Music & Arts, Page 46

“Silent Screams” Screened at Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting

DES MOINES social worker, peace and social justice activist and filmmaker Karla Hansen screened her first film, “Silent Screams,” at the invitation of the Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting (DMVFM) on Sunday, Jan. 31.

Unabashedly polemical, “Silent Screams” is a carefully calibrated broadside aimed directly at the ignorance, propaganda, crimes, and excesses that characterize the Global War on Terrorism, re-branded by the Obama administration as Overseas Contingency Operations. The 36-minute film is based on a visit to Iran by Hansen and her husband, Ismael Hossein-zadeh, during March, April and May 2009.

Before she left Iowa, Hansen worked with fellow peace activists and her Iranian-born husband to create a banner with messages of peace and friendship to carry into Iran. There, she filmed reactions to the banner. The simple gesture of friendship and peace was very well received everywhere she went, Hansen explains in the film.

The film opens with scenes of Hansen and Hossein-zadeh’s visit to Qarcheghah, a village in Iranian Kurdistan where Hossein-zadeh’s mother was born, and where they attended an engagement ceremony for a young couple.

Hansen had earlier explained to her audience, “It was almost one year ago that I was in a Kurdish village, the first American to visit the village. I fell asleep that night and woke up at 4 o’clock in the morning and realized that just across the border in Afghanistan drones were killing people at celebrations just like the one I had been to the evening before.”

Hansen continues her narration by noting that “The lion’s share of our tax dollars—well over one-third of the entire federal budget—goes to fund the devastation you are about to see.” Her film then segues to video clips from news broadcasts featuring the grieving family members of civilians killed by U.S. bombs and rockets.

“Silent Screams” explores the social costs of America’s war in Afghanistan through the experiences and words of American peace activist, pacifist, author, and three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly; Zoya, the Afghan author, women’s rights activist and member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA); Afghan Women’s Network activist Orzala Ashraf; Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women; and Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy.

Several audience members expressed their enthusiasm for the film. “I’ve seen it three times now and somehow it impresses me more every time I see it,” said Charlie Day.

Hansen told her audience that she has registered a Web domain for the film, <http://www.silentscreams.info>, which should be active by March 1 and where House Party Kits and DVDs can be purchased.

The film was recently screened in Cambridge, MA, where it also was well received. Additional screenings are being planned.

—Michael Gillespie