Burma VJ
Monday, March 29
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

2010 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature

Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the shaky handheld footage of the DVB, acclaimed filmmaker Anders Ostergaard’s Burma VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government. Their tactical leader, code-named Joshua, oversees operations from a safe hiding place in Thailand. Via clandestine phone calls, Joshua dispenses his posse of video warriors, who covertly film the abuses in their country, then smuggle their footage across the border into Thailand. Joshua ships the footage to Norway, where it is broadcast back to Burma and the world via satellite. Burma VJ plays like a thriller, all the more scary because it is true.

Fierce Light
Wednesday, February 24
7:00 PM
SAME Cafe
2023 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

The 2006 murder of friend and fellow media-activist Brad Will in protest-torn Oaxaca, Mexico, is the impetus for Ripper’s journey, which takes him to the flash points  of spiritual activism around the world, including Montgomery, Alabama; Robben Island, South Africa; Andrah, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and South Central Los Angeles, where a months-long protest against the razing of a vital community garden provides a highly dramatic spine for the wide-ranging film.

En route, Ripper encounters a number of eloquent icons, including American Civil Rights legend Congressman John Lewis, actor turned activist Daryl Hannah, Nobel prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Alice Walker, Buddhist peace activist monk Thich Nhat Hahn, famed tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill, and dharma punk, Noah Levine, South Central Farmers; Visionaries.

Ripper discovers what Paul Hawken (author “Blessed Unrest”) describes as the largest global movement in history - thousands of individuals and organizations connected by a shared commitment to compassionate, positive action.

Alice Walker calls it “a human sunrise” - Ripper calls it “Fierce Light.” With stunning cinematography, a compelling soundtrack, and dramatic stories of resistance and transformation, FIERCE LIGHT: When Spirit Meets Action reveals what is possible when human beings, faced with a world in crisis, rise to their absolute best.

Renewal
Wednesday, March 18
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

RENEWAL is the first feature-length documentary to capture the vitality and diversity of America’s religious-environmental movement. Made up of eight individual stories, RENEWAL captures the efforts of men, women and children who from within their Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim traditions, are finding ways to become caretakers of the Earth.

2009 Academy Award Nominee
for Best Documentary Feature
The Garden
Monday, February 23
7:00 PM
The Oriental Theater
4335 West 44th Ave, Denver
Tickets: $10

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.”

Flow: For Love of Water
Thursday, December 11
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 donation or 1 hour volunteer

Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Flow: For the Love of Water
Saturday, November 29
4:30 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 donation or 1 hour volunteer

Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.

Garbage Warrior
Saturday, November 29
12:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 donation or 1 hour volunteer

What do beer cans, car tires and water bottles have in common? Not much unless you’re renegade architect Michael Reynolds, in which case they are tools of choice for producing thermal mass and energy-independent housing. For 30 years New Mexico-based Reynolds and his green disciples have devoted their time to advancing the art of “earthship biotecture” by building self-sufficient, off-the-grid communities where design and function converge in eco-harmony. However, these experimental structures that defy state standards create conflict between Reynolds and the authorities, who are backed by big business. Frustrated by antiquated legislation, Reynolds lobbies for the right to create a sustainable living test site. While politicians hum and ha, Mother Nature strikes, leaving communities devastated by tsunamis and hurricanes. Reynolds and his crew seize the opportunity to lend their pioneering skills to those who need it most. Shot over three years and in four different countries, Garbage Warrior is a timely portrait of a determined visionary, a hero of the 21st century.

ARGUSFEST 5TH ANNUAL FAIR TRADE HOLIDAY BAZAAR

Do your holiday shopping with a conscience.

What Would Jesus Buy?
Thursday, December 4
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 donation or 1 hour volunteer

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!

From producer Morgan Spurlock (SUPER SIZE ME) and director Rob VanAlkemade comes a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas.  Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer’s jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands.

Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a  journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland.

Will we be led like Sheeple to the Christmas slaughter, or will we find a new way to give a gift this Christmas?  What Would Jesus Buy? may just be the divine intervention we’ve all been searching for.

The Shopocalypse is upon us … Who will be $aved?