Agnieszka holland biography of martin luther king

On Martin Luther King Day we look back at two powerful images from the 20th Century Civil Rights movement

Martin Luther King may have led the USA’s Civil Rights Movement from the early 1950s up until his death in 1968, yet he and his fellow activists eventually succeeded, not only due to Dr. King’s incredible determination and oratory skills, but also to some like-minded image makers, whose pictures both chronicled and helped King's noble campaign.

Consider this early one below, from 1957, shot by the US press photographer Douglas Martin and reproduced in The Photography Book. It was taken only two years after Dr. King began his campaigning, leading the boycott of the segregated bus service in Montgomery, Alabama, and it captures the movement’s early, peaceful years.

“The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then a minister in Montgomery, became the leader of the movement, and was unchallenged until 1960,” writes the art historian Ian Jeffrey, “when his commitment to non-violence was questioned by a new generation of activists. This image commemorates that early era of passive resistance.” 

Photographs such as this one not only documented the changes, but also acted as a kind of visual campaign tool, as Jeffrey explains. “In part the change came about because of the distribution of such pictures in which defenders of the old injustices presented themselves as self-confident bigots. Dorothy’s two civic escorts, one scarcely older than her tormentors, seem like two halves of the American psyche, caught somewhere between a reluctant admiration and a grim determination to carry out an unpalatable duty.”

Despite King’s pacifism, and images such as Martin’s, violence regularly entered into the civil-rights struggle after the turn of the decade. Life magazine's Charles Moore docu

Transcript

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. "Green Border" is the new movie by the veteran director Agnieszka Holland. It tells the story of a refugee family trying to escape to Western Europe, and of the people who try to help and stop them. The film, which opens this week, won the special jury prize at the Venice Film Festival and stirred controversy in Holland's native Poland. Our critic at large John Powers says, It's the strongest movie he's seen all year.

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Some topics are so distressing that it's easy to turn away and just not think about them. One is the world's seemingly endless refugee crisis. But when poor, often traumatized people cross into your country by the thousands or tens of thousands, averting your eyes isn't enough. You have to do something.

The complexity of doing anything lies at the heart of "Green Border," a new movie that packs a real emotional wallop. It's the crowning achievement of filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, the 75-year-old Polish emigrate who's built a long, varied career telling political stories about everything from the Holocaust and Soviet tyrany to the drug war streets of Baltimore on "The Wire." Holland has always had a laser eye for moral conflicts. And here, exploring the refugee situation in Eastern Europe, she shows how every choice exacts some sort of price.

We start in October 2021, with a Syrian family headed by a torture victim named Bashir, flying into Belarus, where they expect to cross the greenly forested border into Poland and then claim asylum in Sweden. But once they slip through the razor wire into Poland - we made it, they exult - they discover they've actually entered a nightmare from which the supposedly enlightened EU won't rescue them. Far from offering safe passage, the Polish authorities round them up and dump them back into thuggish Belarus, which then rounds them up and dumped them back int

These will be no ordinary screenings – a Festival guest will introduce the audience into the atmosphere of each film.

We start on Monday (23 October) at 21.30 with the film Beksińscy. Album wideofoniczny(Beksińscy. Audiovideo album) – a shocking documentary drama meticulously reconstructed from private audio, film and photographic materials of the Beksiński family archives that had not been made public in such a form before. The script is based on the bestselling biography by Magdalena Grzebałkowska, Beksińscy. Portret podwójny (published by Znak). Introduction will be held by director Marcin Borchardt.

A truly big event awaits us a day later (Tuesday 24 October at 21.30): a screening of the Polish Oscar candidate Pokot (Spoor) directed by Agnieszka Holland with none other than Olga Tokarczuk introducing the audience into the climate of the film.

The Wednesday evening (25 October) is a gesture towards the fans of Siri Hustvedt’s writings. At 21.30, the writer will open a screening of the film Of Woman and Magic directed by Claude Miller, based on her novel The Blindfold. Claire Weygand, a thirty-year-old woman who is about to defend her anthropology thesis, unfortunately not only feels bad but even worse and worse with each passing day. The migraine attacks she suffers from keep her from working as hard as she should and in despair she decides to consult Doctor Fish. When the medicine the physician prescribes for her fails, Claire, who cannot take it anymore, asks him to hospitalize her. In hospital, Claire shares her room with Odette, a young woman who has lost the use of her legs and Eléonore, a frightening old woman.

On Thursday (26 October at 21.30) the Kino pod Baranami cinema wil