Houston Institute for Culture Film Screenings at the Havens Center, 1827 W. Alabama

Event Description:

FILM EVENTS


Houston Institute for Culture
and the Havens Center Present

Topical Films and Discussions

Free and Open to the Public

All films 7:00pm (unless otherwise noted)

Havens Center - 1827 W. Alabama, Houston, Texas 77098

Indigenous Peoples and Environment
Cosponsored by People of Earth

Friday, October 6
-Drumbeat for Mother Earth - Persistent Organic Pollutants Threatening Indigenous Peoples
-Huicholes and Pesticides

Saturday, October 7
-Pavements of Gold
-Ecuador: The Indigenous Woman

Sunday, October 8
-In the Light of Reverence - Protecting America's Sacred Lands

[Film Descriptions] Listen to People of Earth, Thursdays, 11am – 12noon, on KPFT, 90.1FM


Consumerism and Sustainability

Thursday, November 16
-Affluenza

Friday, November 17
-The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream

Saturday, November 18
-The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

[Film Descriptions]


Religion, Culture and Politics in Mexico

Sunday, October 29
-Darkness into Light: Following the Spirit

Sunday, December 10
-Guadalupe: Mother of all Mexico

[Film Descriptions]


Films cosponsored by KPFT, 90.1FM



Stay tuned; more film dates to be announced

-Argentina - Hope in Hard Times
-This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for Land in Brazil
-Approach of Dawn: Portraits of Mayan Women Forging Peace in Guatemala
-Hidden in Plain Site



FILM DESCRIPTIONS

Indigenous Peoples and Environment
Cosponsored by People of Earth

Friday, October 6, 7:00pm

Drumbeat for Mother Earth - Persistent Organic Pollutants Threatening Indigenous Peoples, 1999, 54mins
Directed by Joseph Di Gangi, PhD, and Amon Giebel; Produced by Indigenous Environmental Network and Greenpeace

Many scientists and tribal people consider persistent toxic chemicals to be the greatest threat to the long-term survival of Indigenous Peoples. "Drumbeat for Mother Earth" explores how these chemicals contaminate the traditional food web, violate treaty rights, travel long distances, and are passed from one generation to the next during pregnancy causing cancer, learning disabilities, and other serious health problems.

Indigenous Peoples' connection to Mother Earth places them on a collision course with these chemicals. Continued survival within a contaminated environment means making life and death decisions that could alter whole cultures, diets, ceremonies and future generations.

Huicholes and Pesticides, 1994, 27mins
Directed by Patricia Diaz-Romo

The indigenous Huichol people of Mexico consider themselves responsible for keeping the flames of life burning, and maintaining the forces of nature in balance. Paradoxically, as this documentary describes, they are also the primary victims of a disastrous environmental health crisis: their exposure to dangerous chemical pesticides, which are responsible for more than 1,500 deaths per year. In this film, doctors, anthropologists, and the Huichol people themselves describe this tragedy. The practitioners of subsistence agriculture for centuries, the Huichols' insertion into a market economy has led them to work as fieldworkers for multinational agribusiness concerns based in Mexico.

The film explains the pervasive use of pesticides there as an example of the exportation of environmentally and medically dangerous industries to the Third World, where low wages and lax enforcement of labor and environmental laws allow for the maximization of profits at catastrophic costs to the local population, especially for the marginalized indigenous populations, already suffering from the effects of poverty and malnutrition.


Saturday, October 7, 7:00pm

Pavements of Gold, 2001, 27mins
Directed by Steve Bradshaw; Produced by Television Trust for the Environment

Urban poverty is one of the biggest challenges facing the world in the 21st century. In 1950, three hundred million people were living in urban areas; by 2001 that figure had increased to 2.85 billion, or almost half the world's population. And the flow of rural migrants arriving in the world's mega cities shows no signs of slowing down. "It is a trend which cannot be stopped," says Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of the UN Center for Human Settlements, "even in the developing countries..."

With the backdrop of Lima, Peru, this program examines the enduring magnetism of big cities and asks whether the migrants who have moved here now feel that city life is the answer to their dreams.

Ecuador: The Indigenous Woman, 1997, 57mins

Isolated in jungles, or crowded into large cities, Latin American Indians constitute the most exploited sector of society. This program traces the harsh life of indigenous women from several tribes, including the Otavalan, Puruha, and Quechua of Ecuador, from pre-Columbian times to the present. Topics discussed include rape as an ongoing practice; labor exploitation; the effects of acculturation; and racial and sexual discrimination.


Sunday, October 8, 7:00pm

In the Light of Reverence - Protecting America's Sacred Lands, 2001, 73mins
Directed by Christopher McLeod; Narrated by Peter Coyote and Tantoo Cardinal; Produced by the Sacred Land Film Project of Earth Island Institute

Across the United States, Native Americans are struggling to protect their sacred places. Religious freedom, so valued in America, is not guaranteed to those who practice land-based religion. Every year, more sacred sites - the land-based equivalent of the world's great cathedrals - are being destroyed. Strip Mining and development cause much of the destruction. But rock climbers, tourists, and New Age religious practitioners are part of the problem, too. The biggest problem is ignorance.

