Each January, as the temperatures drop into single digits and snow piles grow larger, Park City transforms. A small mountain town originally founded high in the Utah Rocky Mountains around silver mines, Park City today is best known as a premiere ski retreat, and the host of the yearly Sundance Film Festival.
The 2013 festival came at the tail end of a cold snap that dropped nighttime temperatures for Northern Utah to a brisk 2 degrees, but this did not deter the crowds gathered for the week-long affair from stepping out in their best ski chic. As Hollywood met New York City, the ski slopes were crowded with the most fashionable ski jumpers by day, while by night crowds lined colorful Main Street dressed to impress at exclusive parties or nightclubs with names like “No Name Saloon” or “The Claimjumper.”
At the center of all this hubbub was a celebration of the independent filmmaker and the art of film. The 2013 Sundance line up was quite noticeable for the attention it gave to controversial politics, including Citizens United, the hunt for bin Laden, and the Occupy Movement, as well as cultural touchstones, such as Steve Jobs and Jane Austen.
Wajma (An Afghan Love Story)
“In a lot of these stories [of self-immolation], they are love stories… Love stories in Afghanistan are illegal ones—dangerous ones.”
Wajma is a young woman from a lower-middle class family with a highly promising future—she has just been accepted into a law school in Kabul. She has fallen in love with an upper-middle class boy, Mustafa, with a charming smile and cosmopolitan attitude. The first part of the movie is lighthearted, and everything a young love should be—Wajma and Mustafa go on illicit dates, plan their futures, and eventually make love.
But when Wajma discovers she is pregnant, everything changes. Mustafa disappears, claiming there is no way the child could be his, with excuses that imply Wajma’s promiscuity. Wajma attempts to get an abortion, but is told it is not legal in Afghanistan, and she must travel to India for one. Wajma’s father returns from his de-mining job, and beats Wajma—and her mother when she tries to protect her—immediately upon his return from fieldwork. All dreams of law school are gone, only to be thrown in her face as a factor in leading her to dishonor.
Barmak Akram, the writer and director, found Wajma’s story in the bits and pieces of stories he heard while researching the causes and effects of self-immolation around the world, but particularly in his native Afghanistan. He realized that at its roots, the phenomenon had roots in a love story gone wrong. By combining these stories into Wajma’s character, he hoped to show the various challenges women around the world face.
No access to birth control, no sex education, and no access to abortion doomed Wajma’s future the moment she and Mustafa fell for each other. While Mustafa was able to wash his hands of the situation (although Wajma’s father did seek legal counsel over whether he could murder Mustafa without repercussions), Wajma is left very few options and seemingly without hope. Most remarkable about her situation, however, was how the women in her life around her rallied to ease her pain and protect her, without judging her for her actions.
Wajma’s father is an interesting study in the clashes of modernity vs. traditional values playing out in Afghanistan’s middle classes. While his initial reaction to the news was to beat Wajma, threaten to kill her by lighting her on fire, and then finally to lock her in the woodshed, he was also actively searching for ways to get her out of the country to access actual abortion facilities. Akram explained that his actions toward Wajma were not out of the ordinary, and that most women and children have been beaten by father at one point.
Wajma (An Afghan Love Story) was awarded Best Screenwriting Award in the World Dramatic Competition. Akram, who had earlier expressed his hope to create a strong Afghan film culture, thanked the audience when he was presented with his award. “In Afghanistan, they love American films, and now Americans love Afghan films.”
God Loves Uganda
Africa is a young continent, with nearly 70 percent of the total population under age 30. While this holds enormous opportunities for entrepreneurialism and growth, it also presents the dangers of radicalizations in an unemployed, angry youth demographic.
Africa is also currently one of the fastest growing areas of the Christian world, but this growth is due in part to enormously well-funded American evangelical groups and their missionary efforts. In the process, such groups are managing to export the United States’ culture wars, and no better example of their success exists than Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill.
“Uganda has become the Promised Land for Christian fundamentalism and a fertile ground for mining what has become one of Africa’s greatest national resources—human souls,” said director Roger Ross Williams in an interview with Queerty. “Ugandan pastors are like American fundamentalist pastors on steroids.”
