Tigar Next Door: powerful documentary

Camilla Calamandre Director producer

Tigar Next Door is a documentary I found almost impossible to watch even though I know it is true. Can Man and Aminal live together is a question that comes to the fore with this detailed exploration of man with tigar in a civilized setting.

Stories of Man in the Animal's world are and have been numerous, particularly fasinating to the young. But Tigar next Door is not for the young. It is heart wrenching, powerful struggle to continue to house and care for Tigars in our personal space. hard to imagine but Tigars are the intimate relatives of our feline house pets (who also have never been fully domesticated but they are small so I guess it doesn't it's okay to breed them and sell them to hopeful prespective parents.
The scene which really upset me more than all others was that of the Tigars' skins being thrown, discarded into a heap, a pile like all those bodies the Nazti's desposed of in the same dehumnized callous fashion ie. one upon the other.

It was at that point, that image, that I knew this is not a film for me. But it is an important film, important that we explore the atrocities that we, members of this civilized country,  put forth day after day without comment.

Director Camilla Calamandrei videotaping in the evidence storeroom at the US Fish and Wildlife office in Springfield, Illinois. Pelts, hides, skulls, gallbladders and other body parts were collected as evidence in a 18 month under cover investigation that led to the conviction of 16 men who were buying, selling and killing unwanted pet tigers and lions and then selling their meat and body parts. Photo Credit: Diane Zander.   

 DVD Release date: April 20th

Linda Zises

WBAI RAdio

Criticalwomen.net

LIFE DURING WARTIME: Sex, Fear and the loss of a Father

LIFE DURING WARTIME

Directed By Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, Happiness, Palindromes)

Starring: Shirley Henderson, Ciarán Hinds, Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy, Paul Reubens, Michael Lerner, Chris Marquette, Charlotte Rampling, Dylan Riley Snyder and Michael Kenneth Williams

Opens theatrically in NY on 7/23

Extraordinary acting!


There is so much happening in this intellectual exploration of our prejudices, our frailties that cloud our preceptions and make our decisions often not in tune with our best interest nor of those we care about. At the heart of the film is that all important question of fatherhood, what does it mean to be a father, what does it mean for a man and for his son.
This identity issue looms large while the crimes that the father commits seems often trivial to the lies that surround and permeate us all. But who is the Father.


tere is strong evidence throughout this film that the personal father with whom we immediate associate to "father" also refers to Israel, the Fatherland where the same criminality issue felt and experienced for this country that murders, bulldozes homes and has striped life as we know it from huge number of people in the Middle East is the Father exposed in Life During Wartime with all the complexity of feeling/thought/duplicity/longing for a better person /country to embrace.


Pedophilia is a crime. The crime's of the paroled men are multiple. Crime crime crime but even for a criminal there is a humanity and that is the point...to look at our committed lies politically and personally: Do we forget? Do we forgive? And if we forget, will we ever remember again.

Life During Wartime uses brilliant human interactions to carry it's message and there were many moments when I felt certain this film would be one of my favorites of all times but

As with so much of politics, it lack an emotional device to pull me in or get me involved in a primitive non intellectual way and that unfortunately is the life blood of the film viewing experience.

The last line delivered by the 13 year old boy in contrast to the issue of his father being a photovoltaic stays with you long after the film ends ",,,,,,,,,I just want my father"

Don't we all.

An American Haunting (2006): A Horror!

Director: Courtney Solomon.

Screenplay: Courtney Solomon, from Brent Monahan’s book.

Cast: Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, James D’Arcy, Rachel Hurd-Wood

On Cable TV: and DVD in your local library

it wasn't a box office success, it didn't make millions upon millions or billions of dollars but then again, it wasn't made for the financial success. This film tells a story an unspeakable story about a teenage girl deflowered by her natural father while her mother looks away with that holier, over burdened wife demeanor we all know too well.

An American Haunting takes a very serious problem of epidemic proportion that due to societal constraints refuses to see people, all people as sexual beings and thus far has failed to bring the issue of rape of the teenage girl into clear focus.

Is this what An American Haunting is really about?

I have read one review after another in which there is a vague reference to the subject of this film. Just as this horror film is an indirect approach to the problem of Rape and Incest of the adolescent teenage American girl, this oblique approach is mirrored in the film's reception,

An American Haunting gives us many wonderful moment of horror film delight punctuated with the absurd to help the viewer realize Corey Solomon is making fun of, filming a satirical statement on the Horror film genre. You know Solomon isn't entirely serious when you see the melting of candle wax done to the musical theatrics of a dramatic all important moment which it was not or the race between a full grown horse who is carrying two adult size passengers and a free range yellow eyed ferocious looking wolf, and the horse wins.

You know when the black women(1800s Tennessee slaves) come into the sanctuary of the Bell home(even the name Bell has the significance of a wake up call) with their lips sealed while they present the evidence, a white sheet with young Betsy's unmistakable virginal blood in full view.

You know then that this isn't a funny film, or a frivolous one made for the hungry teenager wanting a date flick that everyone can enjoy. You know before the sniveling husband/father dies that you want him to die and maybe you even wish the silent seemingly pain stricken mother will soon follow in his wake.

This is a film to be brought to our attention again and again. Teenage rape, the man who just "has a thing for virgins" as Sheri Curry(lead singer in The Runaways) said of her rapist, has been allowed to roam free too long, destroying the emotional/sexual life of millions of young girls who have been silenced by family, friends and ultimately by societal pressures and the uneven hand of the Law.

An American Haunting, a masterpiece of deception that went too far. No one seems to have understood nor asked why two seasoned great actors, Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland would agree to act in an horror film. Now you know.

If I had a young daughter I would drag her. if need be, yelling and screaming like Betsy in the film, to see An American Haunting because someone has to lead the way to full disclosure. Why not let film do it for us.

Linda Zises
WBAI RAdio
Criticalwomen.net