One of the films I watched back in California, and was very touched by, is one made by a Japanese visiting scholar, Masako Sakata, on the devestating effect of Agent Orange, used widely by the US forces in Vietnam during the war.
In the case of Masako, the film was literally a personal requiem as the tragedy was to touch her personally, with the passing away of her husband, a US Vitenam war veteran-turned-photographer and anti-war activist.
He was the first activist I met on Telegraph Avenue when I arrived in the US in August. He is very nice, humorous, sits quietly reading a book almost everyday besides a table, exhibiting hundreds of activist stickers for sale, and a Palestinian flag flies on the other side of the table. Yet Russel still finds time also to send out tons of emails every night, with political updates, crisis alerts, calls for demonstrations. He is a walking encyclopedia on the history of Berkeley’s activism. You mention an event, and quickly he gives you the exact date, what the police did, estimates of people arrested, the final outcome of the battle, political defeats, victories.
