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Religion and Society

Religion and Society


HERETIC, THE

Directed by Andrew Morgan

Follows Rob Bell, founder of a megachurch in Michigan, and now an influential writer and speaker, as he spreads a message of love and inclusion and searches for what it means to be human.

There is perhaps no figure in American Christianity as polarizing as Rob Bell. Once a pastor of the fastest growing church in America and heralded as the next Billy Graham, that all changed when he began challenging the traditional understanding of hell and suggesting that heaven might be open to all.

The film follows Rob with unprecedented access over several years as he challenges deeply held conservative ideals while grappling with some of the most important questions of our time: Can faith and science coexist, or do belief and progress stand in opposition? Is religion insufficient for explaining the complexity of our modern world, or does it give language to something even greater? And do spiritual traditions simply serve to further divide our world, or can they offer real help and hope for a better tomorrow?

Surprising, inviting and disarmingly beautiful, The HERETIC is a story about the eternal and the here and now. A poetically unorthodox portrait that offers new language for a bigger, more expansive conversation about faith.

DVD / 2018 / (Grade Level: 10 - 12, College, Adults) / 71 minutes

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SUNDAY SESSIONS, THE

Director: Richard Yeagley

The Sunday Sessions is an intimate portrait of one man's struggle to reconcile his religious conviction and sexual identity. The feature length documentary follows Nathan Gniewek, a gay man in his late twenties, as he seeks counseling from conversion therapist Christopher Doyle.

Conversion therapy is the controversial, non-scientifically based process which aims to convert an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Although it has been discredited by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations, some therapists still offer the service for reasons almost exclusively rooted in a conservative religious belief system.

The filmmakers had unfettered access to individual therapy sessions, family sessions, and a collection of weekend camps, and have crafted an emotional and psychological thriller which chronicles two years of Nathan's journey from acceptance to skepticism, all leading to a profound epiphany.

DVD / 2018 / 89 minutes

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AMISH AND THE REFORMATION, THE

Discover the roots of the Amish people...

The Amish and the Reformation traces the origins of the Old Order Amish of America and gives a uniquely personal view of Amish beliefs by former members of the group.

Beginning with Luther's 95 theses, the program describes the advent of the Reformation, the establishment of a reformed state sponsored church in Switzerland and the formation of the breakaway Anabaptist Movement.

From its Anabaptist origins the Amish developed as a unique sub-group under the leadership of Jakob Ammann. Host, Joseph Graber, a former member of the Amish Church traces his family origins back to the Reformation era and gives unique insights into how Amish beliefs have changed over the centuries.

DVD (Color) / 2017 / 55 minutes

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IN THE LAND OF POMEGRANATES

Director: Hava Kohav Beller

In the Land of Pomegranates, a suspenseful, multi-layered documentary centered on a group of young people who were born into a violent and insidious ongoing war.

They are young Palestinians and Israelis invited to Germany to join a retreat called 'Vacation From War' where they live under the same roof and face each other every day. In highly charged encounters they confront the entrenched myths and grievances that each side has for the other. Woven into this intense footage are the stories of other embattled lives in the Occupied Territories and Israel: a mother and four children living in the shadow of Gaza's border wall; an imprisoned Palestinian and the subsequent path he's taken; a traumatized Israeli survivor of a suicide bombing; and a daring Palestinian mother whose son's life is saved by an Israeli doctor.

They are all caught in the duality of the pomegranate: will they embrace rebirth and each other's humanity, or will they pull the pin on the grenade?

DVD (Arabic & Hebrew with English subtitles) / 2017 / 125 minutes

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ISAAC HECKER AND THE JOURNEY OF CATHOLIC AMERICA

The United States was founded on the ideals of religious liberty and individualism, concepts that to many seemed diametrically opposed to Roman Catholicism. But one man sought to show that Catholicism and Americanism are not incompatible.

