Coming up at Sedona Film Festival Showings!

For the next 3 weeks, every Tuesday will be a screening of "Best of the Fest" selections.... winners of Film Festivals around the country.

Tuesday, August 5th

Considering Democracy: 8 Things to Ask Your Representative

While the U.S. is the most flaunted democracy in the world, how do we compare with, and what does the rest of the world think of U.S. foreign and domestic policy? Americans are continually told through their media that freedom and democracy are being given to people abroad, but is it true? This documentary takes a look.

Ever since Alexis DeTocqueville traveled across the U.S. in the early 1800s to chronicle democracy in America our great experiment in governance has been a source of wonder and envy among citizens of other nations. The pragmatism, optimism and hope that is so much a part of our national character was forged through the assimilation of multiple cultures and nurtured through our westward expansion.  DeTocqueville caught the crest of that wave of expansion and through, his book Democracy in America, stimulated decades of intellectual discourse on the meaning of democracy to nations around the world.

Keya Lea Horiuchi, in a more modern rendition of this experiment, turns the perspective on its head. In her 2008 film Considering Democracy: 8 Things to Ask Your Representative, she reverses the perspective.  To accomplish this she traveled the world for 5 months video-documenting a sampling of man- or woman-on-the-street impressions of America; thereby looking in from the outside.  In the course of making this film she traveled to Australia, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Japan, Nepal and Thailand. What is so stimulating about her treatment of the material is her grouping of these impressions into thematic elements.

Through her line of questioning she covers such disparate topics as healthcare, foreign policy, foreign aid, media, campaign finance, lobbying and legislation, and working hours for labor.  The material is edited into crisp and sometimes disarming arrays of widely disparate views.  Importantly, she points out some of the current trends in a manner that helps the viewer reflect on these patterns, and their own role or place within that framework.   

She then uses these themes and the compiled data to formulate questions viewers can pose to their own U.S. Congressional representatives.  By doing this she artfully moves the subject matter from a strictly entertainment or educational arena into a framework for dialogue and action. The web of topics that she covers provides ample interest to citizens of many different persuasions for getting involved and making their voice heard and their vote count. 

Horiuchi will be in Sedona to conduct a Q&A discussion following both screenings. Once a schoolteacher previously working on the Navajo Indian Reservation in New Mexico and Montrose, CO, Horiuchi got caught up in documentary films. Her first film, “Red Tibet, Free Tibet,” went on to critical and audience acclaim in film festivals all across the U.S. and Canada. She is having the same good fortune with “Considering Democracy” which is on a multi-city tour leading up to the November elections.

The title sponsor for the event is Sedona.biz, owned by Carl Jackson. The lodging host is Los Abrigados Resort & Spa. The series is also made possible by a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Sedona.

The film will be shown at Harkins Sedona Six Theatres on Tuesday, Aug. 5 at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $10, or $8 for Film Sedona members, and will be available starting at 3:00 p.m. in the Harkins lobby. Cash or checks only. Seats are limited. Film Sedona members can purchase tickets in advance at the Sedona International Film Festival office, 1785 W. Hwy. 89A, Suite 2B, or by calling 282-1177.

CLICK HERE TO SEE CLIPS FROM THE FILM

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Coming up at Future Studios Cinema

30 Hozoni Drive, Sedona; www.futurestudios.org; 928-282-9139$5
(free on your birthday with valid ID), discussion following

Doors Open 7:00 p.m. Shows Begin 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, August 3 & Sunday, August 17 -
Edgar Cayce: The Beautiful Dreamer

 

By popular demand, Future Studios Cinema continues showing Edgar Cayce: The Beautiful dreamer. This award-winning 2005 documentary has recently been re-released with an added 30 minutes of footage. Edgar Cayce (1877 - 1945), a simple Christian family man, was the most phenomenal psychic of the 20th century. Cayce was dubbed "the Sleeping Prophet" and "the Father of Holistic Medicine" because he was able to bring forth incredible information from a deep, self-induced trance. His extraordinary trances also gave in-depth information and guidance on human's relationship to God, past lives, the laws of cause and effect, the idea and ideals of an Atlantis, and the history and future of humankind and the universe. Winner, "Most Thought-provoking Documentary" Sedona International Film Festival, 2005
Free bottle of Edgar Cayce's Aura Glow Skin Oil for film-goers!
Recommended all ages www.edgarcayce.org

Coming up at the Flickershack Reruns

Stay posted....

