Irish
Filmmaker Nicky Larkin tells the truth about Israel...
Please
join us for "Forty Shades of Grey" an incredibly film by
Nicky Larkin, who will be in attendance to answer questions.
Forty Shades of Grey
An Evening with Nicky Larkin
June 18, 2012. 7 PM
Library & Archives Canada
395 Wellington, Ottawa
Admission: $15 ($10 for students)
Tickets are now available at Compact
Music (785 Bank, 190 Bank), Collected Works (1242 Wellington), and
Ottawa Festivals (47 William). Tickets will also be available at the
door.
The Free Thinking Film Society will be
working with B'Nai Brith Canada to also bring Nicky and his film to
Toronto (June 20th) and Montreal (June 19th). Stay tuned for
details.
Nicky Larkin: Israel is a refuge, but a refuge
under siege. Through making a film about the Israeli-Arab conflict,
artist Nicky Larkin found his allegiances swaying.
From the Irish Independent Sunday March 11 2012
I used to hate Israel. I used to think
the Left was always right. Not any more. Now I loathe Palestinian
terrorists. Now I see why Israel has to be hard. Now I see the Left
can be Right -- as in right-wing. So why did I change my mind so
completely?
Strangely, it began with my anger at
Israel's incursion into Gaza in December 2008 which left over 1,200
Palestinians dead, compared to only 13 Israelis. I was so angered by
this massacre I posed in the striped scarf of the Palestinian
Liberation Organisation for an art show catalogue.
Shortly after posing in that PLO scarf, I
applied for funding from the Irish Arts Council to make a film in
Israel and Palestine. I wanted to talk to these soldiers, to
challenge their actions -- and challenge the Israeli citizens who
supported them.
I spent seven weeks in the area, dividing
my time evenly between Israel and the West Bank. I started in Israel.
The locals were suspicious. We were Irish -- from a country which is
one of Israel's chief critics -- and we were filmmakers. We were the
enemy.
Then I crossed over into the West Bank.
Suddenly, being Irish wasn't a problem. Provo graffiti adorned The
Wall. Bethlehem was Las Vegas for Jesus-freaks -- neon crucifixes
punctuated by posters of martyrs.
These martyrs followed us throughout the
West Bank. They watched from lamp-posts and walls wherever we went.
Like Jesus in the old Sacred Heart pictures.
But the more I felt the martyrs watching
me, the more confused I became. After all, the Palestinian mantra was
one of "non-violent resistance". It was their motto,
repeated over and over like responses at a Catholic mass.
Yet when I interviewed Hind Khoury, a
former Palestinian government member, she sat forward angrily in her
chair as she refused to condemn the actions of the suicide bombers.
She was all aggression.
This aggression continued in Hebron,
where I witnessed swastikas on a wall. As I set up my camera, an
Israeli soldier shouted down from his rooftop position. A few months
previously I might have ignored him as my political enemy. But now I
stopped to talk. He only talked about Taybeh, the local Palestinian
beer.
Back in Tel Aviv in the summer of 2011, I
began to listen more closely to the Israeli side. I remember one
conversation in Shenkin Street -- Tel Aviv's most fashionable
quarter, a street where everybody looks as if they went to art
college. I was outside a cafe interviewing a former soldier.
He talked slowly about his time in Gaza.
He spoke about 20 Arab teenagers filled with ecstasy tablets and sent
running towards the base he'd patrolled. Each strapped with a bomb
and carrying a hand-held detonator.
The pills in their bloodstream meant they
felt no pain. Only a headshot would take them down.
Conversations like this are normal in Tel
Aviv. I began to experience the sense of isolation Israelis feel. An
isolation that began in the ghettos of Europe and ended in Auschwitz.
Israel is a refuge -- but a refuge under
siege, a refuge where rockets rain death from the skies. And as I
made the effort to empathise, to look at the world through their
eyes. I began a new intellectual journey. One that would not be
welcome back home.
