oscars
"Democracy Now!": Mon. Mar. 8 2010
Today is International Women’s Day and it is being marked around the world with activists drawing attention to discriminatory laws, the high rate of pregnancy-related deaths in many parts of the world, the skewed sex ratio in China and India, the disproportionately high number of women who are killed and victimized by wars, the comparatively heavier burden of poverty on women, and the continuing disparity between men and women regarding quality of available employment and wages received. Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi presses Iran on human rights and warns the international community against imposing economic sanctions upon his country. Sunday was a historic day in Hollywood--Kathryn Bigelow become the first woman in history to win the best director award at the Oscars. Bigelow’s film "The Hurt Locker" won a total of six Oscars including best picture and best screenplay. Geoffrey Fletcher became the first African-American to win an Oscar for best writing and Mo’Nique won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role as Mary Jones in “Precious.” The anniversary of the Selma-Montgomery march in 1965, which turned into a massacre now called Bloody Sunday, was marked yesterday by thousands reenacting the march. "Democracy Now!" is a daily independent newshour.
Email this pageGRITtv: Kate Clinton: Women's History Month
Kate Clinton is back with some thoughts on Tiger Woods' image rehabilitation, sports fever, women's history month, and the Oscars, as well as Jim Bunning's singlehanded choice to deny unemployment benefits to more than 400,000 people.
GRITtv: Good Year for Women in Movies?
Kathryn Bigelow received a Golden Globe nomination for The Hurt Locker and is being touted as the woman who could break the Best Director Oscar's all-male streak. Other films this year told unconventional stories of women outside the usual mold of Hollywood superstars. But was this actually a good year for women in cinema? Prairie Miller, film reporter for WBAI, Lisa Collins, filmmaker and senior editor/segment producer at Hollywood.com, and Melissa Silverstein, blogger at Women & Hollywood, discussed the movies that everyone's talking about -- and whether they're really as progressive as the rumors say.
GRITtv: Got Docs? Garbage Dreams
Our documentary feature this week is "Garbage Dreams," directed by Mai Iskander, that tells the story of the 60,000 Zaballeen who live in a "garbage village" and make their living by recycling an impressive 80 percent of Cairo's garbage. The documentary follows several teenage boys as they figure out their futures, while multinational garbage corporations threaten their livelihood. "Garbage Dreams" has gathered over a dozen awards at film festivals nationwide, and is scheduled to air on PBS's Independent Lens.
