Mia and the White Lion is a family adventure English-language film by French director Gilles de Maistere focused on the friendship and bond between a lion and a young girl named Mia (South African actress Daniah De Villiers). Mia caught my attention after reading that it was filmed over a three year period in order to capture the real-life bond that can develop between lions and humans—in this case De Villiers. This genuineness and the film’s lack of CGI is refreshing and not only gives the movie a somewhat nostalgic throw-back feel to films like Born Free or television shows […]

In the days following the summit in Hanoi between the United States and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), the Korea Peace Network (KPN) met with congressional offices in Washington, D.C. to advocate for ongoing diplomatic efforts and legislation that supports peace on the Korean Peninsula. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is a founding member of KPN, a coalition of civil society groups and individuals dedicated to promoting humanitarian access, peacebuilding and reconciliation for Koreans on the Peninsula and in the U.S. Faith leads us to a broader view of God’s kingdom and calls us to participate in […]

Julianne Moore has made a career out of subtle performances that make her highly relatable. From playing a woman fighting chemical allergies – and suburban normality – in Safe, to her performance as a homemaker who supports her alcoholic husband and their family by winning contests in The Prize-Winner of Defiance, Ohio,to her Oscar-winning turn as a linguistic professor with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Moore usually chooses nuance over melodrama. It’s no surprise, then, that Moore takes a subtler approach to dealing with middle age in Gloria Bell, an English-language remake of the 2013 Chilean film Gloria. Unlike many foreign remakes, Sebastian Lelio (Disobedience, A Fantastic Woman) directed […]

“Yet we Christians have also been called to take a good hard look at ourselves. To reflect on our Christian beliefs, to scrutinize our missional practices. And to decolonize. It’s not that Christianity is inherently colonial, but for generations the Church and its faith have been used – wittingly, unwittingly, and far too often – as instruments of dispossession in the settler colonial arsenal. Indigenous peoples are asking the Church to our own work, to beat our colonial swords into peaceable ploughshares.” – pg. xvi Unsettling the word This is a quote taken from Unsettling the Word: Biblical experiments in decolonization. The book is a collection of […]

On Ash Wednesday, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) issued a Lenten reflection on gun violence prevention. The reflection calls for inward reflection as well as external action to address gun violence in our society. Policy changes alone will not end gun violence in the United States. But a review of 130 studies in 10 countries suggests that stricter gun policies lead to a reduction in gun deaths. Policy proposals in the U.S. context include expanded background checks, safe storage laws, mandatory reporting of lost or stolen weapons, and a ban on assault weapons. Proposals such as these would not infringe on […]

As a film reviewer, occasionally my deadline coincides with a month when there aren’t any films I’m particularly interested in. So, I scroll a bit further down the list and usually end up seeing one I don’t know much about. Sometimes, it doesn’t take long to realize there was a good reason a particular film flew under my radar. But other times I discover a good one. Captive State is one of those. A science fiction film directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of Planet of the Apes), Captive State is set in the near future after aliens have invaded the […]

Let me start by noting that I am not a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and consider only three of its twenty previous films worth watching (Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther), though I admit that I have only watched about half of the MCU films. Most MCU films I have seen had far too much mindless and pointless violent action and I am a little surprised filmgoers haven’t gotten bored. Based on the box office figures for Captain Marvel this past weekend, not only have filmgoers not gotten bored they continue to run to the cinema the […]

Countries invest a lot of resources in national elections but sometimes the process is accompanied by violence, leading to the destruction of lives, property and livelihoods and perpetuating cycles of trauma. Nigeria’s recently concluded presidential elections were regarded as relatively peaceful, but incidents of localized violence and electoral misconduct affected the credibility of the elections. More than one million people were unable to cast their votes due to violence around polling centers and millions more were disenfranchised for other reasons. After the results were announced, celebrations sparked violence in some parts of the country. Violence around elections in countries such […]