Irish filmfest helps Casa Hogar kids
By Leonardo Rosen (Mar 10, 2006)

The Amigos de San Patricio and the Hotel Villa Jacaranda are proud to present the Eleventh Annual Irish Film Festival as part of the Saint Patrick's Festival of San Miguel de Allende. This is a charitable event to aid our three homes for children in need of care and protection: Casa Hogar Don Bosco, Casa Hogar Santa Julia and Santuario Hogar Mexiquito. As always, we present a selection of the finest Irish and Irish-theme movies. 

Movie schedule 

Saturday, March 11, 7:30pm: In Evelyn (a drama based on a true story), Bruce Beresford, director of Driving Miss Daisy, brings us the touching story of a Dublin man whose wife deserts him and their three children. The government places the children in an orphanage, and the father must fight all the way to Ireland's Supreme Court to overturn an archaic law and regain custody. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Aidan Quinn and Julianna Margulies (2002).

Sunday, March 12, 7:30pm: Out of Ireland is a prize-winning documentary of the flight of an oppressed and impoverished people from the famine-swept countryside of 19th-century Ireland to the industrialized cities of 20th-century America. The letters of immigrants to their families back home in Ireland lend a very personal touch to the visual images. Narrated by Kelly McGillis, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Brenda Fricker and Aidan Quinn (1997).

Monday, March 13, 7:30pm: The Quiet Man is director John Ford's comic classic about an Irish-American boxer who accidentally kills an opponent in the ring and goes off to Ireland to find tranquility and fight no more. However, he falls in love with a high-spirited young woman and is challenged by the town bully. Starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara (1952).

Tuesday, March 14, 7:30pm: Rob Roy is a historical drama set in Scotland. In the 18th century, Rob Roy MacGregor, a farmer, is forced to borrow money from an English lord to feed his impoverished clan. This brings him into conflict with the nobleman's incredibly evil henchman, which causes Rob Roy to become a legendary leader in the Scottish people's fight against English tyranny. Starring Liam Neeson, Jessica Lange and Tim Roth (1995).

Wednesday, March 15, at 7:30pm: Cowboys & Angels is a contemporary comedy about two young Irishmen who are initially mismatched roommates. One is a straight civil servant, quite timid, and the other is a gay fashion design student who is not timid at all. However, they become great comrades and share a search for love and "fabulousness," while having some brushes with the law. The film is "a mix of open-minded intelligence and a heartfelt point of view," according to the New York Times. Starring Michael Legge, Allen Leech and Amy Shields (2003).

Thursday, March 16, 7:30pm: The Molly Maguires is a social drama about a secret society of militant Irish-American coal miners who battle their exploitation by the mine owners with the bosses' own tactics of violence and intimidation. An undercover detective is sent to infiltrate the group. The tough and suspicious leader of the "Molly Maguires" repeatedly tests the newcomer's loyalty. Starring Richard Harris, Sean Connery and Samantha Eggar (1970).

Friday, March 17, 3:30pm: The matinee screening of One Man's Hero, a historical drama, shows us why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day in San Miguel. In 1846, the US Army is about to invade Mexico. Many of its soldiers are Irish immigrants, cruelly mistreated by their mainly southern Anglo-Protestant officers. When they can stand it no longer, they desert to Mexico. Under the command of John Riley, they become the Saint Patrick's Battalion, fighting heroically for the Mexican Republic until the American victory of 1848. Starring Tom Berenger and Daniela Romo (1998).

This is a nonprofit event. After expenses, the proceeds go to aid the Casa Hogar children. For further information, please call Villa Jacaranda at 152-1015 or Leonardo Rosen at 154-5840.

Please don't forget the other events of the St. Patrick's Festival: Concert of pipes and drums at the Angela Peralta Theater Friday, March 17, 8pm. Parade/procession Saturday, March 18, at noon from Instituto Allende to the Parroquia. Mass Saturday, March 18, at 8pm at the Parroquia.

Irish FilmFest
Saturday, March 11, to Friday, March 17, 7:30pm
Hotel Villa Jacaranda, Aldama 53
80 pesos
includes drink/popcorn

Hijacking Catastrophe
By Cliff DuRand

True or false? The plan to invade Iraq and establish US military dominance in the Middle East was made in the days immediately after September 11.

False! In fact, it was made nearly 10 years earlier, at the end of the first Gulf War when the first Bush administration refused to topple the Saddam Hussein regime. It was then that Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and their fellow neo-cons advocated that the United States take advantage of the post-Cold War opportunity to flex its military muscle and establish worldwide dominance. They only had to wait until the "new Pearl Harbor" (their phrase) of September 11 gave them the political opportunity they needed to press forward with their agenda.

That is the thesis of the film Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire being shown this week in the Snowbird Symposium. And you don't have to believe in conspiracies to believe this thesis. It's all right there on the neo-con's own website at www.newamericancentury.org. It's the smoking gun. There you will find their own documents and their policy recommendations and reports made throughout the years of the Clinton administration. It wasn't until they came back into power with the presidency of George W. Bush that they were able to hijack US foreign policy following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Now their ideas are embedded in official National Security Strategy doctrine and written in the blood of thousands. 

Narrated by Julian Bond, Hijacking Catastrophe examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home. Sobering and provocative, this documentary includes interviews with Noam Chomsky, Medea Benjamin, Daniel Ellsberg, Chalmers Johnson, Mark Crispin Miller, Norman Mailer, Benjamin Barber, Scott Ritter, Immanuel Wallerstein and others.

Don't miss this powerful exposé of the cabal that now controls the most powerful state in history. You'll never be able to view the Bush administration the same way again. The Center for Global Justice is showing Hijacking Catastrophe at 3pm on Thursday, March 16, in Teatro Santa Ana. A discussion will follow. Admission is 50 pesos. Tickets can be purchased beginning Monday. For further information call 150-0025.

Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire
Presented by Snowbird Symposium of the Center for Global Justice
Thursday, March 16, 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana, Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

Reel activism

The Bioneers Film Series presents films on human rights and environmental activism featuring the work of two women activists, Terry Tempest Williams and Maude Barlow.

Terry Tempest Williams is one of the United States' most celebrated writers. Author of Refuge, Leap and, most recently, The Open Space of Democracy, she is active with social and environmental issues in her home state of Utah. She speaks eloquently and urgently of the linkage between wilderness and open space and the state of democracy. 

Maude Barlow is a long-time activist on behalf of "The Commons" and water as a human right. In October of 2005 she won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize for her outstanding commitment to human rights and fight against the corporate privatization of water. In this presentation, she speaks movingly of the dignified protest action against the WTO talks in Cancún and she addresses the international issue of water and human rights. She is well known in her native Canada as a co-founder of the Council of Canadians.

Each film is about 40 minutes long. Proceeds benefit Mujeres en Cambio, a local organization that sponsors education for rural women.

Bioneers Series for International Women's Day presents Terry Tempest Williams and Maude Barlow
Monday, March 13, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana, Reloj 50
40 pesos