The Haredi Way of Life…

Aug 7th ‘05,
Sunday, 1 - 2.30pm

Again, the hihglight of the day was a documentary at the MIFF watching a
production from Israel called Ushpizin . The movie documentary
provided interesting insight into the Jewish Ultra Orthodox (Far Right if you’d like to
describe them in political terms) way of life; particularly the Haredi sect. It revolved
around the festival of Succoth.

See the official description below…

"From the MIFF’s website Ushpizin is the first feature film ever made in
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Haredi community. Filmed where cameras have never been
before, with actors and settings unaltered in appearance, it’s a tender and funny
picture that cleverly toys with the tensions between Orthodox and secular viewpoints.
But at heart it’s a film about the sometimes unlikely path to acceptance. Moshe and
Mali, a poor, childless Orthodox couple, find themselves penniless on the eve of the
Jewish holy day of Succoth. They pray desperately for help and a miracle occurs:
they receive an unexpected charitable donation. But a miracle doesn’t come without
a test, and two escaped convicts, friends from Moshe’s shady secular past, appear
on their doorstep seeking ’shelter’. Unholy messengers, the guests’ outrageous
behaviour brings havoc to the Orthodox community and puts Moshe’s and Mali’s
faith to the ultimate test.

Shalom Rand - Israel’s leading film and stage actor until he became religious and
relinquished life in the public eye - is a powerful presence in his return to the screen
and helped make Ushpizin a huge critical and commercial success in
Israel"

Review of “Shipbreakers”, a documentary on globalization

Aug 6th ‘05,
Saturday, 11 - 12.30pm

I had the opportunity this Saturday to watch "Shipbreakers" at the
Melbourne International Film Festival. Produced by a Canadian documentary film
maker , it focuses on the The Alagin shipbreaking yard in Gujarat, the largest of its
kind worldwide; it has cornered almost 50% of a highly competitive $ 2bn market.
The workers are paid poorly for dangerous work and there are no health codes to
speak of. Couple with the humanitarian issues, there is the portending envrionmetal
disaster that is the yard. Ships 30 years back, manufctured in the first world,
contained asbestos and other heavy metals, banned under new international
regulations. Given that these same ships are at the end of their useful life in the first
decade of the 21st century, they make their last journey to the Alagin yard to be
dismembered and absorbed by the ecosystem of society that has formed itself
around this industry.

It was less about ship breaking than providing viewers a taste of issues
surrounding the North-South divide, the hypocrisy (I borrow a word from the doco but
out of context) of the western world, geo-economics and how it affects the
environment, and human adversity.

See the formal transript below below from the MIFF’s website

Shipbreakers is a portrait of the vast and polluted Indian port of Alang, Gujurat,
where some of the largest ships afloat come to die. About 40,000 people live and
work in Alang, dismembering by hand and scavenging the remains of 300 vessels
every year for eight cents an hour.

One Alang worker dies every day, evaporated in gas explosions, torn apart by
breaking cables or crushed by unstable loads of scrap metal. Ship owners rarely
abide by the UN conventions on the dumping of toxic waste, and the shipbreakers,
who survive the daily peril of their job, succumb to asbestosis or cancer from PCBs
that flow into the ocean from the rusted hulks.

In the timeworn tradition of exploitation, workers come from impoverished
villages throughout India to work in Alang. Their bosses push them dangerously to
meet the quotas, corruption prevails and the Indian government worries about the
media’s outcry regarding human rights. Shipbreakers is an astounding story of
survival, greed, geopolitics and environmental disaster with international
consequences. It’s a Bhopal waiting to happen.

D/P Michael Kot P Ed Barreveld, Peter Starr WS Johanne St-Arnauld (NHB) TD
video/col/2004/70mins