Local Vet, Camilo Mejia, Featured in Documentary at Miami Film Festival, March 6 & 7
by JK Wednesday, Mar. 05, 2008 at 8:55 PM

Camilo Mejia was the first soldier of the U.S. to declare himself a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq and the first to be convicted for his refusal to return to the Middle East. "Dear Camilo" is a ruminative portrait of a man who would no longer support the moral ambiguities of war.

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Querido Camilo (Dear Camilo), is a documentary featuring a local Miami Iraq veteran, Camilo Mejia and will have two showings at the Miami International Film Festival. Thursday March 6th and Friday March 7th.

Thursday, March 6, 9:15 PM at the Bill Cosford Cinema located on the University of Miami campus

Friday, March 7, 9:15 PM at the Regal South Beach Theater on Miami Beach.

* View film synopsis and more info at http://www.mdc.edu/filmfest/miffshowtime2008/Synopsis.aspx?filmID=F08-1728

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Warren Hoskins on "Querido Camilo" and "Cartas a Uma Ditadura"
by Warren Hoskins Friday, Mar. 07, 2008 at 4:10 PM

Last night, Miami for Peace had a literature table at the University of Miami for the U.S. premier of the documentary about Camilo Mejia, "Querido Camilo"--Camilo was there along with the people who made the film, from Costa Rica. There were Veterans for Peace there, and even some people from the Truth Project out of Palm Beach County! Before it was shown, though, the documentary, "Letters to a Dictator," was shown, about the dictator Salazar in Portugal, and how women were bent to the service of his dictatorship, and how some of those women are still bent, and others have found how to grow through their lives, in one case despite starting in desperate poverty under a dictatorship. My take, anyway. I would love the opinion of people in Amnesty International about it, too. The faces of people living under repressive governments! And the other shows us a little of the war in Iraq, and is very, very motivating for this peace person.

Both documentaries are engaging and absorbing viewing, very thought-provoking--powerful learning experiences, with much in one film in Portuguese (subtitled) and in the other in Spanish (subtitled). I hope you will get to see them-- there is another showing tonight, on Miami Beach, still part of the film festival--here is the information--this is the only other opportunity for seeing this combination at this time. If you can't go, at least try to think who needs to see Camilo talking in Spanish, in the film, with a young man in Miami who is thinking of enlisting in the military now--it is a very powerful and moving personal moment for both of them--it shines in the memory, like having seen a Henry David Thoreau or John Woolman speak with someone who has not examined his conscience--but now will.

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