Film & BooksIssue: Sagittarius 07
Sisters in Law
Courtesy of Women Make MoviesDon't miss the national broadcast premiere of Sisters in Law, a captivating and often humorous documentary film about two brave women dispensing justice in Cameroon. Sisters in Law will air on the Emmy-Award winning PBS series, Independent Lens, November 27 at 10 pm on most PBS stations.
Winner of the Prix Art et Essai at the Cannes Film Festival, and screened at more than 120 festivals worldwide, Sisters in Law documents the bold work of two women in one small courthouse in Kumba, Cameroon. Tough-minded state prosecutor, Vera Ngassa, and court president, Beatrice Ntuba, are working to help women in their town find the courage to fight the often appalling cases of abuse despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent. With fierce compassion, they distribute wisdom, wisecracks, and justice in fair-measure—handing down stiff sentences to those convicted. Nathan Lee writes in his review published in The New York Times, "Patriarchal arrogance is knocked clean off their hapless mugs as the world's worst alibis crumble before the sisterly smackdown."
Co-directed by Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi, Sisters in Law presents a strong and positive view of African women and captures the emerging spirit of courage, hope, and the possibility of change. 
Film & Books Archives (total entries: 28)
Sagittarius 08 & Honest Self Expression
Scorpio 08 - The Money Issue
Honestly, I have never been one for self-help books, but what I liked most about "How We Choose to Be Happy" is that it celebrates the wisdom of a variety of literary greats balanced by the stories of ordinary people.
This book won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction for good reason. I started the “The Great Man” on Saturday morning and had to finish it by lunch the next day. When it started to rain I traded my lawn chair for the couch and kept on reading. This novel is fabulously funny, mischievous, and easy to read.
A quirky look at boyhood and film-making in the 1980s, “Son of Rambow” is a welcome diversion from the current deluge of blockbuster remakes and super hero epics in theaters this summer. Written and directed by Garth Jennings and produced by Nick Goldsmith, I like the way this film spins a standard, winning movie formula at a slightly awkward angle.
Although “The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard is marketed as a novel, it reads from beginning to end as a poem. Like body surfing, the poetry will move emotions in directions that the mind may not understand. When this wave brought me to shore, I needed air and I wasn’t quite certain where I had been or where I had landed, but I was, in the truest sense of the word, in awe of the experience I just had.
April and May are notoriously bad months to go to the movies. The Academy Award hopefuls of 2008 won't be released until the fall, and the summer blockbusters won't be out for a few months. So what is a film reviewer to do when all the movies in the theaters are lame? This reviewer is going to suggest that you catch up on the best movies of 2007!
After an unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, Greg Mortenson stumbled into the village of Korphe in Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya region. The generosity and hospitality of the Korphe villagers inspired Mortenson to establish the Central Asia Institute (CAI). Since the establishment of CAI ten years ago, the organization has built 55 schools serving Pakistan and Afghanistan’s poorest children, especially girls.
Based on Marjane Satrapi's books, the film “Persepolis” tells the poignant story of a young girl coming of age in Iran in the midst of revolution and war.
This book grabs the reality of life with two hands and shakes it upside down. Those who appear to be physically beautiful and those whose eloquence is often over-beautified, are the most repulsive characters. “On Beauty” is about being real, about dealing with life, and about the need to reexamine what “living” really means.
