| Among the films I like best is
Anne Makepeace’s Rain in a Dry Land, which follows two
Bantu families from ravaged Somalia who are relocated in America.
Both experience poverty, alienation, depression, family feuds;
but they also discover dogged resilience and slivers of hope.
It’s a sharp, deeply felt humanist tale.
Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix feature article on the
2006 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.
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here to download the full article
Rigorously intimate and disarmingly affectionate,
Rain in a Dry Land is in the forefront of the current crop
of immigration chronicles… Filmmaker Anne Makepeace
never reduces [her subjects] to devices or symbols or anything
less than human beings caught in the cross-hairs of global
politics. The film's honesty and grit should give it wide
appeal… Gorgeously, purposefully shot by vet lenser
Joan Churchill and her son, Barney Broomfield, and edited
a with sure and sympathetic hand by Mary Lampson.
John Anderson, Variety
Read the full article
The particular strength of this film is its intimacy,
its insistence on portraying immigrants as complicated, high-strung
people negotiating the personal boundaries between their traditions
and western modernity.
Stephen Holden, New York Times
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here to download the full article
Rain in a Dry Land paints an intimate portrait of
the lives of the "American Bantu," revealing their
beauty and resilience without condescension, and illustrating
the special care new refugees need with clarity and compassion.
Rollo Romig, East African Standard
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here to download the full article
A revelation! The movie is full of beauty; the most
drop-dead gorgeous clothing from Somalia; poetry and song,
and even an uplifting ending. You couldn’t invent a
more perfect tale of triumph over hardship.
Jenny Hansell and Fred Baumgarten, The Lakeville
Journal
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here to download the full article
‘It went beyond the filmmaking, and I think
that comes out in the film,’ Marmor said. ‘The
level of intimacy that the film portralys, it’s clear,
it’s dynamic.’ Feature article including
an interview with the filmmaker and with Robert Marmor, Executive
Director of Jewish Family Service which sponsors refugee families
in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Kathleen Wereszynski Murray, Poughkeepsie Journal
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here to download the full article
‘Rain in a Dry Land is a riveting portrait of
families in transition. Their poetry, humor, and amazing resilience
shows us our own world through new eyes.’
Anne Makepeace in extensive Bitchslap.com interview by
Jason Whyte
OTHER ARTICLES AND REVIEWS MAY BE FOUND AT:
Interpress Service News Agency
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35478
Media Rights
http://www.mediarights.org/film/rain_in_a_dry_land.php
Full Frame Film Festival
http://www.fullframefest.org/festival/film.php?filmid=44
Full Frame Awards
http://www.fullframefest.org/about/winners.php
Working Films
http://www.workingfilms.org/rain.html
Margaret Mead Film Festival
http://www.amnh.org/programs/mead/mead2006/php/films.php?f=Rain
Denver Film Festival
http://www.denverfilm.org/scheduledetail.cfm?MOVIEID=10998555
Cinema Saint Louis
http://www.cinemastlouis.org/MoviePages.cfm?&MovieId=169"
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