The film “The Good Lie” brings to light the war-torn plight of the Lost Boys of South Sudan, and its message of universal civil rights is the touchstone for this year’s Monadnock International Film Festival (MONIFF).
The festival, in its third year, screens today through Saturday in Keene, with a special focus on the Civil Rights Movement and its connections to the Granite State.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Keene’s Jonathan Daniels, a civil rights activist who was murdered during a confrontation outside a convenience store in Hayneville, Ala., in 1965.
As an Episcopal seminary student, Daniels heeded the call of Martin Luther King Jr., to join the fight for voting rights in Alabama. After spending time in jail for picketing, Daniels and others, including a young woman named Ruby Sales, went to buy beverages. But when they got to the store, unpaid special deputy Thomas Coleman blocked them from entering. He aimed his rifle at Sales. Daniels stepped in front of her as Coleman shot. Daniels was killed instantly.
Art and Awareness
The film festival created the Jonathan Daniels Award to call attention to the powerful combination of art and social awareness. Previous recipients are documentary filmmakers Ken Burns and Edet Belzberg, and this year, “The Good Lie” screenwriter Margaret Nagle will receive this honor.
“Jonathan Daniels is a hero and made the greatest sacrifice that a human being can make — give his own life — and was always thinking about what the greater good was for everyone,” Nagle said. “So to receive an award even remotely associated with someone like that, it’s a true honor. It’s very humbling.”
According to Laina Barakat, executive director at MONIFF, Nagle worked for 10 years to make “The Good Lie” come to fruition.
“She is remarkable,” Barakat said.
During the Second Sudanese Civil War, which raged from 1983 to 2005, about 2.5 million people were killed, and millions were displaced. “The Lost Boys” was the name given to the displaced and orphaned. “The Good Lie” focuses on a group of these refugees.
After enduring the civil war and traveling across the sub-Saharan desert to a refugee camp, the group gets the chance to carve out a better life in the United States. Actress Reese Witherspoon is cast as the one who helps the group find jobs and a place to live in Kansas City.
“‘The Good Lie’ is really a tremendous film and very worthy of our award,” Barakat said. “As (Witherspoon) is just coming off of her Academy Award nomination (for the movie ‘Wild’), we could not be more thrilled to have a film she stars in.”
Defining a Life
Nagle said “The Good Lie,” at its core, is about family.
“Do you make family out of the people that you’re born with, or are they the people that you meet on your journey in your life?,” Nagle said. “It’s about growing up and becoming the person that you’re going to be, based on the childhood that you’ve had and how you deal with the things that life throws at you.”
All other leads in the film are played by refugees.
Many of the child and adult actors in the film, including those who play the Lost Boys and the Lost Girls, lived through the war in Sudan, she said. Some are refugees of that war.
The message of civil rights extends through other films at the festival, across nations and cultures. The documentary “Angkor’s Children” focuses on three Cambodian women — a traditional singer, a circus performer and a member of a protest band — who are striving to reignite Cambodia’s vivid culture of arts and education amid its post-genocidal society.
During the Communist rule of the Khmer Rouge in the mid- to late ‘70s, more than 2 million people were killed due to starvation, executions or forced labor.
“Angkor’s Children” producer Karlina Lyons of Portsmouth has worked in children’s educational television and produced Cambodian adaptations of “Sesame Street.”
“I love the Khmer culture and was happy for the opportunity to work on (‘Angkor’s Children’) ” Lyons said.
Lyons said the Khmer Rouge targeted minorities, intellectuals and artists. Those who wore glasses or who could speak a foreign language gave the Khmer Rouge the impression they were learned, and were therefore killed, she said.
But Cambodians’ art and intellectual culture is coming back strong.
“Khmer culture has a very strong sense of purpose ... of the need to celebrate the Khmer culture and art,” Lyons said. “Cambodians are very proud of their culture. There is a strong need to move beyond the status of a post-genocidal society. They want to be seen again for the beauty of their culture and arts.”
“Little Boy,” which opens the festival today at The Colonial Theatre, is about a 7-year-old boy who seeks to end World War II, so that he can bring his father home. It stars Emily Watson and Kevin James.
“‘Little Boy’ is a wonderful fusion of drama and comedy,” Barakat said. “It takes a tough subject matter like war, and the absence of a parent, and adds light and humor through special effects and the irrational hope of a small boy.”
“Becoming Bulletproof,” a Western/documentary about a group of people who are disabled and who take on leading roles, is another powerful film, she said.
“It is a film about a film. What I love about it is how accessible it is and how it promotes the value and talents of every human being, no matter what their situation,” Barakat said.
“The Ghost and The Whale” details the story of a man and woman who spend some time out at sea. Only the man returns, and the mystery builds as the man struggles with mental illness back on land, while a journalist visits the town to find out exactly what happened.
While Barakat says she’s seen almost all the films this year, “Oh Lucy” is her favorite short film at the festival, but she also enjoys the short “The Morning of Everything.”
Special Programs
In association with the festival, special screenings based on the civil rights movement in Keene, Peterborough and Jaffrey, among other places, continue. The 2003 documentary “Here Am I, Send Me: The Journey of Jonathan Daniels,” will be presented Saturday at the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond at Keene State College. In addition, filmmakers at a panel discussion Friday will talk about a biography of Daniels due out next year.