Using popular communication methods of his day, Isaac Hecker became a courageous voice for Catholicism in nineteenth-century America. Given the hostility between the Old World and the New, Hecker's ministry earned the derision of both his fellow Americans as well as many in the Catholic hierarchy in Rome.

"Isaac Hecker and the Journey of Catholic America" features the voices of Martin Sheen (The West Wing), Matt McCoy (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle), Bob Gunton (The Shawshank Redemption), Jay O. Sanders (JFK, The Day After Tomorrow), and David Ushery (WNBC, News 4 New York) as well as interviews from some of the leading historians and clergy in North America.

DVD / 2017 / 52 minutes

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JOURNEY INTERRUPTED

In Journey Interrupted, five individuals share their personal stories of struggle with sexual identity in relation to how The Bible interprets their challenges. It is a comparative between gender identity and faith.

This 2017 documentary addresses two key questions:

What does the Bible say about gender identity and homosexuality;

How should Christians respond to these divisive issues?

These questions are explored with candor and sensitivity through the lens of personal testimony. This important film is refreshingly transparent, deeply honest as it offers hope for healing and wholeness through Jesus Christ.

DVD (With English Subtitles) / 2017 / 61 minutes

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NANA

Director: Serena Dykman

Directed by 25 year-old Serena Dykman, NANA documents her journey with her mother Alice as they retrace her grandmother's Auschwitz survival story. Born in Poland, Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant survived Ravensbruck, Malchow and Auschwitz - where she was the forced translator for the "Angel of Death," Josef Mengele. Maryla dedicated her life after the war to publicly speaking about her survival to younger generations.

Alice and Serena, daughter and granddaughter, explore how Maryla's outspoken activism continues today, in a world where survivors are disappearing, and intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism are on the rise.

"I was inspired to make this documentary after reading my grandmother's memoir a couple of years ago," said director Serana Dykman. "I realized that she was more than a survivor, more than a Polish Jew. The reason she went back to Auschwitz and told her story publicly thousands of times was so that it should never be forgotten, and would never happen to anyone again. Her activism and fight against intolerance lives on today, 14 years after her death, through the thousands of people she touched, and now through NANA."

DVD (French and English subtitles) / 2017 / 100 minutes

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STRANGERS ON THE EARTH

Director: Tristan Cook

Europe's most popular pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago attracts wayfarers of all stripes to walk its ancient paths in search of meaning. One such pilgrim is Dane Johansen, an American cellist who ventured to walk the Camino with his instrument on his back, performing music for his fellow pilgrims along the way. Accompanied by the vast landscapes of Northern Spain, the haunting music of J.S. Bach for solo cello (performed by Johansen), and the very personal struggles and joys of the many pilgrims encountered along the way, 'Strangers on the Earth' examines the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the concept of 'journey' and the vital role it can play as part of the human experience.

DVD / 2017 / 97 minutes

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THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING: 500 YEARS OF THE REFORMATION

This Changed Everything: 500 Years of the Reformation celebrates the fruits of the Reformation while exploring difficult questions about the cost of division: Could schism have been avoided? Is there hope for reunification? What did Jesus really mean when He prayed for His followers to be "one"?

In this visually rich, three-part documentary series hosted by actor David Suchet, leading church historians share fascinating insights and pose vital questions about unity, truth, and the future of the Christian church.

2 DVDs (Color) / 2017 / 180 minutes

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COME BEFORE WINTER

Director: Kevin Ekvall
Key cast: Gus Lynch, Aubrey Wakeling, Sefton Delmar, Rebecca Summer, Scotty Ray , Kelly Reed

Come Before Winter tells the true story of two longtime foes of Adolf Hitler; Sefton Delmer and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. During the dying days of the Third Reich these two men, in very different ways, helped bring about the fall of Hitler's regime.

In Germany, Bonhoeffer spoke boldly against the evil of Nazism and called the church to turn away from its complacency. In England, Delmer, ran a secret operation, transmitting "black propaganda" into Germany in order to demoralize the Nazis.

