Monday, August 9, 2010

Searing Documentaries

Update: To listen to the August 9, 2010 show with our interview with director Chico Colvard and with director Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, click here:
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For our next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, airing this evening at 5-6 p.m. Pacific Time on KUCI, 88.9 FM and via the web at kuci.org, we talk with the directors of two new documentaries that tackle taboo topics.

In the first half hour we talk with Chico Colvard, director of "Family Affair," a daring and uncomfortable yet revealing look at incest within his biracial (white/African American) family. In a quest to explain to himself why it happened and why his three sisters (whom the father sexually violated) still hung out with their father, Colvard's 82-minute documentary makes some surprising revelations. The documentary seems to ask that we not divide those caught in this incestuous web as merely perpetrator and victims but something more complex.

Trailer: Trailer.

In the second hour, we talk with Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, whose "Quest for Honor" documentary takes a searing look at the historical phenomenon of "honor killings" - where females are routinely ostracized and even killed for violating traditional codes of conduct. The setting is Sulemaniyah, in Kurdistan, Iraq, where a local group, the Women's Media Center has joined forces with Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government to try to end this heinous practice. The 64-minute film is in Kurdish with English-language subtitles.

Trailer: Trailer

Both films are playing this week in New York City and Los Angeles:

QUEST FOR HONOR
NEW YORK - AUGUST 6 - 12 IFC CENTER
LOS ANGELES - AUGUST 13 - 19 ARCLIGHT HOLLYWOOD

FAMILY AFFAIR
LOS ANGELES - JULY 30 - AUGUST 6 ARCLIGHT HOLLYWOOD
LOS ANGELES - AUGUST 13 - 19 - IFC CENTER

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