United Nations Association Film Festival at Carroll

The ninth annual United Nations Association Traveling Film Festival will be Wednesday, April 2, 2014, at Carroll University. The event will be 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the Dorothy Goff Frisch Recital Hall of Shattuck Music Center, 218 N. East Ave., Waukesha. This year’s theme is “Individual to Universal.”

The film festival is sponsored by Carroll University and its Student Senate, Plowshare Center and the United Nations Association Waukesha Chapter. It is free and open to the public. Free parking will be available in designated Carroll lots.

Five award-winning international documentaries will each be followed by a discussion. They are:

“Soldiers of Conscience” (4-5:35 p.m.)

A powerful documentary featuring West Point grads to drill sergeants, and Abu Ghraib interrogators to low ranking reservist-mechanics. Soldiers in the U.S. Army today reveal their deepest moral concerns about what they are asked to do in a war. The film includes never-seen-before footage of basic training and the war in Iraq, with an original soundtrack from an Academy Award-winning composer.

“Faces” (5:35-7:10 p.m.)

In March 2007, French photographer and street artist JR and his friend Marco embarked on the largest illegal photo exhibition. They photographed both Palestinians and Israelis doing the same jobs in their respective communities – then posted these images face to face, in huge formats, on both sides of the Wall of Separation as well as in eight Palestinian and Israel cities. The film portrays people from different political and religious backgrounds who come together to speak about being torn apart.

“The Education of Shelby Knox” (7:10-8:35 p.m.)

This coming-of-age story is about a teenage girl who joins a gay-straight alliance campaign for comprehensive sex education in the high schools of Lubbock, Texas. She soon begins to question her deeply conservative Southern Baptist upbringing. In the end, she declares herself a feminist and a liberal Christian.

“American Outrage” (8:35–9:40 p.m.)

Carrie and Mary Dann are feisty Western Shoshone sisters who have endured five terrifying livestock roundups by armed federal marshals in which more than a thousand of their horses and cattle were confiscated. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management insists the sisters are degrading the land. The Dann sisters say the real reason is the resources hidden below this seemingly barren land.

“Happy” (9:40–11:05 p.m.)

Does money make you happy? Kids and family? Your work? Do you live in a world that values and promotes happiness and well-being? Roko Belic, director of the Academy Award-nominated “Genghis Blues,” now presents a film that takes us from the bayous of Louisiana to the deserts of Namibia, from the beaches of Brazil to the villages of Okinawa, to explore the secrets behind our most valued emotion.

The United Nations Association Film Festival was conceived at Stanford University in 1998 by film critic and educator Jasmina Bojic, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UNAFF screens documentaries by international filmmakers dealing with topics such as human rights, environmental themes, women’s issues, children, refugee protection, homelessness, racism, disease control, universal education, war and peace. By bringing together filmmakers, the academic community and the general public, UNAFF offers a unique opportunity for creative exchange and education among groups and individuals often separated by geography, ethnicity and economic constraints.

For more information on Carroll’s film festival, contact Dr. Deirdre Keenan, professor of English, at 262.524.7254 or dkeenan@carrollu.edu.