The stories of these heroic men and their companions intertwine as they work to end the war.

Filmed in Berlin, Buchenwald, Flossenburg and various locations in England and the United States.

DVD / 2016 / 75 minutes

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OPEN BETHLEHEM

Directed by Leila Sansour

The filmmaker comes home to Bethlehem to find the city being strangled by the wall and ongoing Israeli settlements, and starts a campaign to keep Bethlehem open to the world.

Reports predict that if trends continue the Christian community of Bethlehem, a city that provides a model for a multi-faith Middle East, may be unsustainable within one generation. The enormous wall and ongoing Israeli settlements are strangling the city. Leila Sansour's plan to stay a year stretches to seven, and is only resolved when she realizes that, sometimes, the biggest dreams take flight from the smallest places.

OPEN BETHLEHEM is a story of a homecoming to the world's most famous little town. The film spans seven momentous years in the life of Bethlehem, revealing a city of astonishing beauty and political strife under occupation. The film draws from 700 hours of original footage and some rare archive material. In fact the making of this film has led to the creation of the largest visual archive of Bethlehem in the world and plans are currently being discussed with University College London (UCL) to turn the collection into a museum.

While telling a personal story, the film charts the creation of a campaign, named Open Bethlehem, to compel international action to bring peace to the Middle East.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 90 minutes

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AMONG THE BELIEVERS

Directors: Hemal Trivedi & Mohammed Ali Naqvi

Firebrand cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally, is waging jihad against the Pakistani government with the aim of imposing Shariah law. His primary weapon is his expanding network of Islamic seminaries for children as young as four. Among the Believers follows Aziz's personal quest, and charts the lives of two of his teenage students who are pawns in his ideological war.

DVD (English and Urdu with English subtitles) / 2015 / 84 minutes

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EXPLORING EPHESUS: CITY OF APOSTLES

Join hosts, Dr. Mark Wilson and Dr. Andrew Jackson, leading experts on biblical Turkey, as they journey to this important hub of the early church.

Ephesus is one of the best reconstructed Greco-Roman cities in the world, and was once the hub of Christianity in Anatolia (modern Turkey). This impressive city was not only one of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation but was also the headquarters of Paul's three-year ministry to the roman province of Asia. From here Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians and in Ephesus's theater the infamous riot recorded in the Book of Acts broke out against the Christians. Here too, the Apostle John traditionally wrote his Gospel and epistles and where he spent the last days of his life after returning from exile on Patmos.

Ephesus was the launching point for the gospel's continuous expansion into the western world. For decades biblical Turkey has been the focus of study for distinguished historians, Dr. Mark Wilson and Dr. Andrew Jackson. Now these old friends reunite and travel together on the road to Ephesus. Along the way they share their combined historical, archaeological and biblical expertise to bring the scriptures to life for modern believers.

Walk in the steps of the apostles along ancient Roman streets and pass through marble gates into the wonderfully excavated city of Ephesus whose extensive ruins resound with millennia of history. Take an excursion by boat to the Isle of Patmos where Christ revealed his apocalyptic vision of the end of days. Visit the ruins of pagan temples once dedicated to the gods of Greece and Rome and explore a hidden cave where early Christian believers worshiped the one God.

DVD / 2015 / 60 minutes

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LA VIE DE JEAN-MARIE

By Peter Van Houten

A brilliant, bold and refreshingly irreverent documentary shot in the style of cinema verite. LA VIE DE JEAN-MARIE is a feel-good portrait of a spirited 75-year old priest.

A beautiful, poetic story of an aging Dutch pastor who-probably as the very last one-watches over the spiritual life of about 25 villages in the French Pyrenees and does so with an unprecedented vivacity, sincerity and sensitivity for female beauty.

It is also about a man torn between two loves: women and Jesus...

