There is a war raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A war of which the vast majority of us are unaware. A war on women. Everyday, women from all over the country are brutally raped, sometimes by many assailants at a time, by soldiers from within and without the country. Whether these women are mutilated by the brutality or forced to raise children by themselves after being shunned by their family and village, they still must deal with the atrocities alone. Though this has been going on for decades, very few of us have ever heard about it. Until now. Lisa F. Jackson, a survivor of rape herself, uses her documentary The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, to bring a voice to the women in Congo who have so far been unable to reach the eyes and ears of the global community.

Zoom In Online’s Jim Rohner talked to Lisa during the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival where she shared her thoughts on documenting the horrible stories of these women and the inexplicable hope and inspiration that still lives deep within them. For more information, visit www.thegreatestsilence.org. To purchase the film, visit Women Make Movies.

For more episodes of On the Circuit, click here.

Credits:

Producer: Jim Rohner
Editor: Jim Rohner
Host: Jim Rohner

Susan Koch was already an Emmy and Peabody Award winning filmmaker when she stumbled upon a story about The Homeless World Cup. With a mind for socially relevant documentaries, Koch knew immediately the annual event was one she wanted to investigate. In documenting the event and the participants involved, Koch attempts to edify the audience about the political, social, and economic issues spurring homelessness around the world and in the process, help eliminate the stigma surrounding the homeless here in America. Zoom In’s Megan Cunningham talked to Kicking It director Susan Koch when the film played at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, months after its acclaimed debut at Sundance. Kicking It will be released theatrically on June 13th.

CREDITS:
Host: Megan Cunningham
Producer/Editor: Jim Rohner

It has been called “the artistic crime of the century.” On August 7th 1974, Frenchman Philippe Petit performed on a wire suspended between the World Trade Center’s twin towers. The clandestine performance was a complicated plot – dubbed a ‘coup’ by the conspirators involved – that took months of planning and forever changed those involved. After picking up prominent awards at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and Full Frame Documentary Festival, the next stop for Man on Wire and director James Marsh was the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Here, Zoom In Online’s Jim Rohner sat down to speak with Marsh about revisiting Petit’s iconic achievement.

CREDITS:
Producer/Editor/Host: Jim Rohner

Nobody who watched Super Size Me could ever look at McDonalds the same way again. Nobody who watched 30 Days could be ignorant to the other end of the spectrum. Morgan Spurlock has been the pioneer behind a movement to make documentary film more entertaining and accessible for mass audiences, and his latest venture, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, includes the same humorous yet prodding sense of exploration that has made him famous. Anxious about bringing his unborn child into a world where fear of terrorism and ignorance of foreign cultures runs rampant, Spurlock sets out on a journey to explore the differences between our culture and that of the Middle East and how these differences add to the misunderstandings, miscommunications, and even hatred between our cultures at the expense of overlooking our similarities.

At the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Zoom In Online’s Megan Cunningham talks with Spurlock, co-writer Jeremy Chilnick, and producer Stacey Offman about the topics the film explores.

It took director Jackie Reem Salloum over five years to shoot and edit on her own in Final Cut Pro the over seven hundred hours of footage necessary to complete Slingshot Hip Hop, a documentary about the alternative resistance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict found in young Palestinian hip hop groups. Accompanied by solo artist Abeer, Jackie talks with Zoom In's Megan Cunningham about the inspiration and message behind the music of groups like DAM, PR, and Arapeyet and how many youths draw inspiration from African-American rappers in regards to themes of being chastised as strangers within their own homes.

Credits:

Host: Megan Cunningham
Producer/Editor: Jim Rohner