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“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge,
aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Humans are prone to conflict. Just look at any history text and you’ll quickly find a laundry list of clashes between clans and countries, personalities and militaries, family members and brethren. But if we’ve learned anything from the past it’s that perpetual warfare does no one any favors. It is with an empathetic eye, careful consideration of concessions and a committance down the long hard road toward reparations and forgiveness that mankind may move forward.
But first, conflicts must be resolved. In some cases communities can transform through the dedication of courageous individuals willing to take a radical approach such as the streetwise Chicago group at the center Steve James’ THE INTERRUPTERS who employ their former involvement in violence and crime to dissuade others. Or Grace Lee Boggs whose story is told in AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS, a pioneering first generation Chinese-American political activist and champion of the Black Power movement who continued to blaze a transformative path until she reached 100 years old.
Sometimes things become so intolerable for both sides of a conflict, that to continue fighting would be irreparably detrimental. Thus, pride must be swallowed and a truce must be sought in salvageable compromise. The ordinary Liberian women who populate Gini Reticker’s PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL become so fed up with the ongoing civil war in their country that they reach out to one another to bring an end to the conflicts and a new, peaceful start for their people, while in Lisa Fruchtman and Rob Fruchtman’s SWEET DREAMS a remarkable group of Rwandan women emerge from the devastation of the 1994 genocide to forge a new future for themselves through the therapeutic nature of drumming and the soul-soothing virtues of ice cream entrepreneurship. Compromises are made and the long process of reconciliation begins.
For some, that process can painfully linger for decades. Joshua Oppenheimer’s unflinching THE LOOK OF SILENCE deals explicitly with the inability of the people who lived through the Indonesian mass killings of ‘65-’66 to reconcile with the horrific events that tore communities apart and left victims to live amongst the murderers that took the lives of their kin. And while not as emotionally charged, Fredrik Gertten’s BIKES VS CARS attempts to reconcile a world in which the car industry is wreaking havoc on our environment while bikes remain overlooked as an obvious solution for clean and sustainable daily transportation.
Conflict resolution may not be easy, but it is of utmost necessity if we wish to see peace for the generations to come in our wake. These six films form a framework of empathy and reconciliation to strive for by example.
The Interrupters
THE INTERRUPTERS tells the moving and surprising story of three brave people who aim to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. This film is an intimate view of violence, its causes, and its interrupters.
American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
By plunging us into writer, activist, and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs’s lifetime of vital thinking and action, and traversing the major U.S. social movements of the last century, AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS takes us on a journey into the power of ideas and the necessity of expansive, imaginative thinking to propel societal change.
Sweet Dreams
SWEET DREAMS follows a remarkable group of Rwandan women as they emerge from the devastation of the 1994 genocide to create a new future for themselves through drumming and ice cream. In the words of Kiki Katese, the founding member, “Because of our history, people know how to fight against, but not for. We want to change that equation.”
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL chronicles the story of the Liberian women who came together to end war and bring peace to their country. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war.
The Look of Silence
Through its footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide in THE ACT OF KILLING, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered and the identities of the killers. THE LOOK OF SILENCE serves as a powerful companion piece that initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.
Bikes vs. Cars
BIKES VS CARS investigates the daily global drama in traffic around the world, meeting with bike activists in Sao Paulo and Los Angeles who struggle to be granted space, and surveying cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam, where cycling is an integral part of city life, all while contemplating the revolutionary changes possible if more cities moved away from car-centric models.