FIFTH ANNUAL PEACE ON EARTH FILM FESTIVAL EXPLORES THEMES OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE IN A COLLECTION OF SHORT AND FEATURE FILMS
The 5th Annual Peace on Earth Film Festival (POEFF), presented by Transcendence Global Media, NFP, in partnership with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special events, announces its full schedule of films in the areas of nonviolence, tolerance, sustainability and social justice. The POEFF takes place Thursday, March 7 through Sunday, March 10 at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater, 78 East Washington. All screenings are free and open to the public.
Friday, March 8, will be Latino Night, featuring films, filmmakers and issues of people in Mexico.Latino Night highlights include: the world premiere of the powerful and timely immigration documentaryThe Second Cooler narrated by Martin Sheen; the U.S. premiere of Mexico’s Altman-esque pastiche 180 Grados; and the world premiere of the metaphysical student short film Historias. Directors Fernando Kalife and Ellin Jimmerson will be in attendance.
Started in 2008, POEFF has been an annual event shining a light on filmmakers’ challenging perspectives regarding issues such as human rights, neighborhood violence, food deserts, domestic violence, bullying, war, world politics, environment, economics and
more. The festival strives to put Chicago at the forefront of international efforts for peace and environmental recoveries, while bringing together filmmakers, academics and social activists in discussion panels and educational components.
Learn more at: www.peaceonearthfilmfestival.
Latino Night schedule:
FRIDAY, MARCH 8: LATINO NIGHT
6:00pm – Festival Opening
6:11 – The Second Cooler (Ellin Jimmerson, USA, 87 min.) World Premiere *director Ellin Jimmerson will be in attendance
8:14 – Historias (Gloriana Fonseca-Malavasi, USA, 20 min.) World Premiere
8:35 –180 Grados (Fernando Kalife, Mexico, 105 min.) U.S. Premiere *director Fernando Kalife will be in attendance
The Second Cooler – The Second Cooler asks, “Who benefits from illegal immigration?” while bringing major systemic issues into focus. Those issues include US complicity in creating Latin America’s extreme inequality, the officially anticipated, devastating impact of NAFTA on millions of Mexican peasants, the militarization of the US/Mexico border in anticipation of those displacements, the US’s socially encoded dual legal entry system which discriminates against poor and indigenous people, the legal exception of the guest worker program which is a system of indentured servitude, and the deaths of thousands of illegally crossing migrants along our southwestern border. The film features rare interviews with illegal immigrants, including children, and guest workers in ongoing lawsuits, with original art, music and score. Fully subtitled. Martin Sheen narrates.
http://thesecondcooler.com/
Director Ellin Jimmerson has a Masters in Southern History from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, a Ph. D. in 20th Century United States History from the University of Houston, Texas, and a Masters in Theological Studies from Vanderbilt University with a concentration in Latin American liberation theology. She is Minister to the Community at Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. Because her parents were Civil Rights Movement activists during the 1950s and 1960s in Albany, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama, she cut her teeth on social justice issues.
Jimmerson’s academic speciality is the intersection of US history, Latin American history, and Christianity. She has spoken to academic and non-academic audiences on liberation theology in the United States and Mexico.
Ellin has spent years investigating illegal migration. In November, 2006, she took her first trip to the US / Mexico border to speak with people in their homes, on the streets, and in their places of business. After returning to Alabama, she began to speak in churches, universities, libraries, and other places about the basic causes of migration. In 2008, she was invited to a private meeting with the members of the Alabama Legislature’s Joint Interim Patriotic Immigration Commission. She was the plenary speaker at the Spring, 2010 Liberal Arts Conference at Auburn University in Montgomery in Montgomery, Alabama. On the subject of illegal migration, Jimmerson is the author of If It Is a Sin to Cross, I Hope God Forgives Me, a photojournalism article for the Huntsville Times, December 22, 2006, based on her 2006 journey to the border. She wrote “Illegal Migration,” an opinion-editorial for the Mobile Press-Register at the invitation of the editor. She wrote an “Open Letter to Governor Bentley, Senator Beason and Representative Hammon about HB 56 for a rally against Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, HB 56, which she helped organize. Her message appeared in the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Press-Register, and the MontgomeryAdvertiser. Her sermons about illegal migration include “Reflections on the Migrant Trail Walk.” You may read her writings about illegal migration by going to “Writings” on this website. Jimmerson is a plaintiff in the case of HICA, et. al. v. the State of Alabama because of its anti-immigrant law, HB 56. The Southern Poverty Law Center represents her. In 2010, Ellin Jimmerson was nominated for a $10,000 prize for human rights advocacy by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and the Puffin Foundation. In 2011, she won a special award for social justice by the Interfaith Mission Service.
180 Grados – After targeting the wrong mark, the life of conman Salvador Diaz now lies in the hands – or rather the bum knee – of Gasparotto, an injured soccer star whose success in the game becomes the most important factor for not only “bringing in the big bucks,” but for reclaiming his life. Getting people to believe in Gasparotto is Salvador’s greatest act of con artistry yet. Writer-director Fernando Kalife’s Altman-esque tapestry of interwoven stories is about changes, from the ones that never took place, to those that might still happen. It’s about dreams abandoned, words never said, streets never crossed and the yearning for true love.
Writer-director-producer Fernanda Kalife was born in Monterrey, Mexico. He attended USC Film School. He wrote and directed 7 Días, his first feature film, which was a huge success in Mexico, nominated for five Mexican Academy Awards and winner of Best Feature Film and Best Director at the Diosas de Plata, from the Mexican Cinematography Journalists. Kalife is currently in pre-production of his next feature film, The Remanent.
Historias
Legend becomes reality in this student film about a teenager who tries to reject his identity. Manuel is tired of his grandmother’s fanciful stories from the old country and of being the only poor kid at an upper-class school. He wishes he were more like his classmates until, one night, he hears the cry of the Weeping Woman.
POEFF’s mission is … raising awareness of peace, nonviolence, social justice and an eco-balanced world.