Americans as a whole are very self-involved. We imagine ourselves to be a worldly-wise, well-informed populace that springs to the aid of other less fortunate countries when our national government deems it necessary. But ask us about the current state of affairs in Belarus or what we think about Afghanistan's most famous woman or how the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has affected its civilians, and you're likely to hear answers to the effect of, "Where?" "Afghanistan has a famous woman?" and "Didn't those places get annihilated in World War II?" University of Tampa International Film Fest gives locals a chance to expand their worldview with a short series of documentary film screenings that focus on the foreign. A Lesson of Belarusian was filmed during the Eastern European country's contentious 2006 elections and follows an elite underground school and the activist students who run it. Sundance Film Festival winner Enemies of Happiness is about Malalai Joya, the Afghan woman who challenged her country's new government and later ran in its first democratic parliamentary election in 35 years. And in White Light/Black Rain, the reality of nuclear warfare is revealed via interviews with 14 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and four Americans involved in the bombings. Through April 3, times vary, Reeves Theatre at the Vaughn Center, 401 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, free admission, utampa.edu.
