kate-schertz

Just saw this at the 18th Sonoma International Film Festival and it was super great. As a Foreign Service Officer posted to Budapest, Hungary 1989-92 all throughout the opening up of the Eastern Bloc I was astounded by how the people knew all the music, words and sounds, as one after another Western musicians came to play Budapest. This documentary helped me to better understand just how rock and roll and other forms of western music got through the repressive and sometimes violent acts by the authorities to try to keep it out. Essential viewing for anyone who cares about the influence of pop music in repressive regimes. GREAT ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE!!

Just viewed this film at the 18th Sonoma International Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film. It is a terribly difficult film to watch as the subject matter -- the forced prostitution of a very young Nepali girl into a brothel in Calcutta, India -- is excruciating. But the film is made with love -- the young girl shares humanity with others caught in these circumstances, befriends a little boy who is a child of one of the other prostitutes, is protected by another captive……i.e. the human experience in all its squalor and splendor. Seeing the film in a festival environment was a great gift as the Q&A with some of the principals following the presentation made clear that this is not just a third world problem: we have this same problem right here in our own back yard. A friend has already begun a circle of women here in Sonoma to reach out to young women who are being used as slave prostitutes in our supposedly sublime county. The power of film to change lives! Bravo!