[Peace] Vietnam: The War at Home

[Brooke Anderson]

*** PLEASE FORWARD ***

WAR AT HOME Film Showing
Thursday, April 24th at 7pm
Illinois Disciples Foundation, 2nd floor
Springfield & Wright, Champaign

Dear friends,

Please join us next Thursday for a showing and facilitated discussion 
of the award-winning documentary, "The War at Home."  This Academy 
Award-nominated film looks at the emergence, successes, and lessons 
of the Vietnam War protest movement at another Midwest, Big 10 school 
- the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

As on the UIUC campus, the National Guard was called to the Madison 
campus to quell student anti-war protests and the state violence that 
followed brought the war home for university students. The lessons of 
the anti-Vietnam War protests are of critical importance for today's 
anti-war activists as we contemplate the future of of our movement.

A discussion following the viewing will be facilitated by UIUC 
Anthropology Professor Alejandro Lugo, a former UW-Madison student. 
Discussion will include a comparison of today's American foreign 
policy and the role of the U.S. in the world during the Vietnam war.

This event is being organized as part of a Day of Action Against War 
on April 24th, 2003. For more information, contact the Progressive 
Resource/Action Cooperative at (217) 352-8721 or at 
prc at prairienet.org. For more information at the local anti-war 
movement, visit PRC's website at www.prairienet.org.

Thanks,
the PRC.
--------

p.s. -- Below follows a more extensive review of the film from First 
Run Icarus Films, also available on the web at: 
http://www.frif.com/cat97/t-z/the_war_.html

THE WAR AT HOME chronicles the awakening and growth of the Vietnam 
protest movement in the United States, from a handful of politically 
active students, to the street confrontations at the 1968 Democratic 
Convention in Chicago, to the killings at Kent State. Through both 
newsreel and current footage, we follow participants from all sides - 
students, police, and political figures of the time - as they face 
each other in growing confrontation.

This was a time of profound change in America, when the Civil Rights 
movement set the tone of the early 1960s. Civil disobedience, sit-ins 
and marches became accepted methods of arousing social conscience - 
and forcing political change from grass roots activism.

In its wake came Vietnam. In the beginning it was the hidden war, an 
afterthought to the America public, obscured by less than candid 
pronouncements of Asian policy from successive administrations. In 
the end, it became the largest domestic conflict since the Civil War 
in the history of the United States.

THE WAR AT HOME is an historical case history, a statement of the 
motivation and anatomy of a mass movement. The film uses archival 
television news footage from both fronts; the war in Vietnam and the 
protest movement in the United States. Events taking place at the 
University of Wisconsin, in Madison, are used as a microcosm of the 
national protest movement throughout the 60s and early 70s.

THE WAR AT HOME touches on many issues: the moral climate of the 
time, individual responsibility, citizen/government interaction on 
foreign policy issues, options available in a free society. The film 
is narrated by those who were involved on all sides, and provides an 
in-depth examination of an unsettling era and its current 
implications.

"THE WAR AT HOME can only grow in importance with the passage of 
time. It should be reviewed at regular intervals, so that each 
generation may understand what its parents felt and how they acted." 
- The Nation

"This brilliant documentary is valuable contemporary history... THE 
WAR AT HOME demonstrates that it is possible to cut through all the 
romantic nonsense about the Sixties and get to some approximation of 
fact... in some respect it is the best American film of the year!" - 
Boston Globe

"An extremely important film of profound and ongoing implications.... 
This turbulent decade has been superbly evoked... by taking a 
classical approach - diligent research, extraordinary archive 
footage, and pertinent interviews." - Los Angeles Times

"More than a mere exercise in political nostalgia... Using the 
embattled city of Madison, Wisconsin as a paradigm for the political 
turmoils of the 60s, the film traces the growing resistance to the 
war in Vietnam... refreshingly different in its sense of emotion 
recollected in tranquility." - Newsweek

"As pertinent today as it will be 30 years from now." - EFLA Evaluations

** 1980 Academy Award Nominee
** Blue Ribbon, 1980 American Film Festival
** Best Documentary, 1980 US Film Festival


-- 
*********************************************
Brooke Anderson, Co-Coordinator
Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative
c/o the Illinois Disciples Foundation
610 E. Springfield Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820

Home = 255-5307 / Cell = 493-2637
E-mail = brooke at shout.net
Anti-Chief Homepage = www.prairienet.org/prc
*********************************************