DVD (French & Flemish with English Subtitles) / 2015 / 166 minutes

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NEXT YEAR JERUSALEM

Director: David Gaynes

Choosing life in life's final chapter is the poignant subtext of this new powerful documentary, a lyrical portrait of eight nursing home residents who make a pilgrimage to Israel.

Offered a seat on the bus for a 10-day tour, the viewer accompanies individuals with various personal theologies in and out of museums, crossing Israeli landscapes from mountains to desert. But Next Year Jerusalem is less a story about tourists in a foreign land than it is a meditation on the sanctity of human experience and a tribute to the wisdom acquired in the course of a lifetime. Earnest and nuanced, it is a true exploration of living and dying, hope and fear, travel and memory. A celebration of and a reverent tribute to life's eldest travelers.

DVD / 2014 / 72 minutes

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GOD LOVES UGANDA

Director: Roger Ross

With God Loves Uganda, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (Music by Prudence) explores the role of the American evangelical movement in Uganda, where American missionaries have been credited with both creating school and hospitals and promoting their ideas about sexuality identity and expression. The film follows politicians, young missionaries, and evangelical leaders, including Pastor Robert Kayanja, Pastor Martin Ssempa, Pastor Scott Lively, Lou Engle, and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo (winner of the 2012 Clinton Global Citizen Award) as they attempt the radical task of eliminating "sexual sin" and converting Ugandans to evangelical Christianity.

As an American influenced bill to make homosexuality punishable by death wins widespread support, tension in Uganda mounts and an atmosphere of murderous hatred takes hold. Thanks to charismatic religious leaders and a well-financed campaign, these draconian new laws and the politicians that promote them are winning over the Ugandan public. Through interviews and hidden camera footage and with unprecedented access on the ground, the film allows American religious leaders and their young missionaries that make up the "front lines in a battle for billions of souls" to explain their positions in their own words. Shocking and enlightening, touching and horrifying, God Loves Uganda will leave you questioning how closely this brand of Christianity resembles the one you think you know and contemplating the repercussions of ideological colonialism in developing nations.

DVD (With English subtitles) / 2013 / 83 minutes

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BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Directed by Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman

A personal essay revealing the passionate debates over identity and generational change inside today's American Jewish community.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS is a groundbreaking personal exploration of the community and family divisions that are redefining American Jewish identity and politics. The filmmakers' own families are battlegrounds over loyalty to Israel, interpretations of the Holocaust, intermarriage, and a secret communist past.

Filmed in the United States and Israel, this first-person documentary begins with a near riot at a Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco, reveals the agonizing battle over divestment from Israel on a university campus, and shows the crackdown on dissent in Israel itself.

DVD / 2011 / (College, Adult) / 70 minutes

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MY FATHER'S HOUSE (JIAO TANG)

Directed by ZHAO Dayong

The troubled story of an underground church founded by Nigerian missionaries offers a rare glimpse inside an immigrant African community in China.

In Nigeria, Pastor Daniel Michael Enyeribe has a revelation to bring the word of God to China. He joins a booming community of African merchants who have settled in the southern city of Guangzhou and established the Royal Victory Church for both Africans and Chinese to worship. The church functions as the spiritual center for the ever-growing African trader community, who struggle with cultural, personal and financial challenges. After being raided by police enforcing strict laws regulating religious practice, Pastor Daniel flees to Hong Kong, where he uses video conferencing to lead his congregation from afar. His colleague Pastor Ignatius assumes daily management of the church, while struggling to support his Chinese wife and their young child.

With My Father's House, documentary filmmakers Zhao Dayong (Ghost Town, New York Film Festival) and David Bandurski capture a complex subculture thriving within a seemingly homogeneous society where immigrants and evangelical religion are kept from view.

DVD (Color) / 2011 / 77 minutes

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WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON

Director: Kate Davis, Franco Sacchi, & David Heilbroner

America's 50-million strong Evangelical community is convinced that the world's future is foretold in Biblical prophecy - from the Rapture to the Battle of Armageddon. This astonishing documentary explores their world - in their homes, at conferences, and on a wide-ranging tour of Israel. By interweaving Christian, Zionist, Jewish and critical perspectives along with telling archival materials, the filmmakers probe the politically powerful - and potentially explosive - alliance between Evangelical Christians and Israel...an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls "World War III."

