent.

After three days of deliberations, a jury of seven women and five men returned a verdict of not guilty on all charges. According to The New York Times, “the defendants . . . and 200 supporters . . . burst into cheers, wept, hugged one another and sang a chorus of ‘Amazing Grace’,” a moment reenacted with gusto at the reunion.

The acquittals represented the first legal victory for the antiwar movement in five years of such draft board actions and prosecutions. The jury’s verdict moved Supreme Court Justice William Brennan to call the proceeding “one of the great trials of the 20th century.”

"The inspiration to make the Camden 28 was born 11 years ago," says director Giacchino, who grew up 15 miles north of Camden and whose parents attend mass at Father Doyle’s Sacred Heart Church. "Dave Dougherty, the movie's cinematographer, and I had been looking for a local historical subject that would make an interesting film. A family friend encouraged me to talk to his priest, the Rev. Michael Doyle of the Church of the Sacred Heart, about his role in the Camden 28.

“What I heard made me understand how a war halfway around the world can impact a city like Camden, and that there are important lessons to be learned today from the group’s actions — and the government’s ensuing reactions.”