The documentary film opens with scenes from a prayer service at the International House of Prayer’s Missouri megachurch. Throughout the service, Christian rock music swelled, bringing the faithful to tears and moving them to pull out their wallets. After the service, a group of young adults met to discuss strategy of converting Uganda, a place described as the “firepot of spiritual renewal” in contrast with the decline of the West. The film follows a group of these young adults across the ocean as they go forth to spread the “good news” as missionaries.
From there, the film follows three storyline threads: the well-intentioned American missionaries, who do not realize the hate their teachings ignite; politicians and leaders of the Church of Uganda, who condone violence toward gays in God’s name; and Christian Ugandans who are ostracized from their larger communities for their support of LGBT rights, but who persist nonetheless in attempting to spread a message of peace.
Although director Williams has stated that his intent in making the film was to foster dialogue in the religious community, the film’s critique of the missionary movement is sharp and biting. The missionaries use highly militarized language, describing themselves as “soldiers” working to “mobilize” the faithful. They drive to extremely rural areas and explain to young mothers who have or who might lose a young child that if she does not convert, she will never be able to see her child in the next life. In one scene, a missionary asks a Muslim man, “So...do you speak in tongues?” The man, after some confusion over the question, responds, “I speak English, Ugandan, and Swahili.”
And all the while, money from U.S. megachurches pours in, funding new schools, churches, and roads, in return for ideological influence over society and government.
But Uganda is not without voices pushing back. Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a prominent figure in the film, made a special appearance at the premiere of the film in Salt Lake City, where he discussed his work to set up a safe space for LGBT youths at St. Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Center in Kampala. Although he has been threatened and shunned by his church, he continues to work for the oppressed and marginalized.
God Loves Uganda has stirred up controversy across the U.S., prompting national media to describe it as the contemporary partner to the 2006 documentary, Jesus Camp. Those interested in hosting a screening in their community may contact the filmmaker for details.
Photos: Egyptian Theatre at Night by Barnaby Dorfman. Photo from Wajma by Barmak Akram. Photo from God Loves Uganda by Derek Wiesehahn.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2013 print edition.
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Film Review: Sundance Film Festival 2013
April 5, 2013
Each January, as the temperatures drop into single digits and snow piles grow larger, Park City transforms. A small mountain town originally founded high in the Utah Rocky Mountains around silver mines, Park City today is best known as a premiere ski retreat, and the host of the yearly Sundance Film Festival.
The 2013 festival came at the tail end of a cold snap that dropped nighttime temperatures for Northern Utah to a brisk 2 degrees, but this did not deter the crowds gathered for the week-long affair from stepping out in their best ski chic. As Hollywood met New York City, the ski slopes were crowded with the most fashionable ski jumpers by day, while by night crowds lined colorful Main Street dressed to impress at exclusive parties or nightclubs with names like “No Name Saloon” or “The Claimjumper.”
At the center of all this hubbub was a celebration of the independent filmmaker and the art of film. The 2013 Sundance line up was quite noticeable for the attention it gave to controversial politics, including Citizens United, the hunt for bin Laden, and the Occupy Movement, as well as cultural touchstones, such as Steve Jobs and Jane Austen.
Wajma (An Afghan Love Story)
“In a lot of these stories [of self-immolation], they are love stories… Love stories in Afghanistan are illegal ones—dangerous ones.”
Wajma is a young woman from a lower-middle class family with a highly promising future—she has just been accepted into a law school in Kabul. She has fallen in love with an upper-middle class boy, Mustafa, with a charming smile and cosmopolitan attitude. The first part of the movie is lighthearted, and everything a young love should be—Wajma and Mustafa go on illicit dates, plan their futures, and eventually make love.
But when Wajma discovers she is pregnant, everything changes. Mustafa disappears, claiming there is no way the child could be his, with excuses that imply Wajma’s promiscuity. Wajma attempts to get an abortion, but is told it is not legal in Afghanistan, and she must travel to India for one. Wajma’s father returns from his de-mining job, and beats Wajma—and her mother when she tries to protect her—immediately upon his return from fieldwork. All dreams of law school are gone, only to be thrown in her face as a factor in leading her to dishonor.
