November 12–19, 1998

movies

Docs Looking For A Cure

This week in film fundraising.

by Neil Gladstone

Filmmakers are always strapped for cash. Instead of complaining, two local documentarians have decided to hold fundraisers.

Yvette Smalls knows hair. Over the years, the self-employed West Philly hair sculptress has had the opportunity to work on quite a few heads, including members of The Roots and Jazzyfatnastees and poet Sonia Sanchez. Her new 40-minute documentary, Hair Stories, interviews Sanchez, Erykah Badu and Dr. Jackie Copeland-Carson, among others, about what it means to have hair that doesn't easily adapt to American standards of beauty.

"Loving your hair is loving yourself," says Copeland-Carson.

Those late nights spent ironing and relaxing curly locks into flat strands were also a time for women to bond and develop a sense of self esteem. Badu recalls her school days when girls with kinky hair attracted insults like "pickaninny" and "nappy nigger." Sanchez remembers the first time she went home with an afro: her family wouldn't stop asking what had happened to her hair.

The 40-minute documentary, which was shot on video, rolls by quickly with plenty of funny and insightful anecdotes.

Hair Stories, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., Thursday, Nov. 12, 387-5125. Donations suggested.

The media concentrated too much on the sensationalist aspects of the war in Bosnia and failed to create a comprehensive portrait of the situation, says Nathalie Applewhite, director of the documentary-in-progress Snapshot. When the Temple graduate met two Bosnian émigrés studying at Temple, Tahija Vikolo and Dijana Cehic, she decided to follow the two women to their homeland to create a more personal account of what happened when the Serbian and Croatian forces battled.

This past summer, Applewhite's team (which also included producers Jen Rehill and Rene Lego) spent five weeks in Bosnia touring the bombed buildings and speaking with civilians and members of the military about the devastation that occurred.

One soldier blames the lack of a Christian presence for the unholy brutality. A woman complains that journalists worried about the images of rubble and refugees rather than the effect the war had on the general population. So far, only a small portion of the footage has been edited.

Snapshot, Parallax Pictures, 715 Fitzwater St., Saturday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. Food by Peter Dunmire (Rouge 98); music by the female country duo She-haw. $20. 563-3339.