Theatrical Release :Apr 3, 2009 Limited
Genre : Education/General Interest
Starring : Norma Khouri
Director : Anna Broinowski
In July 2004, Norma Khouri, best-selling author of “Forbidden Love” (US title "Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan"), was exposed as a fake. In Australia, she’d won fame and fortune as a Jordanian virgin on the run from Islamic extremists who’d put a Fatwah on her head for her campaign against honor killings. But she was really Norma Bagain, a Chicago real estate agent and mother of two, on the run from the FBI for one million dollars of fraud.
When director Anna Broinowski read Malcolm Knox’s Sydney Morning Herald article exposing Norma Khouri as a hoax, she knew she’d found the subject for her next documentary. “I wanted to know what kind of woman could be so brilliant that while on the run from the FBI she could reinvent herself as a Jordanian virgin with a Fatwah on her head, write a best-seller, and convince the best publishing and media minds in the world that she was telling the truth.”
As we follow Norma to Jordan to meet with people she says will “prove that Dalia, (the woman in her book) existed, that she was murdered, and that the media has lied”, we also investigate Norma’s criminal past. Will the FBI arrest her? Is her passion to stop honor crimes genuine, or just a new con? Who do you believe, as you watch Norma’s web of stories spinning ever faster, ensnaring everyone, including the filmmaker? Is she a calculating sociopath, a damaged soul craving the limelight, a genuine martyr, or simply a monster, who states, that “if Bush and Blair can spin the truth about WMDs to justify bombing innocent people then why can’t I spin Dalia’s story to save women from being murdered on a daily basis?”
In a spin-driven era, as the lines between truth and fiction grow increasingly blurred, Forbidden Lie$ is a real-life thriller for our time. Weaving murder, deceit, greed, the East/West clash and an international literary scandal into a web that entangles us all, Norma Khouri’s real-life drama is even stranger than her fiction.--© Roxie Releasing
Theatrical Release :Apr 24, 2009 Limited
Genre : Education/General Interest
Starring : Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah
Director : Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Synopsis : The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis. The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers: Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public? And the powers-that-be have the same response: “The garden is wonderful, but there is nothing more we can do.†If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?--© Official Site
Theatrical Release :Apr 22, 2009 Wide
Runtime : 1 hr 36 mins
Genre : Education/General Interest
Director : Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield
Synopsis : Partially constructed from the groundbreaking BBC and Discovery Channel television series PLANET EARTH, EARTH is a ravishing and often gut-wrenching tale of natural survival and beauty. Five years in the making (including 250 days of aerial footage shot from planes, helicopters, and two-man balloons) and narrated by actor James Earl Jones, EARTH follows the trials of three families of polar bears, elephants, and whales. Though separated by seasons and continents, each family will cross great lengths and confront numerous hardships: for the Arctic polar bears, it is an increasingly warming planet that melts the ice they need for a hunting platform; for the African elephants, hot desert conditions and hungry predators will stand in the way of reaching a lush delta; and for the Pacific humpback whales, their Antarctic migration will be fraught with rough waters and great white sharks. Along the way, EARTH takes us on a global tour of nature in all its colorful splendor and harrowing moments--from windswept tundra to teeming rainforests, from cheetahs running down their prey to ducklings taking first flight. And as each family struggles towards their much-needed feeding grounds, directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield ultimately show us that nature can be equally giving and unforgiving. Educational but never preachy, EARTH is an unprecedented invitation for adults and children alike to experience the everyday natural wonders that deserve our awe and safeguarding.
