It has often been said that there ought to be no such thing as an 'illegal' human being. Yet this language is used frequently and potently in relation to migration. Simon Barrow previews a film that looks at the issue from a human and historical point of view.
All the news coming out of Syria at present seems negative, and bound up with remorseless cycles of violence and the huge refugee and internal displacement crisis, which is impacting millions of people.
Three films, one continent, three different takes on death, dying and loss. The Africa in Motion Film Festival, in collaboration with the Festival of Spirituality and Peace and the Edinburgh University Global Health Academy, is presenting a trilogy of films from Ghana, Senegal and Cameroon - plus one native Scottish short - linked by the challenging theme of 'our friend death'.
I have recently watched Julia Haslett’s remarkable film, ‘An Encounter with Simone Weil’, and I know that my life will not be the same as a result. Not because I was previously unfamiliar with Weil, but because this particular meeting with her (or, at least, with what can be known through her writings and through the remaining fragments, images and testimonies to her life) is so deeply personal and challenging – in a way that doesn’t just go away.
The Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh is screening three fine movies as part of this year's Festival of Spirituality and Peace, which runs from 6-9 August 2011 - 'Getting Out', 'Bloody Sunday' and 'Pray the Devil Back'.
A film about Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge, an 84-year-old man who enrolled in primary school in 2003 so he could learn to read the Bible, has inspired the creation of an educational charity for unprivileged children around the world.