DVD / 2009 / 74 minutes

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WOMEN OF FAITH: WOMEN OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SPEAK

By Rebecca M. Alvin

This absorbing documentary examines women's decisions to lead religious lives in the Roman Catholic tradition in the post-feminist era. Throughout history, nuns were given certain advantages over other women, while still oppressed within their vocational pursuits. They were taught to read and write, encouraged to pursue music, literature, art, philosophy and spirituality, and officially allowed to escape marriage's powerless role of wife. But why would a woman choose a nun's life today?

Individual interviews with seven women provide answers - and explore how rebellion can happen within and outside the Church, how women in the Church reconcile conflicting, religious, personal, and political beliefs, and how they view official Church positions on contraception, homosexuality, and women's ordination as priests. The diverse group includes Poor Clares, contemplative nuns who spend most of their days in prayer, Maryknolls who have served in Central America, and a Roman Catholic Womanpriest. Both timely and insightful, the film provides a rare look at their experiences and current controversies over tradition, change and power within the Catholic Church.

DVD (Color, Black and White) / 2009 / 60 minutes

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LIFE 6: EDGE OF ISLAM

Directed by Alex Gabbay

Three Muslim students face a choice between their faith and their future.

On the beautiful island of Lamu on the eastern coast of Kenya, three young footballers have just graduated from school summa cum laude, but cannot get hold of the school certificates they need for university or to find jobs until they pay their hefty school fees arrears. Until then, the certificates remain locked in a rusting filing cabinet in the headmaster's office.

They could get work in Lamu's booming tourist industry, which has brought an influx of pop stars, models and glitterati-and much needed income-to the island over the past 15 years. But tourism has also introduced alcoholism, drugs and soaring house prices that are threatening the local Islamic culture and way of life.

One of our young protagonists, Arafat, isn't worried. His faith is strong enough, he claims, to withstand the lure of the West, and he's happy to earn money providing boat services for tourists on the dhows that ply their trade along Lamu's coast. But his schoolmates, and fellow footballers, Adbulkarim and Abubakar, are reluctant to get involved with the tourists whose dress and habits they regard as corrupting and opposed to Islam.

But how else will they earn enough to secure their precious certificates-and their future? And can the West really offer a model of globalization that will win over Lamu's young men? What future will our three young protagonists choose?

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 25 minutes

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SALATA BALADI (AN EGYPTIAN SALAD)

By Nadia Kamel

Award-winning Egyptian filmmaker Nadia Kamel's heritage is a complex blend of religions and cultures. Her mother is a half-Jewish, half-Italian Christian who converted to Islam when she married Nadia's half-Turkish, half-Ukrainian father. Prompted by the realization that her 10-year-old nephew Nabeel is growing up in an Egyptian society where talk of culture clashes is all too common, she urges her feminist, pacifist, activist mother, Mary Rosenthal, to share their diverse family history.

But, as she and Mary weave their way through the family's multiethnic fairytales, they bump unexpectedly into the silence around old prejudices concerning the estranged Egyptian-Jewish branch of their family living in Israel since 1948. Bravely inspired to further challenge the boundaries between cultures, religions, and nationalities that are used to divide people, Kamel embarks on an amazing personal journey with her mother and nephew to Israel and Italy, confronting with an open heart, fears and prejudices along the way.

DVD (Arabic, Color) / 2008 / 105 minutes

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CONSTANTINE'S SWORD

Director: Oren Jacoby

Constantine's Sword, the latest film by Oscar-nominated documentarian Oren Jacoby, is an astonishing exploration of the dark side of Christianity, following acclaimed author and former priest James Carroll on a journey of remembrance and reckoning.

