Film: "Al Helm (The Dream) -- Martin Luther King in Palestine"

Film: "Al Helm (The Dream) -- Martin Luther King in Palestine" Free Film Screening 1:30 p.m., Sunday, March 23, 2014 Valencia Park/Malcolm X Library 5148 Market Street, San Diego, CA 92114 (619) 527-3405 | www.tinyurl.com/mxlibrary “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Film Introduction and Q & A led by Nasser Barghouti. President of the San Diego Chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Refreshments Provided In the documentary film, Al Helm: Martin Luther King in Palestine, award-winning director Connie Field (Freedom on My Mind, Have You Heard From Johannesburg?) captures the visit of Stanford University historian and King scholar Dr. Clayborne Carson and an African-American gospel choir to the Occupied West Bank in Palestine to stage a touring production of Carson's play about the life and message of Martin Luther King, Jr. With a cast drawn from the Palestinian National Theater Company, the American choir provides a musical backdrop of American Civil Rights-era songs and anthems while the Palestinian actors portray several major events from King’s life. Tensions between the Americans and Palestinians over artistic differences soon give way to mutual respect and affection as the two groups realize they each have something to learn from the other -- and that their respective struggles for freedom share many common elements. The camera bears grim witness to the discrimination, segregation, and violence that the Israeli occupation imposes on Palestinians in their own land. As the American visitors watch young Palestinian activists attempting to board a “settler only” bus, they realize that MLK's dream is also Al Helm (“the dream”) of the Palestinian people. * * * "We went to the Holy Land with Dr. Clay Carson, who runs the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute, to film his play about King performed by the Palestinian National Theatre and an African-American gospel choir which was presented to audiences all over the West Bank. It was an intense cultural exchange between two peoples encompassing the joy of new friendships, creative collaborations and eye opening experiences. No one who participated remained unchanged. "We traveled through the Holy Land that the Christian choir were so passionately excited to see, as they were introduced to the other side of the land where Jesus once walked: a man whose front yard has been bisected by the Security Wall and whose children have to play in the dust of its continued construction; the ease with which they as foreigners were able to pass through checkpoints while their Palestinian counterparts took hours to navigate the same distance; a home which had no water because a settlement had taken over their well, where Palestinian women teach them songs in Arabic and join them in singing American gospel songs. And yet, amidst the hardships of occupied life, the choir is greeted with food, humor, and generosity, a mixture that brought some of them to tears. "We also captured the growing non-violent movement of young people in Palestine, who are much like their peers in Egypt and Tunisia -- bright, well-educated, social media savvy and deeply committed. They are on the move, changing hearts and minds. Our film brings a fresh perspective in understanding the realities of Palestinian life under occupation and introduces people to the young Palestinians who are changing the landscape non-violently." --Connie Fields, Film Director * * * Co-sponsored by: Sponsored by: Valencia Park/Malcolm X Library Jewish Voice for Peace – San Diego and the Peace Resource Center of San Diego www.prcsd.org or info@prcsd.org