Author: Andrea Leland

Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story Directed by Ron Berger & Dan Klores,  87 minutes, Documentary, 2005 February 20, 2013/ 7:30 pm / Cases by the Sea, Coral Bay Join St. John Film Society at Cases by the Sea in Coral Bay!  Bring your own chair or sit at the picnic tables and enjoy local food at Reggie’s.  Documentary filmmakers Dan Klores and Ron Berger look at a dark moment in American sports history — March 24, 1962 — when St. Thomas’s Emile Griffith fought Cuba’s Benny “Kid” Paret for the welterweight boxing championship. At the weigh-in, Paret taunted the gentle giant with an anti-gay slur. Later, Griffith pummeled Paret into a fatal coma as a nationwide TV audience watched. Decades later, six-time welterweight champion Griffith spoke of the fateful night that haunts him.  The film includes compelling boxing footage and interviews with Griffith and family, historians, and sports journalists.  Ring of Fire was a 2005 Sundance featured film and called “extraordinary” by The New York Times. St. John Film Society is partially funded by the NEA, VICA, and YOU!  Your $5.00 suggested donation is always appreciated! Find out more about Virgin Islander Emile Griffith here. Thanks to Elaine Ione Sprauve Public Library, home to the St. John Film Society film collection.  

jflkasdfjasdofijsdlfkjasdflkjsdf Films from the 4th TRAVELLING CARIBBEAN SHOWCASE OF FILMS  Spotlight on CUBA February 5, 2013/ 7:30 pm / St. John School of the Arts, Cruz Bay Join us for an insightful look into contemporary Cuba.  Three filmmakers capture the stories of teachers, cigar-factory workers, and taxi-drivers from urban Havana to rural Baracoa – inspiring, controversial, and uniquely Cuba!    ADOLPHO : 45–min , fiction, directed by Sofie Delaage 2006 Poor Adolpho yearns for life beyond his broken-down taxi and plots a journey across the sea in this contemporary Cuban comedy of errors.   CON EL TOQUE DE LA CHAVETA:  28-min, documentary, directed by Pamela Sporn In the cigar factories of Cuba, a unique tradition persists: ‘la lectura de tabaqueria’ . Every day, specially employed workers read out loud to the two or three-hundred tabaqueros as they sit rolling the country’s famous cigars. From classic novels to national politics and local baseball results, for centuries this daily tradition has been an education for the workers, or chavetas. But after years of listening, they are now knowledgeable and demanding, and the readers must be at their very best if they are to keep their discerning audience interested. MAESTRA (THE TEACHER):  33-min, documentary, directed by Catherine Murphy, 2011 In 1961 Cuba 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old, over half were women.  The  Bay of Pigs invasion took place in Cuba impacting the both the women and the literacy campaign.  The young women who went out to teach literacy in the rural communities across the island found themselves deeply transformed in the process. This documentary includes present day interviews with women who volunteered to teach their country to read in 1961 along with archival footage and still photos from the 60’s.   Catherine Murphy has begun the recording of an oral history of one of contemporary Cuba’s greatest achievements. Thanks to Elaine Ione Sprauve Public Library, home to the St. John Film Society film collection.  

BAG IT! Directed by Susan Beraza    78 minutes, documentary 7:30 pm / St. John School of the Arts, Cruz Bay Bag It follows “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he tries to make sense of our dependence on plastic bags. When Jeb discovers that he and his partner are expecting a child, his plastic odyssey becomes a truly personal one. How can they protect their baby from the health dangers associated with plastics? Jeb looks beyond single-use disposable plastics and discovers that virtually everything in modern society – from baby bottles, to sports equipment, to dental sealants, to personal care products – is either made with plastic or contains potentially harmful chemical additives used in the plastic-making process. The average American uses about 500 plastic bags each year, for about twelve minutes each. This single-use mentality has led to the formation of a floating island of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean more than twice the size of Texas.  The film explores these issues and identifies how our daily reliance on plastic threatens not only waterways and marine life, but human health, too. Featuring interviews with scientists and experts from around the world, Bag It is a first-person documentary in the style of Michael Moore, asking how we can incorporate healthy, more environmentally friendly practices into our lives, our cultures, and our communities. Find out more about BAG IT!, the movie here. THIS SCREENING IS BEING CO-SPONSORED BY BOTH THE ROTARY CLUB OF ST JOHN AND THE ECO-CLUB OF GIFFT HILL SCHOOL.  THE ROTARY CLUB will be announcing the beginning of its “Bring Your Bag” campaign to help end the use of disposable plastic bags on St. John. Rotary is seeking sponsors to donate and distribute heavy duty, reusable organic cotton, made in the USA shopping bags around the island.  Each bag will have sponsors logos printed on one side of the bag.  Bags are printed in quantities of 500.  Each of the 14 sponsors who donate $300 to Rotary will receive 36 bags to distribute as they like.  Rotary is also posting “Bring Your Bag” signs in store parking lots and entrance doors to remind people to bring their reusable shopping bags with them. For additional information or to sign up as a sponsor contact Doug White 340 690 0217. THE ECO-CLUB OF GIFFT HILL SCHOOL not only showed the film for the entire student body but created a skit to raise awareness to the problem in the VI and were invited to the senate to support legislation to ban single use plastic bags throughout the territory. If you would like to sign the petition to be delivered to the senate and governor in support of banning plastic bags you can do so at the below link.   https://www.thepetitionsite.com/338/229/699/ban-plastic-bags-in-the-us-virgin-islands/   PLEASE HELP US BAN SINGLE USE PLASTIC BAGS FROM THE US VIRGIN ISLANDS and preserve our spectacular natural resources and unique wildlife for generations to come!