His passport says that he is Liberia’s General Consul to the Central African Republic.

But he was not appointed by the usual channels. He bought his diplomatic passport for $150,000 from a broker he found online.

And he is really there to access vast reserves of diamonds.

That is the plot of a new film, but it is not fiction. It was the real adventure of documentary film maker Mads Brugger.

Brugger pretends to be a wealthy diplomat in his film “The Ambassador.”

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Mads Brugger, who says despite his eccentric clothes and questionable credentials, he did not stand out in the Central African Republic.

At one of Jakarta’s biggest movie theaters, Richard Olsen, an Indonesia-based filmmaker, runs down what’s playing on the big screens.

“A Thai horror movie, a Danish film. Normally you don’t see things like this,” Olsen said. “You’d see Kung Fu Panda way before you’d see this.”

But for the past four months, Indonesia hasn’t been getting any new movies from Hollywood. Olsen said he used to go to the movies two times a week, but the last movie he saw in the theaters was The King’s Speech, in February.

Olsen said that his friends in Australia tease him, telling him about the great movies they’ve just seen.

“I have no chance to watch it unless I go overseas,” Olsen said. “It’s ridiculous.”

The great Indonesian movie crisis, as some bloggers call it, comes down to an unresolved tax dispute. In February, the Indonesian government announced a new system for calculating tax on imported films. The Motion Picture Association of America or MPAA said with the new system, it’s no longer worth it to send films to Indonesia.

Syamsul Lussa, director of film affairs at the Indonesian Ministry of Culture, said he thinks there’s been a misunderstanding. He said that the studios think they’re being taxed twice, and that’s not true.

“I check with my friends at the tax director general — no double taxation,” he said. “It is impossible that the taxes and duties are double.”

The MPAA wouldn’t comment for this story because it’s currently in discussions with the Indonesian government. Syamsul, who faced criticism here for going to the Cannes Film Festival in May in the middle of the crisis, said the Ministry of Culture will announce a resolution as early as next week.

But he said that last week, too.

Meanwhile, Indonesian movie theaters are suffering. They’ve seen a 60 percent drop in income since February, and some theaters have closed.

It seems many Indonesians are getting their Hollywood movies another way.

At a mall in central Jakarta, there is a wide selection of pirated DVDs. The women who work at this DVD stand say one movie is selling especially well, the new animated FOX feature* “Rio.” Rio came out in the states in March but no one knows when it will come out in theaters here. Virginia, a DVD vendor, spoke frankly about the fact that her business is flourishing.

“More people are buying DVDs because there are no new films in the theatres,” she said. “A lot of people are buying ‘Water for Elephants’ and ‘Mildred Pierce’.

There’s another unintended winner here, one that is on the big screen. It’s an Indonesian war movie called “Hati Merdeka,” or Hearts of Freedom.

“What we’ve been telling people is who needs Hollywood blockbusters when you have Indonesian blockbusters? We have one right here!” said Rob Allyn, an American producer and co-writer of Hati Merdeka.

The movie is the final part of a trilogy about young cadets fighting the Dutch in Indonesia’s war for Independence, and it’s the biggest budget film project in Indonesian history.

Allyn’s son, Conor Allyn, the director and co-writer, said he expects the movie will do especially well because “it’s not competing with Thors and Green Lanterns and Hulks, and what not.”

But for student and movie lover Rezki Gautama Tanrere, Hati Merdeka isn’t enough. He wants Pirates of the Caribbean, and he’s sick of watching DVDs.

“Watching in the movies is much better than watching on DVDs,” Rezki said. “The taste, the feel of watching in cinemas is very different.”

Rezki said ultimately the movie crisis reflects the Indonesian government’s lack of concern for its citizens.

“Even if I protest, the government won’t even hear us,” Rezki said. “They don’t really care about us actually. Maybe they don’t have time to listen to us.”

But Richard Olsen said there’s one thing that will make the government listen — Harry Potter.