"In the Light of Reverence" tells the story of three indigenous communities and the land they struggle to protect: the Lakota of the Great Plains, the Hopi of the Four Corners area, and the Wintu of northern California.


Consumerism and Sustainability

Thursday, November 16, 7:00pm

Affluenza, 1997, 56 mins
Produced by John de Graaf and Vivia Boe; A Co-Production of KCTS-Seattle and Oregon Public Broadcasting; Hosted by Scott Simon

"Affluenza" is a groundbreaking film that diagnoses a serious social disease - caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism - that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating. By using personal stories, expert commentary, hilarious old film clips, and "uncommercial" breaks to illuminate the nature and extent of the disease, "Affluenza" has appealed to widely diverse audiences: from freshmen orientation programs to consumer credit counseling, and from religious congregations to marketing classes.

With the help of historians and archival film, "Affluenza" reveals the forces that have dramatically transformed us from a nation that prized thriftiness - with strong beliefs in "plain living and high thinking" - into the ultimate consumer society.


Friday, November 17, 7:00pm

The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, 2004, 76mins
Directed by Gregory Greene. Produced by Barry Silverthorn.

Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness. Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream.

But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream?


Saturday, November 18, 7:00pm

The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, 2004
Directed by Faith Morgan; Written and Produced by Faith Morgan, Eugene "Pat" Murphy and Megan Quinn

The independent documentary was inspired when Faith Morgan and Pat Murphy took a trip to Cuba through Global Exchange in August, 2003. That year Pat had begun studying and speaking about worldwide peak oil production. In May, Pat and Faith attended the second meeting of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, a European group of oil geologists and scientists, which predicted that mankind was perilously close to having used up half of the world's oil resources. When they learned that Cuba underwent the loss of over half of its oil imports and survived, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, the couple wanted to see for themselves how Cuba had done this.

During their first trip to Cuba, in the summer of 2003, they found what Cubans call "The Special Period" astounding and Cuban's responses very moving. Faith found herself wanting to document on film Cuba's successes so that what they had done wouldn't be lost. Both of them wanted to learn more about Cuba's transition from large farms and plantations, and reliance on fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, to small organic farms and urban gardens. Cuba was undergoing a transition from a highly industrial society to a sustainable one. Cuba became, for them, a living example of how a country can successfully traverse what we all will have to deal with sooner or later, the reduction and loss of finite fossil fuel resources.


Religion, Culture and Politics in Mexico

Sunday, October 29, 7:00pm

Darkness into Light: Following the Spirit, 2003, 56min
By Patricia Lacy Collins and Robert S. Cozens (San Rafael Films), narrated by Edward James Olmos

To understand the role of public devotions in Mexican life today, one must understand what they have cost. From the 1840s until the 1990s, successive Mexican governments have sought to control and frequently to suppress the religious life of the people. Suppression became particularly bitter following the Constitution of 1917. In a country with almost 90% of the population professing the Catholic faith, how could this be? Following the Spirit, the third documentary in the Darkness into Light series, brings the story of the spiritual journey of the people of Mexico to the present time. It traces a long- standing friction between church and state that resulted, in the 19th and 20th centuries, in somber and bloody repression of religious and human rights in Mexico. Leading historians paint a broad canvas of multiple struggles little known outside of that country.


Sunday, December 10, 7:00pm

Guadalupe: Mother of all Mexico, 2003, 56min
By Patricia Lacy Collins and Robert S. Cozens (San Rafael Films), narrated by Edward James Olmos

Each year ten million people visit the shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. The histories and miracles of our lady of Guadalupe come alive as Mexican scholars and pilgrims on the road tell the wondrous stories behind their devotion to their spiritual mother.

Guadalupe, Mother of All Mexico suggests the strength of pre-Christian life and seeking. Such ancient, impressive sites as Teotihuacan and Monte Alban were built by human hands in cultures that had no beasts of burden. In pre-Christian times, the Mexicans tell us, "there was always a mother, but never like the Virgin Mary." In 1531, she was received by people of the western hemisphere as Our Lady of Guadalupe, the beloved "Madrecita."

PAST FILMS

Sexism and Discrimination

Thursday, September 14
-Havens Center Kids' Digital Story Project Debut Talking About Sexism
-Who's Counting: Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics

[Film Descriptions]

Immigration and Globalization
Cosponsored by Nuestra Palabra

Friday, September 22
-The Other Side
-Oaxacan Hoops

Saturday, September 23
-North of Ojinaga
-Pavements of Gold
-Mexico City: The Largest City

Sunday, September 24
-A World Without Borders: What is Happening with Globalization
-Cochise County USA: Cries from the Border

[Film Descriptions] Listen to Nuestra Palabra, Tuesdays, 7:30 - 8:30pm, on KPFT, 90.1FM



Argentina - Hope in Hard Times (Feb. 2006)
Altar for Emma Tenayuca Film Series
Argentina - Hope in Hard Times (Feb. 2005)
More Past Films

Houston Institute for Culture is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting cultural education and awareness through cultural activities. Our goal is to provide free and low-cost events, services and classes for the community. The organization's sphere of interest is Houston, the regions that have affected Houston's cultural history and the international origins of Houston's diverse population.

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Event Website:
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Event Fee:
Free!