Heartland Film Festival 2008

A story of regret, of reconciliation, and of hope, AWR explores the complex relationship between a father and son. Combining panoramic cinematography with a picture-in-picture composition, it blends documentary and narrative techniques to present what is best described as a cinematic personal essay. Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

Art Himmel discovered in the twilight of his life that he could sing. Now, this 82-year-old World War II veteran and cancer patient sings three nights each week at karaoke clubs in the city where he lives. In our youth-obsessed world, Himmel is living, singing proof that you're never too old to be as young as you feel. Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

This is a personal story of two courageous young men who lived a nightmare born of hate, yet survived to bear witness to the strength of the human spirit. Martin J. Moore was born and raised in Indianapolis. A graduate of Shortridge High School and DePauw University, Moore received his Master’s degree in education and history from Butler University. For 28 years, he taught at North Central High School . Moore is President of the Moore Foundation, and was instrumental in starting the Moi University/Indiana University AMPATH program in Eldoret, Kenya, now one of the world’s largest programs treating AIDS patients. He is the co-founder of the Barnabas Fund at Central Indiana Community Foundation and co-founder of Youth Philanthropy Initiative of Indiana. Heartland Content Key: AT (Contains Adult Themes, not suitable for children) Heartland Content Key: AT (contains Adult Themes not suitable for children) Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

World Premiere Based on the true story of Lucia (5), Angela (17 and Fabian (15) who took a trip that many Mexican kids are taking every day. A dangerous trip into the desert in the hands of a stranger who promised to take them past the U.S. immigration patrols and across the border to a better life. A story repeated everyday, these kids were lost when they ran away from a gang of thieves. They spent three days trying to find their way out of the Sonoran desert and survived only by drinking their own urine, eventually paying a high price for their attempted trip. A Better Life is a realistic view at what has become a profitable business, through the eyes of three children. Heartland Content Key: AT (contains Adult Themes not suitable for children) Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

Bill, For Short is a short docu-drama about a young man who finds a pair of his late grandfather's shoes and spends a day walking in his footsteps. He walks to the places where his grandfather lived and worked. While lamenting his grandfather's life he comes to realize how society has changed, but takes solace in the fact that family is as important as ever. Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

Longing for human contact, a woman engages in a bizarre game calling strangers on the telephone. She elicits compassion by inventing false stories. But when she meets another lonely woman, she has the chance for a true friendship. Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

A Drop of Life is the story of two women, one of rural India and the other from the urban United States, and the convergence of their shared struggle for access to clean drinking water. Nia, an ambitious young African-American lawyer, represents the interests of Manhattan-based water corporation Hydron. The night before she leaves for India to seal a lucrative, multi-million dollar water deal between Hydron and the Indian government, she boards the elevator in her office building and has an ominous vision of a pleading Indian child. She sees the global water crisis further dividing the world between the technologically advanced and the economically stricken. Nia's journey to India begins with her guiding a roup of water bureaucrats and executives through a desert in a hi-tech van. They travel to a village to demonstrate Hydron's new pilot project water pump which dispenses water with a swipe of a pre-paid credit card. Mirabai, a young Indian woman with a love for children, has left her urban middle-class lyfestyle in Bombay to become a village teacher... Heartland Content Key: AT (contains adult themes not suitable for children) Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!

Aicha is a high school student who's going to be a doctor--so says her father. Wanting to devote her time to martial arts, Aicha defies her parents and begins to train professionally in a kung fu club. The rules of life are not as simpmle as the rules of martial arts, and Aicha's choice leads to enormous consequences not only for her, but also for her familiy. Heartland Content Key: V (contains some mild violence) Visit the Box Office to purchase your screening and special event tickets today!