"Crossing the Line": Wed. in Vanderbilt Hall

Another screening this week. (See also "Missing in Pakistan")

NYU Asia Law Society and Asia Catalyst

Documentary Film Screening - Crossing the Line

Wednesday, February 27 @ 7:00 PM
40 Washington Square South, Vanderbilt Hall, room 206

In 1962, a US soldier sent to guard the peace in South Korea deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified area on earth, and defected to the communist state of North Korea. Now, after 45 years, the story of Comrade Joe is told.

Join Asia Catalyst to see this astonishing documentary and toast the DVD launch. Co-sponsored by NYU Asia Law Society and APAC.

Asia Catalyst is a New York-based nonprofit that helps to launch independent nonprofits in Asia that work on human rights, social justice and the environment. Asia Catalyzers give New York professionals and students a chance to get informed about hot-button issues in Asia while getting to know each other over a drink.

Suggested Donation: $10

"Missing in Pakistan": Movie Screening in Van. Hall

Members of the public are welcome. So if you can, get along!

The National Lawyers Guild, Law Students For Human Rights, and the South Asian Law Student's Association Present

The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan and its Implications for Pakistan's Future

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Vanderbilt 210, 4:30-6 pm

Food will be served

A screening of the short (20 minute) documentary "Missing in Pakistan" will be followed by a brief talk and question/answer session with one of Pakistan's leading Constitutional Scholars, Hamid Khan. Recent events in Pakistan have been both frightening and inspiring, as the struggle for the rule of law continues in the courts and in the streets. Please join us for a brief film explaining the origins of Pakistan's "State of Emergency" and suspension of its constitution, and a talk with one of the lawyers who has been deeply involved with the legal battle to maintain an independent judiciary.

Hamid Khan is a legal scholar, Supreme Court lawyer, former President of the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association and the Senior Vice President of the political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. In addition, Mr. Khan, was a member of the defense team that successfully advocated for Chief Justice Iftikar M. Chaudhry reinstatement in July 2007. He also argued the case against President Musharaff - contesting his eligibility to stand for presidential elections - that precipitated the November 3 declaration of emergency rule. Mr. Khan has authored several authoritative texts of Pakistani Constitutional law.

Missing in Pakistan:

A short documentary written and directed by Ziad Zafar, an independent journalist and filmmaker. It was shot in February and March 2007 and highlights one of the key causes of the judicial and political crisis in Musharraf's Pakistan: the extra-legal disappearances of ordinary citizens at the hands of Military Intelligence. It reveals, as well, that the average Pakistani citizen can easily draw a stark connection between US ideals and policy with the realities in Pakistan.

Qiu Ju da guan si (The Story of Qiu Zhu)

Professor Frank Upham has this to say:

"The Story of Qiu Zhu is about the normative confusion caused when state law penetrates customary society, and specifically how a young wife, Qiu Zhu, tries to use law to get justice. Instead, she gets law and the movie is about the difference. It is set in a remote agricultural village in China at the time (1992) of the passage of the Administrative Litigation Law, which allowed citizens to sue officials for malfeasance. The village secretary and Qiu Zhu's husband have a fight, and the former injures the latter in a sensitive area of his body that affects him not only physically but as a matter of honor. Qiu Zhu takes it upon herself to get justice for her husband, first trying informal means, but eventually turning to the formal legal system. It is a great movie for those interested in law and development, law and culture, and modernization in general. It is also a very good movie - perhaps Zhang Yimo's best."

Dormant, not Dead! And some movies

We will be back. Soon.

Meanwhile, some films currently playing in theatres:

Rendition
Egyptian man, suspected of terrorism, disappears on his way to Washington DC. A CIA agent is tasked with conducting an 'unorthodox interrogation' in a secret detention facility...

The Kingdom
A terrorist bomb detonates inside a western housing compound in Saudi Arabia igniting an international incident. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, a Special Agent from FBI negotiates a secret five-day trip to locate the culprit. While Saudi authorities in general are not pleased with the 'interference', a like-minded Saudi colonel helps them find their way to an extremist cell bent on further destruction...

Total Denial
Tells the story of a pipeline built by two oil companies, Total and Unocal in Burma, that formed the basis for the historic Doe v. Unocal lawsuit in which fifteen indigenous people successfully sued two corporate giants in the U.S. courts for complicity in forced labor, assaults, rape and other human rights abuses.

O Jerusalem
Based on the book of the same name by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins which seeks to capture the events surrounding the creation of the modern state of Israel.

Terror's Advocate (L'Avocat de la terreur)
The story of Jacques Vergès, the lawyer who has defended some of the most controversial figures of the 20th century - from anti-colonial bombers in Algeria, to left-wing extremists like Carlos the Jackal, to right-wing dictators like Slobodan Milošević. One of his his most infamous clients the Nazi, was Klaus Barbie. Vergès also defended Djamila Bouhired, the woman who planted the bomb at the Milk Bar, an incident famously dramatized in the The Battle of Algiers. See here for more details...

Meeting Resistance
A documentary on the Iraq War from the perspective of Iraqis resisting military occupation of their country. For more see here.

Banished

The documentary revisits three of the communities that forcibly expelled their entire African American populations in the period between the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression. See here for more.

Please note, this post does not touch upon the quality f any of these films, although some of them are extremely interesting.