Carroll, a National Book Award winner and columnist for the Boston Globe, is a practicing Catholic whose search for the truth leads him to confront persecution and violence in the name of God - today and in the Church's past. He discovers a terrible legacy that reverberates across the centuries- from the Emperor Constantine's vision of the cross as a sword and symbol of power, to the rise of genocidal antisemitism, to modern-day wars and conflicts sparked by religious extremism.

At its heart, Constantine's Sword is a detective story, as Carroll journeys both into his own past - where he comes to terms with his father's role as a three-star General in the U.S. Air Force preparing for nuclear war - and into the wider world, where he uncovers evidence of church-sanctioned violence against Jews, Muslims, and others. Visiting the Air Force Academy, he and Jacoby expose how some evangelical Christians are proselytizing inside our country's armed forces and reveal the dangerous consequences of religious influence on American foreign policy.

Warning of what happens when military power and religious fervor are joined, Constantine's Sword asks the timely question: Is the fanaticism that threatens the world today fueled by our own deeply held beliefs?

DVD / 2007 / 95 minutes

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FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO

Director: Daniel Karslake

Does God really condemn loving homosexual relationships? Is the chasm separating Christianity from gays and lesbians too wide to cross? Is the Bible an excuse to hate? These questions and more are answered in this award-winning documentary, which brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and Biblical scripture - and reveals that religious anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a misinterpretation of the Bible.

Through the experiences of five very normal, Christian, American families - including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson - we discover how people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child or family member.

Offering healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.

DVD (Color) / 2007 / 98 minutes

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PRAYING WITH LIOR

Director: Ilana Trachtman

Praying with Lior asks whether someone with Down syndrome can be a "spiritual genius." Many believe Lior is close to God - at least that's what his family and community believe - though he's also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration and an embarrassment, depending on who is asked and when. As this moving and entertaining documentary moves to its climax, Lior must pass through the gateway to manhood - his Bar Mitzvah.

DVD / 2007 / 87 minutes

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SERMONS OF SISTER JANE, THE: BELIEVING THE UNBELIEVABLE

By Allie Light, Irving Saraf and Carol Monpere

From Oscar and Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Allie Light and Irving Saraf (Dialogues With Madwomen and In The Shadow of The Stars), in partnership with Carol Monpere, also an Emmy Award-winner, comes their latest film, The Sermons Of Sister Jane: Believing the Unbelievable. This documentary is an engaging portrait that sparkles with the courage, wit and humanity of Sister Jane Kelly, who combines her deep spiritual faith with her equally powerful commitment towards resistance and change.

When Sister Jane discovered that a priest in her church was molesting young men and stealing from the congregation, and when the evidence was ignored by the church, she contacted the press, creating a scandal. Throughout the film she shares her progressive views on issues such as birth control, homosexuality, and women priests. She impels the Catholic Church to return to egalitarian roots of community. The scenes filmed at Plowshares, an organization she created to feed and serve the poor and homeless, demonstrate Sister Jane's powerful ability to translate her faith into profoundly meaningful action. This touching documentary, skillfully produced by these acclaimed filmmakers, reveals Sister Jane's long struggle to speak out against what she believed was wrong, and how this ongoing battle ultimately has heart-breaking results.

DVD (Color) / 2007 / 53 minutes

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DREAMING OF TIBET

Directed by Will Parrinello

Looks at the lives of three Tibetan exiles, and at the recent history of their country which forced them to flee.

In isolated communities around the world, particularly in India, Nepal and the United States, Tibetan exiles have created a 'virtual Tibet,' where they have endured and even flourished in the face of overwhelming adversity. DREAMING OF TIBET follows their arduous journeys from Tibet into exile over a 19,000 foot Himalayan pass. It's a flight that the Dalal Lama took in 1958 and over 150,000 of his followers have taken since then. Most have only minimal clothing and meager provisions to make the life-threatening trek. Many die along the way.