Barmak Akram, the writer and director, found Wajma’s story in the bits and pieces of stories he heard while researching the causes and effects of self-immolation around the world, but particularly in his native Afghanistan. He realized that at its roots, the phenomenon had roots in a love story gone wrong. By combining these stories into Wajma’s character, he hoped to show the various challenges women around the world face.
No access to birth control, no sex education, and no access to abortion doomed Wajma’s future the moment she and Mustafa fell for each other. While Mustafa was able to wash his hands of the situation (although Wajma’s father did seek legal counsel over whether he could murder Mustafa without repercussions), Wajma is left very few options and seemingly without hope. Most remarkable about her situation, however, was how the women in her life around her rallied to ease her pain and protect her, without judging her for her actions.
Wajma’s father is an interesting study in the clashes of modernity vs. traditional values playing out in Afghanistan’s middle classes. While his initial reaction to the news was to beat Wajma, threaten to kill her by lighting her on fire, and then finally to lock her in the woodshed, he was also actively searching for ways to get her out of the country to access actual abortion facilities. Akram explained that his actions toward Wajma were not out of the ordinary, and that most women and children have been beaten by father at one point.
Wajma (An Afghan Love Story) was awarded Best Screenwriting Award in the World Dramatic Competition. Akram, who had earlier expressed his hope to create a strong Afghan film culture, thanked the audience when he was presented with his award. “In Afghanistan, they love American films, and now Americans love Afghan films.”
God Loves Uganda
Africa is a young continent, with nearly 70 percent of the total population under age 30. While this holds enormous opportunities for entrepreneurialism and growth, it also presents the dangers of radicalizations in an unemployed, angry youth demographic.
Africa is also currently one of the fastest growing areas of the Christian world, but this growth is due in part to enormously well-funded American evangelical groups and their missionary efforts. In the process, such groups are managing to export the United States’ culture wars, and no better example of their success exists than Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill.
“Uganda has become the Promised Land for Christian fundamentalism and a fertile ground for mining what has become one of Africa’s greatest national resources—human souls,” said director Roger Ross Williams in an interview with Queerty. “Ugandan pastors are like American fundamentalist pastors on steroids.”
The documentary film opens with scenes from a prayer service at the International House of Prayer’s Missouri megachurch. Throughout the service, Christian rock music swelled, bringing the faithful to tears and moving them to pull out their wallets. After the service, a group of young adults met to discuss strategy of converting Uganda, a place described as the “firepot of spiritual renewal” in contrast with the decline of the West. The film follows a group of these young adults across the ocean as they go forth to spread the “good news” as missionaries.
From there, the film follows three storyline threads: the well-intentioned American missionaries, who do not realize the hate their teachings ignite; politicians and leaders of the Church of Uganda, who condone violence toward gays in God’s name; and Christian Ugandans who are ostracized from their larger communities for their support of LGBT rights, but who persist nonetheless in attempting to spread a message of peace.
Although director Williams has stated that his intent in making the film was to foster dialogue in the religious community, the film’s critique of the missionary movement is sharp and biting. The missionaries use highly militarized language, describing themselves as “soldiers” working to “mobilize” the faithful. They drive to extremely rural areas and explain to young mothers who have or who might lose a young child that if she does not convert, she will never be able to see her child in the next life. In one scene, a missionary asks a Muslim man, “So...do you speak in tongues?” The man, after some confusion over the question, responds, “I speak English, Ugandan, and Swahili.”
And all the while, money from U.S. megachurches pours in, funding new schools, churches, and roads, in return for ideological influence over society and government.
But Uganda is not without voices pushing back. Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a prominent figure in the film, made a special appearance at the premiere of the film in Salt Lake City, where he discussed his work to set up a safe space for LGBT youths at St. Paul’s Reconciliation and Equality Center in Kampala. Although he has been threatened and shunned by his church, he continues to work for the oppressed and marginalized.
God Loves Uganda has stirred up controversy across the U.S., prompting national media to describe it as the contemporary partner to the 2006 documentary, Jesus Camp. Those interested in hosting a screening in their community may contact the filmmaker for details.
Photos: Egyptian Theatre at Night by Barnaby Dorfman. Photo from Wajma by Barmak Akram. Photo from God Loves Uganda by Derek Wiesehahn.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2013 print edition.
