Red Rock Film Festival 2008

Perhaps the most interesting feature of this documentary is an unprecedented report by Pastor Cecil 'Chip' Murray of an apology issued to him personally by the Mormon Church president, Gordon B. Hinckley, for the LDS role in the national travesty of racism. Besides this account (which comes late in the documentary), "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons" includes interviews with Martin Luther King III, footage of Black Mormon Gladys Knight, and interviews with various Black Mormons of many backgrounds, including three converts filmed initially in 1968 and then again in 2007. These three men talk about their journey in the LDS religion; how it felt to join a church which restricted its most important privileges from them and their families, how it felt when the restrictions were lifted, and how it feels today, when questions still circulate within Mormon Sunday School classes about God's view of Blacks. Are Blacks cursed, as Mormon leaders once taught? Were Blacks less valiant than whites in a pre-mortal life (also a prominent teaching of the 19th and 20th centuries which has yet to be repudiated). More recent Black converts are also interviewed, and report a spectrum of experiences within the LDS fold--everything from being called a 'Nigger' in a Mormon temple to feeling completely embraced into the faith, and even being called into leadership positions.

During WWII, the Japanese military developed a new weapon intended to strike directly at the American continent ‚Äì the balloon bomb. High school girls across Japan were conscripted into factories where they built thousands of balloons made of paper. These balloons were then attached to bombs and launched into the jet stream to drift toward North America. On May 5th, 1945, a pastor, his pregnant wife, and five children departed on a picnic in Southern Oregon. When they found an un-detonated balloon bomb, the device exploded, killing the pastor‚'s wife and all five children. They became the only people killed on the continental U.S. as the result of enemy action during WWII.Forty years later, a Japanese American man who had spent his wartime years in an internment camp found out about these deaths. He knew several women in Japan who as young girls had been forced to work on the balloon bombs, and the news of these deaths shocked and saddened them. These women decided to fold a thousand paper cranes to offer to the families of those killed in Oregon, and the groups eventually all met face to face. The friendships formed since have helped citizens on both sides of the Pacific cope with the tragedies they experienced during WWII.This is the story of four Japanese women who worked on balloon bombs, the families of those killed in Oregon, and the man whose actions brought them all together forty years after WWII, and the balloon bomb project.

How grand are your dreams? Ever feel like the world and even the people you love are holding you back? “The Pizza King” is a heartfelt comedy about Chaz, a small town pizza guy with big hearted dreams, who sees his writing ability as his way of leaving his rural town. With the “biggest writing contest ever” deadline hanging over his head, he lacks inspiration. Unbeknownst to him, Betsy Jo, a co-worker, longs to be his inspiration. She tells him to look around and he might see something beautiful right before his eyes, implying herself. He does get inspiration, but not from her. Inspiration comes from Chaz’s Meemaw, a gun-totin’ granny. Now having inspiration, Chaz chaotically jots notes as he delivers pizzas. He expresses to Betsy Jo how excited he is but makes the mistake of continuing to bad mouth their town seeing “nothing inspiring”. Her feelings hurt, BJ does not cover Chaz’s shift at work. This exerts pressure on him because he has to make it to the post office before it closes to send his script. After a hilarious flurry of delivering pizzas and typing, this Coen- Brotheresqe comedy will compel you to a new perspective about what really matters when Chaz rushes to the post office leading him to an encounter that will change his relationship with Betsy Jo and his town forever.

In 1964, Dr. Robert Riley is a successful doctor at an urban hospital. He learned long ago not to let the life and death decisions he must face daily weigh on him. After an unusually trying episode at work, he boards the subway for home only to soon find himself in the midst of a robbery gone awry. Riley is in the position to affect who will live and who will die, but when faced with the consequences of his decisions he discovers the ability to repeatedly relive the event. As he searches for a solution in which everybody survives, he learns that every choice carries a price.

Ray, an aging veteran, must convince the dismissive Dr. Meinel to release him from treatment before he loses the last of his memories.