I'll be at this meeting tonight. And then I'll be going on to the films at the Rice Cinema:
In support of organizing around the upcoming Halliburton Shareholder Meeting, Houston Indymedia presents a selection of four short films to give Houstonians images, sounds and stories direct from on the ground in Iraq that are never going to appear on corporate news channels. The stories in these films tell of the real, daily-life impact of this war on civilians, resistance movements and soldiers. This war is not good for them, or our domestic well-being as our national coffers are robbed bare to feed our seemingly insatiable war machine.
Filmmaker David Martinez and Pratap Chatterjee of Corpwatch will lead a discussion after the screening.
500 Miles to BabylonDirected by David Martinez
This film was shot over four months in Iraq in 2004 by an independent filmmaker who traveled around the country interviewing people and filming the country as its occupants tried to get by under U.S. occupation. In April 2004, Martinez joined a group of journalists and human-rights workers who entered the besieged city of Fallujah, where they reported on the civilian casualties and themselves worked in an emergency clinic.
Testimonies From Fallujah (33 mins.)
"They turned night into day, and day into night. We realised they are not coming to liberate this town."
That is one of a powerful series of personal accounts by the men, women and children of Fallujah. Along with footage and photographs from the city, the testimony brings home the reality of military occupation. The US has obstructed - and continues to obstruct - journalists from documenting the horror that was and is Falluja. This video is unique in that it focuses on Falluja, that it was made by a team of independent Iraqi videographers, and that we are able to see it in the US.
Vietnam Street (10 mins., scenes from Summer 2004 in Sadr City, Baghdad)
Globalization at Gunpoint: The Economics of Occupation (28 mins.)- from the Deep Dish TV series, "Shocking and Awful"
This documentary details how Halliburton is privatizing not only the Iraqi infrastructure, but the US military. Naomi Klein and Pratap Chatterjee are some of the interviewees that look at moves by the US to enforce privatization of the Iraqi economy, in effect, selling off Iraq's assets to foreign investors.
Suggested Donation - $5 - no one turned away for lack of funds
Rice Cinema is located on the Rice University Campus at entrance #8: University Blvd. and Stockton Dr.
http://ricecinema.rice.edu for more information check out
http://houston.indymedia.org