— by BEV QUESTAD — Bargaining is the way of life, the centerpiece of business, in the traditional cultures all over the world, but most famously in the Middle Eastern-Subcontinent regions. Depending on what’s said and what the bargaining is over (an extended Visa, perhaps?), the Wester[...]
Author Archive
Under Review: ‘The Interrupters’
— by BEV QUESTAD — In the first six months of 2010, Chicago had 217 murders, mostly of youth by youth. At a town hall, the mayor announced the National Guard was available to intervene. The audience members passionately spoke about wanting to solve their own neighbor problems with gang v[...]
Under Review: ‘Buddha Mountain’
— by BEV QUESTAD — A bewigged, heavily made-up, scantily clad, 20-something girl in a nondescript northern Chinese town charges into a bar for her nightly performance at the microphone. While singing to the small raucous bar crowd the mic flings out of her hand, hitting the most belliger[...]
Under Review: ‘Hi, Fidelity’
— by BEV QUESTAD — My second on-the-road film review, written from Hong Kong, is set in this financially successful city squeezed against Chinese hills that rise into the mists. And that, metaphorically, could describe the plot of this movie. Four HK wives of successful HK husbands find [...]
Under Review: ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’
— by BEV QUESTAD — I’m writing from Hong Kong about a film produced here called “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” Set primarily in the downtown business district of HK, I’m analyzing it from a cultural perspective, trying to gain some insight about the seemingly very we[...]
An Exclusive Interview with Mohammad Kharoti
— by BEV QUESTAD — Mohammad Kharoti had just a moment. He was kindly dropping off a gift copy of “Stealing the Light.” It’s a documentary on his life growing up in a nomadic caravan, entering school at age 12, becoming a surgeon and then building a school in the roughest area i[...]
Under Review: ‘Ask Us Who We Are’
— by BEV QUESTAD — One young man, now a dad, says that on his last night at home he was in a nightmare. He would gulp for air between his father’s blows to his stomach. He was so mad by the time the beating was over he snarled at his dad, “When you go […][...]
Short Film Theater: Tim Hetherington’s ‘Diary’
— by BEV QUESTAD — Stacato shots, gasping breaths, sirens, honking, shouts, dangerous car rides, unintelligible voices in distress, chaos. Impressionist film collage and war poetry. “Diary” begins with a barrier, a light silken curtain, that obscures vision. A fan whirs, perhaps to f[...]
Afghan Doc Makes Impact on Students
— by BEV QUESTAD — “The biggest enemies to Afghanistan are poverty, ignorance and illiteracy. It breaks my heart,” says Dr. Mohammad Kharoti, the subject of the documentary, “Stealing the Light.” In the fall, a few students from a Vancouver, Wash., high school[...]
Under Review: ‘Queen of the Sun’
— by BEV QUESTAD — What happens when the one you love, the one you trust to always be there and the one who gives you sustenance disappears without a trace? “Queen of the Sun” is a delicate, sensitive, tender love story of nurturing and interdependence portending a great trag[...]
Under Review: ‘Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon’
— by BEV QUESTAD — Since 1958, all the graduating seniors at Philomath High School who were going on to college were given college scholarships. Rex Clemens, a local timber baron, established this foundation to support the high school and its students. But then it became political[...]
Under Review: ‘One Lucky Elephant’
— by BEV QUESTAD — “One Lucky Elephant” starts with Flora and her owner of 16 years, David Balding, walking down a sidewalk in St. Louis. Flora, an elephant, holds onto David’s hand with her trunk. Balding remarks, “I got Flora because I wanted an elephant for my circus.[...]
Under Review: ‘Poetry’
— by BEV QUESTAD — “Poetry” — a film examining crime and redemption — begins with a screen filled with rushing river water, a symbol of life, source, and beginning. In this movie’s particular case, it is also the repository for the body of a young girl. Lee Chang-dong, [...]
In Tribute to Tim Hetherington
— by BEV QUESTAD — Being a war correspondent sounds like a wildly romantic, adventurous life. Any day may be your last, so each moment is precious and lived to the fullest. However, living life on the edge, unarmed, in the constant line of fire and in the constant midst of human terror, [...]