• When: Friday, November 4, 2011, 7 p.m.
• Where: Golden State Theatre, Monterey
• Cost: Free - $5
• Age limit: All ages
• Categories: Film, Community

Feeling energetic? Want to take in most of the world's problems over the next few days without ever leaving Monterey? Then attend the 12th Annual International Film Festival at the marvelously restored Golden Gate Theatre. The Golden Gate which originally opened its doors during the roaring twenties, and which has been refurbished right down to the velvet cushioned movie palace seats of yesteryear, is as plush and comforting as the films in the Festival are unsettling. For instance want to ponder what's to be done with the world's oldest profession? Watch, "The Price of Sex," in which documentary filmmaker, Mimi Chakarova returns to her native Bulgaria and follows the lives of young, ambitious, women from the countryside as they pursue jobs overseas, only to find out they have been sold into the sex trade. Or if you are looking for a less long-running social issue, something more current, you might drop into "Benghazi Rising" which tells the tale of the uprising which toppled the Qaddafi regime. Want to feel bad about what you buy? Watch, "The Dark Side of Chocolate" or "Blood in the Mobile" and learn about the miserable lives of the children in the Ivory Coast and Congo who work cocoa plantations and rare earth mineral mines to gather the necessary elements in the production of chocolate and cell phones. "Which Way Home," follows children from Central America and Mexico as they make their way north atop freight trains. And "Killing in the Name" tells the tale of one Jordanian man of the Muslim faith who makes it his personal mission to tell other Muslims that horrendously bloody violence and blowing people to bits was just not what the Prophet intended when he said, jihad. This revelation comes to the film's central figure after several members of his wedding party are killed on his wedding day. The themes of these flicks are daunting, but they are more than watchable, drenched in the lovely languages, exotic settings, and wonderful local music which offers a break to the more cerebral moviegoers to which most of these movies are likely to appeal.[JZ]

7pm Thurs-Sat; 1pm Sat. Golden State Theatre, 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $5 per session; Students/Free. 372-4555.

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