This intimate documentary is about the resilience of the human spirit under the most dire circumstances. The film looks at the lives of three extraordinary Tibetan exiles who have survived in exile and are deeply involved in working for the survival of their culture. They are, in short, Ms. Tseten Phanucharas, a political activist, who is one of the Dalai Lama's press coordinators in Los Angeles; Ms. Tsering Lhamo, a nurse working with recent refugees in Kathmandu, Nepal; and Mr. Ngawang Ugyen, a monk in the Mt. Everest foothills.

DREAMING OF TIBET captures the difficult challenges they each face and conveys the sense of hope they bring to their day-to-day lives in spite of great hardship and loss.

Also features His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and author/climber Jon Krakauer, with appearances by actors Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn.

DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 58 minutes

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RAISED FROM DUST (JU ZI CHEN TU)

By GAN Xiao Er

A heartbreaking story told with compassion, RAISED FROM DUST sheds light on the unexplored lives of the approximately 40 million Christians in China.

Xiao-Li (Hu Shuli) is a devoted housewife and an active member of her local Catholic church in the Henan farmlands of southern China. Her faith is put to the test as her husband (Zhang Xianmin) is hospitalized with respiratory illness due to unsafe working conditions, leaving his life clinging to an oxygen machine. Forced to work simple jobs to pay for her husband's hospital care, Xiao-Li takes her young daughter (Lu Shengyue) out of school, unable to pay for tuition. She finds support only from fellow members of her congregation. But will her faith and devotion be enough to save her family?

Filmed with a beautiful eye for both vast rural landscapes and human intimacy, RAISED FROM DUST explores the lives of those rarely seen in modern-day China, and announces Gan Xiao Er as a new major talent in world cinema.

DVD (Henan dialect with English subtitles, Color) / 2006 / 102 minutes

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FANGSHAN CHURCH (FANGSHAN JIAOTANG)

Directed by XU Xin

A fascinating look into the inner workings of a Christian community in rural China, whose ways of life and worship are threatened by the world around them.

A lively community of Christians inhabit Fangshan, a remote rural town in Jiangsu Province. At the start of the millennium, a church was built there with support of local inhabitants' relatives from Taiwan. On Sundays, up to 900 people gather to worship, while spending most of their days maintaining a modest living as farmers. Their faith governs how they handle family conflicts, illnesses and other difficulties. Still, they must contend with constraining forces in their community, from ancient folk religious practices to laws forbidding evangelism.

With Fangshan Church, filmmaker Xu Xin (Karamay, Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival) offers one of the most vivid portraits of Christian life in China to date. Filming over two years, Xu presents a richly detailed chronicle of religious practices, from weekly worship services to home prayer visits, as well as intimate interviews with individuals, filmed with a painterly eye. The result is a keenly observed reflection on the different forces - social, cultural and personal - that shape a religious community.

DVD (Color, Mandarin & Jiangsu dialect with English subtitles) / 2005 / 80 minutes

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THAT PARADISE WILL BE MINE

By Merel Beernink

Why would a woman in one of the most liberal Western European countries choose to become a Muslim and faithfully follow the demands of her new conviction - including wearing the veil? This eye-opening film follows the lives of three women dealing with the consequences of their choice to convert to Islam. Rather than pressing the women for the reasons behind their choice, director Merel Beernink takes a close look at their day-to-day lives, letting them speak candidly about how they feel in their new cultural and religious context.

Issues of marriage and relationship loom large for all three women. Astrid, who had a brief but unhappy arranged marriage, is now living with her parents and looking for a husband. Inge is considering a move to Cairo to marry her Egyptian fiance. Rabia is married to a Muslim man and struggling with matters such as polygamy and homosexuality. Their perspectives are complemented by revealing and often touching interviews with their parents.

Capturing these women's struggle to reconcile the expectations of their families and friends with the demands of their new conviction, Beernink's intimate portraits offer fascinating insight into the choices made by these women to lead a different kind of life.

DVD (Dutch, Color) / 2005 / 54 minutes

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