“We’ve been quite quiet in this ordeal as a nation, as a city, but I think if there’s no Harry Potter, all the Harry Potter fans are going to go nuts,” Olsen said. “There are going to be a lot of angry Indonesians.”

The final installment of the Harry Potter movies is due in Indonesian theaters in July – maybe.

For the Geo Quiz we’re getting out the popcorn – several buckets of popcorn – and settling in for a screening of the world’s longest movie.
The ticket’s cheap: in fact it’s free but the feature lasts 240 hours. Yup, it’s 10 days long. So, we want to know, where is this mega-pic being shown?

Here are few clues: It’s in a Scandinavian city, east of Stockholm, and it’s on the Baltic Sea. It’s known for it’s graceful neo-classical buildings.

Stora Enso building

So what’s the capital that’s hosting the world’s longest flick?

The answer is Helsinki. Paula Toppila directs the Contemporary Art Festival going on right now Helsinki. The festival is sponsoring the first screening of the film that’s being projected onto the side of that structure designed by world-renown architect Alvar Aalot. The building is the main character in the film.

“Local people call it the sugar cube because it has the shape of a sugar cube. It’s covered with marble sheets. So it’s bright white and it’s a modernist building so has a very clear shape,” says Toppila.

During the 10 day film, movie goers can watch a time lapse version of the building being buffeted by weather and time. Each day represents what will happen to the building during a 4 or 500 year period.

“So it will wear out gradually. It’s a reminder of how everything is temporary and no building is there necessarily forever, especially if human time finishes and there is nobody to take care of them anymore. so it encourages us to carpe diam and to seize the moment right now and do the things you want to do today and not postpone them.”

Paula Toppila says she doesn’t know what happens in the final scenes of the 10 day long film.

“At the end of the film we are not sure. We have to go and look for the last hour. Because it’s 10 long this very long film”.

Toppila doesn’t expect anyone to sit through the entire ten days… In fact, she’s expects it will mostly be a curiosity as people grab lunch in the Helsinki Market Square.

But even the casual passer by, she thinks, will stop to appreciate the depiction of subtle decay, and just what happens as time marches on.

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• Watch the trailer for “Google Baby”
• Zippi Brand Frank
• HBO Google Baby

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

KATY CLARK:  How are babies made?  Well, according to a new documentary called Google Baby, the process can involve the internet, outsourcing and some long international flights.  The film tells the story of an Israeli man who wants to become a parent.  An egg from an American donor is fertilized with his sperm.  The egg is then brought to India where it is placed inside the womb of a surrogate mother who will bring the baby to term.  After the child is born, the Israeli man is there in India to pick up his new baby.  Zippy Brand Frank followed this whole process up close while making the documentary, which is airing on HBO.  She’s speaking with us from her home in Tel Aviv. Zippy, your documentary centers around a gay Israeli man who had a child with the help of a surrogate mother in the U.S. at a cost of around $100,000.00.  He decides to start a business to make it cheaper for people to have a child using surrogate mothers in India.  It’s a form of outsourcing, isn’t it?

ZIPPY BRAND FRANK:  Yeah, right.  Actually it was outsourcing computers to India and it was very expensive for him producing as he said, or creating his first child in the U.S. and then he decided okay I’m going to have more kids as well, my friends want to have kids.  It’s too much to pay $140,000.00 U.S. dollars that was the exact price that he paid.  And we should find an option which would be much cheaper.  And that’s how he thought about India.

CLARK: The Israeli man in your film continues to rely on American egg donors.  I’m wondering if he’s getting entrepreneurial here.  Why not go somewhere else for eggs?  Why didn’t he get them from India itself?

