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Features Blog - thebroadroom.net: February 2006
Imagining Ourselves edited by Paula Goldman
posted by TheBroadroom.Net,
Monday, February 27, 2006
at 9:45 PM (Pacific)
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Edited by Paula Goldman
Published by New World Library
March 2006; $26.95US; 1-57731-524-3 |
What defines your generation of women?
A few years ago, Paula Goldman emailed this question to women aged twenty to forty around the world. At the time, she was fresh out of graduate school and not entirely sure how to launch her career, but she knew she wanted to make a difference in the world, and she was deeply inspired by the amazing and diverse accomplishments of women she knew across the globe. She felt this book could showcase the power and talent of these women to a wider audience.
She wrote a short call for submissions, asking women to submit artwork and writings responding to the above question, and with the help of a few organizations working internationally, she sent it out. Thousands of responses later, the result is this book, comprising entries by more than one hundred women from fifty-seven countries and virtually every populated region of the globe.
The works in these pages are inspiring, challenging, enlightening, funny, and sometimes shocking. The contributors emphasize that the world they inhabit is different from the world of their mothers and grandmothers. Many have lived in more than one country, many are biracial or multiracial, and most have had access to more education than any women in their families before them. They come from myriad geographic, ethnic, spiritual, economic, and educational backgrounds. They celebrate their differences, but they also find strength in their commonalities.
Meet Lada Karitskaya, a Russian woman who turns down the opportunity to become a mail-order bride; Israeli singer, Achinoam Nini (aka Noa), whose life changed dramatically when she became a mother; slam poet Aya DeLeón of the United States, who fantasizes about what it would be like if women ran the hip-hop industry; and Toyin Sokefun of Nigeria, who uses photography to explore the boundaries between society's ideals of beauty and women's self-images.
These brave women boldly address the challenges they and their cultures face, expressing themselves freely through art and writing, wielding their power to create positive political and social change. Imagining Ourselves has a power and reach far greater than Paula Goldman dreamed possible when she first conceived of it. This book builds bridges, demonstrating not only the potential of each individual life but also the awesome power of today's generation of women as a whole.
Author
Paula Goldman's professional life has been driven by the quest to work with groups in conflict and to increase opportunities for underserved populations. In postwar Bosnia she worked on reconciliation and reconstruction projects, in India she worked with educational groups to create professional paths for rural high school graduates, and she worked with human rights organizations in Kenya and Guatemala. She has also helped develop programming with WorldLink Television and led a film project to promote community-building efforts between Jewish and Muslim groups in San Francisco.
Paula was born in Singapore in 1975. She and her family lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, before moving to Southern California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997 and went on to receive a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University. She is currently working toward a PhD in social anthropology at Harvard University. When she isn't traveling for her projects, Paula divides her time between Boston and San Francisco.
Hafsat Abiola, associate editor of this book, is the founder and director of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), A human rights and democracy activist from Nigeria, she earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and has received many honors. Hafsat is a Fetzer Fellow and serves on the boards of Youth Employment Summit, Educate Girls Globally, Women's Learning Partnership, Hewlett-Packard's World e-Inclusions Project, and the Global Security Institute. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942 and raised in Chile, Bolivia, Europe, and the Middle East. She worked as a journalist in Chile until the 1973 military coup. Upon the rise of the Pinochet dictatorship she was exiled to Venezuela, where she wrote the bestselling novel The House of the Spirits. Since then she has authored fifteen other books, which have been translated into twenty-seven languages. Isabel was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004, and she resides in San Rafael, California.
 
Oscar Nominee Pride & Prejudice --DVD Review
posted by Stevie,
Sunday, February 19, 2006
at 11:56 AM (Pacific)
Pride & Prejudice: DVD Launches February 28, 2006
Greetings!
This is Stevie ! I am part of Thebroadroom.net and am a fashion, beauty, lifestyle writer based in Los Angeles. Given that I cover pre-award show events, I often get to see and do things that most people read about in tabloid weeklies and see on TV in the various celebrity-based news shows.
I managed to score a preview copy of Oscar nominated film, Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley Matthew Macfadyen, Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland, Brenda Blethyn and a slew of other actors. This film is based on the classic novel by Jane Austen which has been done on film in 1940 ( Laurence Olivier, Greer Garson); as a mini-series in 1996 -- catapulting Colin Firth into stardom as Mr. Darcy along with Jennifer Ehle) and now redone for the big screen again with a splendid cast. Be forewarned, this is an edited down version of not only the book but that mini-series which was quite popular when it ran on PBS and BBC.
This version is quite different from the mini-series and you learn less about the inner-workings of the Bennett family and know less about Wickham that makes some of the drama more compelling--as well as understandable-- in the mini-series but loses a bit in the movie version. I watched the mini-series prior to seeing this DVD as a point of comparison for this review as well as being up to speed on what was going on in my child's English class because this book was part of the curriculum.
While dealing with the not-so-minor things missing from the movie, there is much that has been improved and make this film quite compelling. With a better cast, the acting and interaction between the characters is much improved. The nuances of actors Sutherland, Blethyn and even Knightley are so acute as to make one ache.. (the scenes with these three actors regarding the proposals of Mr. Collins are amazing).
The production values are fabulous. You see life as it was: weather, mud, animals and such--yes with some dramatic license. The photography for this movie is phenomenal. It creates a beautiful portrait that sets up a delicious setting for the actors and it's amazing to watch against the drama of the light, the shadow--both day and night. The costumes, make-up and hair are very much in key and provide a distinction between the social classes and aspirations of the various people- particularly Ms Dingley versus Ms Elizabeth Bennet. The effect is heightened by the musical direction and music underscores the drama and the locations of the action and creates the dynamic that has you waiting for the next essential bit of this unfolding drama.
At this point, comparing it against the mini-series, the movie wins hands down and the mini-series suffers for the comparison. It's like comparing a sketch against a gorgeous, detailed fully fleshed out painting done in vivid tones and with nuances that only careful direction and cinematography can provide.
 
The acting of Keira Knightley against Matthew Macfadyen is excellent. The costumes are on target and have given one an entirely new sense of the era in which women were given so little value other than their family's rank and financial standing in society.
I highly recommend this movie to everyone. I think those die-hard Austen fans will be sorry that so little of the book was featured.. and I have to say that the last few scenes left a bit to be desired as they edited out a bit of dialogue but it's quite a film and should win some awards and definitely distinguishes Keira Knightley as having serious ability as an actress
Hope you have a chance to see it!
Stevie
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