Oct 3: Double Feature “War is Not a Game” and “Deadly Currents”
Oct 10: “Slam”
Oct 24: “Marriage of the Blessed”
Oct 31: “King of Hearts”
Nov 14: “Greetings From Missile Street”


Cicada La Fey is not your typical film festival organizer. The stereotype conjures images of Hollywood ambience — sunstroke tans, cell phones that have become part of the ear canal, and appointment books that could be used for booster seats. La Fey is quite the opposite. When I met him for an interview, he looked like he had just stepped out of an activist rally — short in stature, long hair with a beard to match, and a calm demeanor that hid the lava inside. The only glitz was the shine in his eye when he talked about the upcoming Peace and Justice Film Festival.

For six weeks, the WNC Peace Coalition will be hosting movies that focus on the traumatic effects of war. After each film, there will be a discussion of the movie in line with the current world situation (i.e. Iraq, the war on terrorism). La Fey hopes that folks who come to see these movies will see there are other alternatives out there besides another war campaign.

“What we’re trying to do with this film fest is to put out other visions and ideas, to stimulate conversations about what other paths there might be,” La Fey said. “We’re going to have discussions after the film so people can react to what they’ve just seen and to hear other people’s thoughts, and get some ideas about what other people might do in those situations.”

And, no, La Fey is not some new wave cadet of Hollywood hotshots morphed into an independent film activist. He’s always been an activist in the Asheville community (“Food not Bombs” was one of his campaigns), and his most recent venture is the WNC Peace Coalition:

“We actually started as a group in response to the 9-11 catastrophe,” said La Fey. “Because we perceived that there were feelings about a violent response, we organized immediately. A group of us had been meeting prior to that around the issue of globalization. We decided we needed to immediately put a different idea into the climate of consciousness rather than violence as a response. We had a mission statement: ‘We’re a coalition of groups and individuals who are promoting non-violent solutions to world conflicts.’”

Daily peace vigils were maintained at the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville. In addition, singing and drumming peace walks sprouted around the downtown area. The day following the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, the Coalition held a press conference where each member read a statement condemning the attack and urging non-violent alternatives. Their peaceful dissent spread to educational forums at Jubilee where they hosted a panel of experts on Afghanistan, the Middle East and Islam. The panel also discussed the psychological effects of War Hysteria being summoned by U.S. leaders and the media. Presently, there’s a weekly Peace vigil that occurs every Friday at 6 p.m. immediately following a vigil by Women in Black.

La Fey and company knew that the best way to stir up a little fire in the belly was through education:

“We did a ‘Path to Peace: A Teach In’ in January for Martin Luther King Day weekend,” said La Fey. “We had over 300 in attendance at UNCA. That was all day long, different workshops, discussion groups, some performances, and universal dances for peace. It was a really successful event and people asked us what we were going to do next.”

The Coalition realized that perhaps one of the best mediums for grabbing attention are movies, whether you’re in the tendrils of a couch or an outdoor enthusiast that usually ignores the pull of the screen. Movies have a way of garnering attention like a good pair of horse-blinders. It’s also better than having a speaker spill out two hours of info that might send many listeners into mini-hibernation.

“We spent a lot of time trying to find movies with an entertainment value,” La Fey recalled. “Ones that weren’t real dry. ‘The Good War’ is probably drier than the others, but it is real interesting. Not too many people have talked to folks who were opposed to WWII. Many of them went to prison for their ideals. It’s very engaging to watch, not so much with a story or plot line, but it does give the viewer some thought-provoking ideas.”

What they didn’t prepare for was the mammoth amount of time it took to put together a bonified film festival. Activist turned critic, and there were several times when a thumbs down was warranted:

“We originally planned to do it in the summer. But because of the time it takes to review a film (and they’re not always what you think they’ll be) it took us all summer to pick them. We wanted to do films that were entertaining but also carry the message to people that violence is not a good direction. And why war is not a solution to people’s problems.”

Perhaps one of the more interesting choices was “Slam,” a movie that depicts spoken word poet Raymond Joshua (U.S. Poet Saul Williams), an inner city D.C. native who must go to jail for drug charges. How does a movie about prison fit into the whole war mentality?

“The war is such a large abstract thing, but ‘Slam’ brings violence down to a very individual and personal level,” said La Fey. “The violence being the prison systems. Prisons are part of the whole war machine in some sense. It’s a big picture of our whole culture. The fact that our country has more people per capita in prison than any other country in this world, while at the same time declaring ‘we are the most free.’ There’s something missing in that picture. ‘Slam’ shows one individual going through the prison. It shows a situation of impending personal violence, but the person (Raymond Joshua) uses a method of non-violence to transform the situation to where there’s mutual respect. That’s an incredible statement. We can take that personal response and put it on a global scale.”

Another is “The Good War and Those Who Refuse To Fight It,” a documentary that covers war protest when it was still just a struggling fetus. These first pioneers out of the womb were the protestors of perhaps our country’s most popular war, World War II.

“A lot of people think, ‘well Vietnam was the bad war, while other wars were good wars.’ Especially WWII because of our involvement to stop Hitler. ‘The Good War’ is about people who refused to fight that war. There’s a lot of good conscious rising that this protest started. It’s very challenging for people who haven’t thought about WWII as something they would have opposed. Viewers will have to put themselves in the position of people who opposed a very popular war.”

La Fey hopes that these images on the celluloid will have the same kind of impact on viewers as it did for him. As a little boy, he saw the embarrassment of Vietnam nightly on TV, and he immediately began to question its logic. The nightly news tabulated the U.S. soldier body count like some ghoulish lottery. His parents tried in vain to explain the growing number of body bags that were splashed on the TV. He came up with his own answers when he turned 17.

“I realized that the system was set up so that when I became 18, I could possibly be told that I had to go and be shot at and be killed. I knew that it was something that was not a part of me. I filed as a conscientious objector when I was 17 (they re-started registration for the draft). It was my way of telling them that I didn’t want to participate.”

Ironically, La Fey is using a medium that usually supports the mainstream side of things. Television and movies beckon thoughts of what the popular consensus is, and that usually falls in line with beauty, money, and war. However, the power of a movie can sway non-believers, and La Fey believes this film festival is another step towards peace education.

“If people can see an alternative, then they can decide for themselves if it makes sense. Perhaps they’ll see war as unreasonable. Imagine if everyone decided that they didn’t want to go to war. The politicians up top can say they want a war, but if no one picks up a gun and shoots it, there won’t be a war. It takes hundreds of thousands of people together in concert to start a war. If everyone acted together in concert and said, ‘no, that’s not right,’ then that will be the end of war. That’s all it takes. Imagine if they threw a war and nobody came.”

(Hunter Pope can be reached at w.h.pope@worldnet.att.net)