2008-2009 Season
Community Cinema: Real Reality Shows offers monthly sneak previews of documentaries from the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. Following each screening we feature special guest speakers and audience discussion designed to bring a local perspective to the important issues addressed in the film. Screenings are held at the ISU Bengal Theater from 5:15 pm-6:30 pm on selected Tuesday nights.
CHICAGO 10
Tuesday, Sept. 9
Mixing animation with archival footage, Director Brett Morgan explores the build-up to and unraveling of the 1968 Chicago Conspiracy Trial. CHICAGO 10 is a parable of hope, courage, and challenge as it portrays the struggle of young Americans speaking out and taking a stand in the face of an oppressive and armed government.
LIONESS
Tuesday, Oct. 21
They went to Iraq as cooks, clerks, and mechanics and returned a year later as part of America's first generation of female combat veterans. Despite an official government policy that states that women are not supposed to partake in direct ground combat, the five women featured here most certainly did. LIONESS, the provocative and powerful documentary from Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers tells the story of five women who served together for a year in Iraq.
I.O.U.S.A.
Tuesday, Nov. 18
Wake up, America! We’re on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. As the Baby Boomer generation prepares to retire, will there even be any Social Security benefits left to collect? Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.
HELVETICA
Tuesday, Dec. 9
HELVETICA is a film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.
TULIA TEXAS
Tuesday, Jan. 20
In 1999 undercover narcotics agent Thomas Coleman executed one of the biggest drug stings in Texas history. Coleman and his drug task force arrested 46 Tulia residents--of which 39 were African American--on charges of suspected drug dealing. TULIA, TEXAS is the story of a small town's search for justice and the price Americans pay for the nation's war on drugs.
ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING
Tuesday, Feb. 10
Iranian American filmmaker Marjan Tehrani chronicles her brother's return to Iran during the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as he travels with his American wife to have a traditional Persian wedding and explore his lost heritage. In weaving the couple's personal story with historical footage, ARUSI considers the history, impact and troubled relationship between Iran and America.
TAKING ROOT
Tuesday, Mar. 10
TAKING ROOT tells the dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy—a movement for which this charismatic woman became an iconic inspiration.
MADE IN AMERICA
Tuesday, Apr. 14
MADE IN AMERICA is the first major nonfiction film to term the decades-long gang strife in South Central Los Angeles as a war on the scale of Kosovo, Mogadishu or Northern Ireland. Stacy Peralta's bracing film grimly examines the causes and nature of the area's epidemic violence. Laying out a history while talking directly to former and current members of the Crips and the Bloods, his picture assumes a wide audience that's little informed on the horrors.