Screening Times
Thursday, March 4th 2010, 2:00pm, Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building, Room 104 Women Filmmakers Week. Sponsored by Linfield College.
Saturday, March 6th 2010, 7:30pm, Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building, Room 104 Women Filmmakers Week. Closing Night. Sponsored by Linfield College.
All films are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis.
FROM A WHISPER
Directed by Wanuri Kahiu
Kenya, 2008, 79 min.
From a Whisper commemorates the 10th anniversary of the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in August 1998, in which over 250 people died and more than 5,000 were injured. The film focuses on the aftermath of the bombing and its devastating effect on the lives of the indirect victims who were forced to learn how to move beyond the tragedy that shattered their lives. The film reveals how the lives of the victims and perpetrators are intertwined, while Tamani, an angry and rebellious teenage girl whose mother was listed as missing after the bomb blast, struggles to come to terms with her own motherless identity. Winner of Best Director, Best Film, and other honors at the 2009 African Movie Academy Awards in Nigeria. In English and Kiswahili with English subtitles.
I thought the film, while well done, was unbalanced and unrealistic. While the film may have intended to present, among other things, the dilemma within Islam regarding the use of extremism in defense of faith, the dialogue between Abu and Fareed was simplistic and the plot, at that point, unrealistic. True dialogue will require theologically correct statements. Of the films I have seen at the festival it seemed to me that this was more directed to a non-African audience. I also wondered what contributions Muslim made to the production of the film.