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POLITICAL FILM  REVIEW 
P.O. Box 461267 
Hollywood, CA 90046 
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http://www.polfilms.com 


 
#348                                                                        
                           NEWSLETTER  OF THE POLITICAL FILM SOCIETY, INC.  
                                                                            
  March 1, 2010
BEST POLITICAL FILMS OF 2009 
Hotly  diverse balloting that began January 1 to narrow nominees to five 
per category  and continued through February 28 to decide on the following 
winners for  2009: 
Best  film exposé:                               Fifty Dead Men  Walking 
(directed by Kari  Skogland) 
Best film promoting  democracy:     Invictus  (directed  by Clint Eastwood) 
Best film promoting  human rights: District  9 (directed by Neill  
Blomkamp) 
Best film promoting  peace:              TheHurt  Locker (directed by 
Kathryn Bigelow) 
Stanley Award:                                  Cider House  Rules 
(directed by Lasse  Hallström)  
Framed  certificates of the award will be sent to the directors of the 
honored  films. 
WHY DID SHE DO  IT?THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN TRIES TO  ANSWER WHY 
In  2004, a late teen Gentile French girl cut herself superficially, used 
marking  pens of swastikas on her body, and told the police that she had been 
attacked by  a group of anti-Semitic boys. The Girl on the Train (La  femme 
du RER), directed by André Téchiné, tries to provide a fictional  
explanation for the incident on the premise that Jeanne (played by Émilie  Dequenne) 
felt aimless and unloved. The film begins with a description of her  home 
life, her work site, and a love life that involves her with a boyfriend who  
is stabbed while trying to stop a drug pusher. In contrast, there is a  
description of a happier Jewish family, consisting of relatives on one side of  
her family who take the incident in stride. The suspense in the noir film is 
how  a false statement to the police will be punished by the French justice  
system.  MH   
BLOOD DONE  SIGN MY NAME RECONSTRUCTS  EVENTS IN OXFORD, NC, DURING 1970 
How  did racial equality emerge from segregated Southern towns? The Civil 
Rights Act  of 1964 provided legitimacy but not reality. In Oxford, North  
Carolina, the transformation began with cruel death of a  Black man who was 
the brother of Ben Chavis (played by Nate Parker), who later  headed the 
NAACP. That inspiring story, based on the 2004 book by a White  preacher’s son, 
now Professor Tim Tyson of Duke University, is recounted in Blood Done Sign 
My Name. The film,  ideal for explaining to the current generation how that 
transformation occurred  throughout the South, begins with Ben’s arrival in 
town (Shelby is the filming  location) to teach third grade in the town’s 
segregated school, as well as  Vernon Tyson (played by Rich Shroder) as the 
pastor of the town’s Methodist  church along with his family, including 
10-year-old Tim (played by Gattlin  Griffith). Whereas Ben has decided to forgo 
pursuit of a doctorate to return  home and reopen a Black restaurant that would 
serve as a lively community center  of sorts, Vernon almost immediately 
asks a Black preacher, Dr. Samuel Proctor  (played by Gregory Alan Williams) to 
give a sermon one Sunday over objections  from the church’s executive 
committee. One night Boo Chavis (played by Sahr  Ngaujah) compliments two Black 
females on the street, but a White man nearby  misinterprets the remarks as 
directed to two White females, whereupon a scuffle  results in his death, an 
arrest of those accused after a Black witness  courageously comes forward to 
file a police complaint, the dispatch of community  organizer Golden Frinks 
(played by Afermo Omilami) by Ralph Abernathy to the  town, a trial, and a 
verdict not unlike that of the so-called Rodney King Trial  decades later. 
What is not covered in the biopic, and is perhaps the most  crucial in the 
retelling of the history, is what happened from that point (after  Frinks and 
Tyson leave town) to the election of the town’s first Black mayor.  Directed 
by Jeb Stuart, the Political Film Society has nominated the inspiring  
Blood Done Sign My Name for best  film on democracy and on human rights of 2010. 
 MH

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