 

SATURDAY,  AUGUST 9 6:00 PM KSB (Keep Sedona Beautiful) BUILDING 360 BREWER ROAD - SEDONA

PRESIDENT

A Political Junkie's Fix  {or}  Aristocracy is On The March

An examination of Presidential politics in the early 21st century, taking a hard, yet comically charged, look at the current condition of American democracy. Has the power of the individual vote been lost through the possibility of vast mechanical fraud? Is paper-trail/voting-integrity legislation a must?  What steps can ensure the power of the average American’s vote?  Who is John Edwards’ dentist? These questions are asked in the middle of a rip roarin’ comedy with tons of animation and raw video from the wild, new frontier of home produced media.

"I am outraged by this film. It's filled with lies, innuendo, and cheap lighting."

Christopher Hitchens - Vanity Fair

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Lively discussion will follow. Open to the public. Everyone is welcome. Please bring a friend.

You are invited to bring your own drinks and a snack to share. Please carpool if possible.

Free Admission

Email < info@democratsoftheredrocks.org > for more information.

SECOND-SATURDAY  of  EACH MONTH

 

What else is playing at the Harkins' Sedona, etc. that's well reviewed (tho' not an indie film)
as well as at the Camelview in Scottsdale? Click here

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Continued from Wild Horse Redemption Film Festival

“These mustangs, you pressure them too much and they can’t handle it. They are either going to be trying to jump out of the pen or they are going to turn and try and fight, trying to save their life,” says staff trainer Guy McEnulty. “People to me are a lot the same way as the horse. If you get them excited they can’t think very good and a lot of the times make the wrong decisions.”

Can a wild creature be rehabilitated and socialized for safe interaction with humans? Can two wild creatures – prisoner and mustang – help each other to a better life? “The Wild Horse Redemption”follows the men and mustangs of the Wild Horse Inmate Program through one training cycle. Staff member McEnulty guides experienced inmate trainers as they try to teach new trainees how to break horses fresh from the range. Some won’t make it.

“Almost all of them are scared starting out but as they work with the horse, they develop a communication that helps get rid of some of that fear. There are a few guys that never get over that fear. They are just not cut out to be a horse trainer,” adds McEnulty.

With spectacular footage and raw emotion, “The Wild Horse Redemption”is about man and nature in one of the rare instances where the balance between the two seems to be working out just about right.

“Throughout my career I have tried to raise awareness and change public attitudes about many issues – always using personal stories to illustrate a bigger theme. For many years I’ve been fascinated by stories of redemption and the idea that most people are never beyond reaching – if the right intervention takes place at the right time,” said the Canadian filmmaker Zaritsky.

“When the story of the Wild Horse Inmate Program came to my attention, I felt I had found the right personal story with which to illustrate the bigger issue. The more I learned about this story, the more I became convinced this was a unique opportunity to create a film that can change hearts and minds, while also reaching a very large audience. This was a very exciting prospect for me as a filmmaker.”

“Those of us in the well-off countries of the Western world should see that – given a chance – the most unlikely people can achieve rehabilitation, and find a way forward,” added Zaritsky. “If ‘The Wild Horse Redemption’helps change some minds, I will have done my job.”

The title sponsor for the event is the Desert Canyon Treatment Center in Sedona. The lodging host is Sedona Rouge Hotel & Spa. The series is also made possible by a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Sedona.
The film will be shown at Harkins Sedona Six Theatres on Tuesday, July 29 at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $10, or $8 for Film Sedona members, and will be available starting at 3:00 p.m. in the Harkins lobby. Cash or checks only. Seats are limited. Film Sedona members can purchase tickets in advance at the Sedona International Film Festival office, 1785 W. Hwy. 89A, Suite 2B, or by calling 282-1177. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.com.

Sidebar information (if needed):
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
JOHN ZARITSKY has won more than 30 awards for his documentary films. Some of his major honours include an Academy Award® in 1982 for his documentary Just Another Missing Kid, a Cable Ace Award in 1987 for Rapists: Can They be Stopped?, a Golden Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for My Husband is Going to Kill Me, a Robert F. Kennedy Foundation Award for Born in Africa, and an Alfred Dupont Award from Columbia University’s School of Journalism in 1994 for Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo. His films have won prizes at the New York Film Festival, the American Film Festival, Banff Television Festival, Houston International Film Festival, Columbus Ohio Film Festival and the John Muir Medical Film Festival. Three films − Broken Promises, Born in Africa and Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo − were nominated for Emmy Awards. In addition, Zaritsky has won seven Geminis, Canada’s national television award, including the 2005 award for Best Director in a Documentary Series for College Days, College Nights. In 1995-96, he was artist-in-residence at the graduate school of journalism, University of California at Berkeley. Prior to entering the film business, Zaritsky worked as a newspaper reporter for seven years. In 1970, he received a Ford Foundation Fellowship to study at the Washington Journalism Center for six months. In 1972, he won a National Newspaper Award for his investigative reporting at Canada’s Globe and Mail.