You don't have to know where or what Africa is to be moved by this extraordinary documentary film shot mostly in Liberia now showing at the Cinema Village. Sunday night at a special screening and dinner hosted by Gloria Steinem and Philip Gourevitch honoring the filmmakers and bringing attention to their subject, you could hear the proverbial pin drop in the packed dining room at the Plaza Athenee. 
Leymah Gbowee, a charismatic social worker turned activist answered the many questions generated by this compelling story about how women banded together to protest violence in Liberia, set their hideous dictator Charles Taylor on a journey of exile, to be put on trial for war crimes, and enabled a democratically elected woman to govern their country. The main question is of course, how is it that we do not know this story? Self-assured and instinctively political, Gbowee is a modern day Lysistrata, as in the ancient Greek satirist Aristophanes' play, a character who organized women in a sex strike to protest the Trojan War. Steinem pointed out that Gandhi used similar non-violent tactics of the women's movement in India. Director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail Disney, two Fieldston moms who decided to collaborate at a school sports event, are now showing this film in Ramallah, Chechnya, Iraq, and other areas of conflict. While Gbowee, adorned in a native headdress utilizing yards of gold embossed cotton, wondered at first how these women could help, she is now gratified she trusted them to tell this important story. The mother of five said children in Liberia must address grownups using a title. Her children now say, “We have so many aunties, and some of them are white.”
Regina Weinreich
Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura
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