Movie Corner: 19B
5/5 Stars
Film Clinic
2022, Drama
By HOWARD MCQUITTER II
19B is the sixth film by Egyptian director/writer Ahmad Abdalla at The Minneapolis- St. Paul International Film Festival. I had the honor to meet Mr. Ahmad Abdalla after the screening.
19B is about an elderly Egyptian gentleman, “The Guard” (Sayed Rogab), who stays in a dilapidated apartment building in a once affluent neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt. He’s been a longtime resident in the neighborhood. He acts like a caretaker in an abandoned building where he takes care of stray dogs and cats. He’s like the zoophilist in a tumbledown neighborhood where the streets can often be bare.
His daughter Yara (Nahed El Sebaï) visits him at least once a week, but she insists that he come and live with her. He stays in his pajamas when he gets up in the morning, and often wears them all day. He strolls around the villa, going to the gate, sometimes opening it to look out when he talks to his next door neighbor Sokkar (Magdy Atwan), caretaker for a high-rise. His neighbor’s high-rise is a last reminder of the area once a plush community. The old man is given scraps of food by a benevolent female doctor (Fadwa Abed) to feed his hungry dogs and cats.… Read the rest “Movie Corner: 19B”
Returning Chapter 33: A Left Turn
By PATRICK CABELLO HANSEL
To say that Lefty’s brother Karl was a retired FBI agent was a lie; he had not retired, he had been pushed out for complaining about the practices of the agency at Wounded Knee, with the Black Panthers and other political groups. He’d threatened to go to the press with documents he had, exposing other as yet unknown misdeeds; they threatened to arrest him and hide him away in a supermax prison. It was a standoff that neither the bureau nor Karl intended to break.
Such was life in Phillips in the mid-2010s: Angel and Luz needed to depend on someone who may have spied on their families’ past involvement with the Chicano movement. Someone who knew how to find out things without being found out. And someone for whom tequila, pot and conspiracy theories both left and right were his daily diet.
By a strange turn of fate, Karl had been based in Seattle in the late 70’s, met founders of tech companies and was an early investor. Stock doubling after stock doubling later, Karl was a multimillionaire living off Big Tech earnings, while decrying their nefarious influence on the body politic. He lived in a downtown high rise overlooking the river.… Read the rest “Returning Chapter 33: A Left Turn”
Raise Your Voice: A Fall From Grace
By PETER MOLENAAR
Born to the Iron Range, once upon a time, Helvi Savola and Helen Kruth would, in their later years, take up residence in an apartment complex on the north edge of what is now Ventura Village. Peace and friendship with the Soviet Union was central to their vision of Peace on Earth. In Fact, they had been close associates of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (the “Rebel Girl”) who, in 1916, had witnessed striking Mesabi Range miners being clubbed and shot. (Note: an historical marker which honored Elizabeth, was recently taken down by Republican Party operatives.)
Believe it or not, the words above are intertwined with a somewhat violent event which took place recently at 4200 Cedar Ave., home to Women Against Military Madness. Medea Benjamin was in town! Medea has co-authored: War in Ukraine—Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. Here is one review: “Careful, informal, judicious… an invaluable guide” —Noam Chomsky. Why then was Medea assaulted by a group of “anarchists”, led by an erstwhile representative of the Communication Workers of America? Hey, the assailant’s parents had been members of the Communist Party!
What is an anarchist? An anarchist might, or might not, foresee the eventual collapse of the capitalist system but, in any case, he or she rejects the conception of a ‘worker’s state’ as a facilitator of socialist transformation.… Read the rest “Raise Your Voice: A Fall From Grace”
