Spring Break
'Whale Rider' To Kick Off Women's Center Film Series
Aly Shea
Issue date: 9/21/06 Section: Focus
The Women's Center will begin its "Thursday Night at the Movies," film series at 7 p.m. with the 2002 oscar-nominated film "Whale Rider," starring Keisha Castle-Hughes as Pai and Rawiri Paratene as Koro. The film will be shown in the Women's Center's program room.
The film tells the story of Pai, an 11-year-old girl from the Whangara tribe on the Eastern shore of New Zealand. Pai believes she is destined to be the next chief of her tribe, though the tribe has never had a female chief. Her grandfather, Koro is given the task of choosing a new leader and must, as tradition says, pick a male leader in this largely patriarchal tribe.
"Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny," according to the Internet Movie Database. The movie was nominated for 28 awards, winning 25.
Kathleen Holgerson, the director of the Women's Center, said the movie will make audience members "think about ways in which gender influences our lives and the ways in which people resist the 'boxes' they get put into as a result of their gender."
Holgerson said the movie was chosen to kick off the Thursday Night at the Movies film series because "we're trying to get people to think about the images of gender and women's issues that they see in popular movies like this one."
Other movies in the film series include, "Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed," showing on Oct. 19. The documentary details Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's run for Presidency in 1972. The movie, Holgerson said, "gives a good historical view of the time period and a good picture of the way that race and gender come together." The 2004 film was nominated for a Sundance Film Festival award.
On Nov. 16, the Women's Center will show "The Education of Shelby Knox," a story of one girl's fight for comprehensive sex education in her high school. The plot summary on the Internet Movie Database says, "A 15-year-old girl's transformation from conservative Southern Baptist to liberal Christian and ardent feminist parallels her fight for sex education and gay rights in Lubbock, Texas." The 2005 film was nominated for two Sundance Film Festival awards and won one.
The theme of the movie series is "everyday activism," said Holgerson, the idea that one woman can look around and see problems in life and can change these things. The tagline of "Whale Rider," "One young girl dared to confront the past, change the present and determine the future," seems to fit this theme very well.
The film tells the story of Pai, an 11-year-old girl from the Whangara tribe on the Eastern shore of New Zealand. Pai believes she is destined to be the next chief of her tribe, though the tribe has never had a female chief. Her grandfather, Koro is given the task of choosing a new leader and must, as tradition says, pick a male leader in this largely patriarchal tribe.
"Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny," according to the Internet Movie Database. The movie was nominated for 28 awards, winning 25.
Kathleen Holgerson, the director of the Women's Center, said the movie will make audience members "think about ways in which gender influences our lives and the ways in which people resist the 'boxes' they get put into as a result of their gender."
Holgerson said the movie was chosen to kick off the Thursday Night at the Movies film series because "we're trying to get people to think about the images of gender and women's issues that they see in popular movies like this one."
Other movies in the film series include, "Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed," showing on Oct. 19. The documentary details Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm's run for Presidency in 1972. The movie, Holgerson said, "gives a good historical view of the time period and a good picture of the way that race and gender come together." The 2004 film was nominated for a Sundance Film Festival award.
On Nov. 16, the Women's Center will show "The Education of Shelby Knox," a story of one girl's fight for comprehensive sex education in her high school. The plot summary on the Internet Movie Database says, "A 15-year-old girl's transformation from conservative Southern Baptist to liberal Christian and ardent feminist parallels her fight for sex education and gay rights in Lubbock, Texas." The 2005 film was nominated for two Sundance Film Festival awards and won one.
The theme of the movie series is "everyday activism," said Holgerson, the idea that one woman can look around and see problems in life and can change these things. The tagline of "Whale Rider," "One young girl dared to confront the past, change the present and determine the future," seems to fit this theme very well.
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