The problem began when I resolved to come
back with a film that showed both sides of the coin. Actually there
are many more than two. Which is why my film is called Forty Shades
of Grey. But only one side was wanted back in Dublin. My peers
expected me to come back with an attack on Israel. No grey areas were
acceptable.
An Irish artist is supposed to sign
boycotts, wear a PLO scarf, and remonstrate loudly about The
Occupation. But it's not just artists who are supposed to hate
Israel. Being anti-Israel is supposed to be part of our Irish
identity, the same way we are supposed to resent the English.
But hating Israel is not part of my
personal national identity. Neither is hating the English. I hold an
Irish passport, but nowhere upon this document does it say I am a
republican, or a Palestinian.
PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE (SEE THE
LINK ABOVE).
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Don't miss our film and panel discussion on China!
Please join us for this important event on the
implications of Chinese state-owned investment in Canada.
When China
Met Africa (Film)
China in
Canada (Panel Discussion)
May 28, 2012, 7 PM
Library & Archives Canada
395 Wellington, Ottawa
Admission: $15 ($10 for students)
Tickets
are now available at Compact Music (785 Bank, 190 Bank), Collected
Works (1242 Wellington), and Ottawa Festivals (47 William). Tickets
will also be available at the door.
"This documentary explores the
burgeoning economic relationship between China and Zambia. It's
shot with an acute eye for the discomfort of discordant cultures
co-existing. What's interesting here is that you feel this story is
only just beginning."
The Times of London
"A dark, quiet, damning
documentary looking at China's determined expansion into Africa
(here Zambia) through the lives of a Chinese farmer, a road
builder, and the Zambian trade minister. When in 1999 China
announced its "go global" policy it had Africa very much
in mind, and specifically the raw materials that go into the
construction of our electrical equipment. A creeping, alarming
account of exploitation as well as a study into the psychology of
colonialism."
Financial Times
After the film, we will have a panel
discussion in the implications of Chinese investment in Canada with
Award-winning journalist Terry Glavin, Human Rights campaigner
David Kilgour, Terrorism and Security Specialist David Harris, University
of Ottawa Professor Scott Simon, and Jason Loftus, Deputy Publisher
of the Epoch Times Canada.
Finally, we will then have a private
reception - so please join us for an evening of film, discussion,
and food & drink!
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Terry Glavin writes on China
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Where to
buy tickets for the events on China and Nicky Larkin:
Tickets will be available at the door.
You can also buy tickets at four locations in Ottawa -
tickets available right now.
1. Compact Music, 785 1/2 Bank Street in the Glebe.
2. Compact Music 190 Bank Street (at Nepean).
3. Collected Works (1242 Wellington).
4. Ottawa Festivals (47 William Street)
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Check out
our Youtube channel!
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Then he
learned about a documentary called Michael Moore Hates America, made
by a relatively unknown filmmaker named Mike Wilson. "I asked
a local rep cinema if they would bring it in, since his film was
not available on DVD. They quickly replied that they
wouldn't." So Litwin decided to bring it to Ottawa
himself.
This was
not his line of work. He had an MBA in finance, and over the
years had worked in various business enterprises in New York,
Britain, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In 2000 he had retired to
start his own successful music label, NorthernBlues.
Over the
years his politics had shifted. A socialist during his
student days, he was moved after 9/11 by David Horowitz's The Politics of Bad
Faith. The left's hysteric response to 9/11
bewildered him. "I could hardly believe hearing people
questioning whether Bin Laden was behind it or whether the US had
it coming. I couldn't be part of that. And, when I
started seeing some of my liberal friends abandon Israel during the
second Intifada - a time when suicide bombers were regularly
killing people in Israel - I then completely moved to the
right."
[Please read the whole article..]
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Please Volunteer!
We
can use your help!!!
First, we value all suggestions for films for us to show.
Secondly, we need people to help at our upcoming events. From
planning to staffing to marketing, there's always something to do!
info@freethinkingfilms.com
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