FRANK: Because most western customers, I would say, look for a Caucasian look egg donor.  And that’s almost impossible to find in India.  Customers have been very picky.  If you Google on the internet for egg donor, right now the industry is in a point in which you can look for the faces, pictures, bios, whatever kind of information you want to look, you can find on the web.  So I mean it’s much easier in America and it’s much more open, it’s a capitalist society you know.  Its business, they’re doing transactions, these women.  So that’s why he decided to work with it.  But you know, there are customers who really want to save the cost, I would say, and they would go for Indian donors, but this is a very rare situation.

CLARK: Is Israel as open as the U.S. is about this sort of thing?  Could he be getting eggs from Israeli women?

FRANK: Israel is not open in the business of egg donation at all because it was forbidden by law.  So that’s the reason why he doesn’t do it with Israel.  But you know, there’s another, cheaper way of having eggs, if you want to get it done cheaper cost than the U.S. which Israelis tend to use, is the eastern European.  At the end I didn’t put it in the film, but I have been filming in Latvia, for example.  I’ve been filming in Poland.  I’ve been filming in Kiev in Ukraine and in these places women are selling their eggs for 800 bucks maximum I would say.  For 700 bucks maximum if they are selling 30 or 35 eggs.

CLARK: It sounds as if there’s quite a lot of this trading in eggs and sperm and surrogacy going on.  What kind of international regulation is there surrounding all of this?

FRANK: There is no regulation and that’s the reason why I put this film.  I wanted to offer a glimpse to the people, or the audience world wide to this industry that is really growing rapidly.  Because things cannot be solved in one country, for example in Europe there’s almost forbidden to do egg donation.  For example in Italy or other places, or in Israel a gay couple can go for a surrogate.  So if you cannot do it in your country, you can probably find a solution in another country and then go to a third country and find a surrogate mother, implant the embryos in the womb and then get the baby and bring it back to your country.  Technology and science has put us in a situation in which it’s not only about computers, it’s not only about products, and it’s also about babies.  Babies can be produced anywhere in the world.

CLARK: And the American woman featured in your film who is serving as the egg donor in this particular documentary, she has two children of her own, she’s been donating eggs, or basically selling her eggs, she’s not donating them, selling her eggs for a while now.  We see her at home with her two children, her husband and another relative, her father or father-in-law perhaps in the background.  And we see that the money that she’s earning, $8,000.00 or so for this particular case, she is using to renovate her home and she and her husband buy guns and they do target shooting in the backyard.  It seems as if that was a little bit of editorializing as well in the documentary.  What were you trying to get at there?

FRANK: It wasn’t so editorialized.  I know I hear it a lot as a criticism, the fact why did I put it in, but it was really part of their life.  We’ve been there for several days with them, and it was really internal to her life.  It wasn’t a great criticism towards here, it was just portraying the way she lives and that’s what they’re doing every day.

CLARK: The Indian women are doing this, they are in very different circumstances.  They’re doing this to buy a home for their family because their family has no home, or to educate the children that they already have.  Do any of these Indian women have an opportunity to earn as much money, some are calling it was maybe $6,000.00 or something to act as a surrogate; could they earn that much money over a nine month period doing anything else?

FRANK: No.  And I’m happy that you are asking it because there is a tendency of many people to look at it as if it’s exploitation.  But then I went there, we’ve been there three times, they live in the street, they are coming from the very rural areas and that’s their only way to get a significant amount of money for them in order to have a house and in order to educate their kids.  So it’s very easy to criticize as if you are sitting in the U.S., but then I realize you know, that there is something about them.  Because serving as a surrogate is completely unaccepted in their society.  It’s a taboo.  Their families, except for their husband and kids, don’t know where they’ve been going.  They tell them usually that they are going for a caregiver position or in any position abroad, and then they come back after a year with much more money in order to do something.

CLARK: I think most people are familiar with fertility programs.  And most people have also heard about egg donors and surrogate mothers, but I don’t think many people have thought about an international network like this.  You do a really good job of presenting this story as objectively as you can.  But I’m wondering what you walked away thinking about the idea of buying and selling what is essentially life.

FRANK: My personal opinion is that these things should be regulated somehow.  I believe that in the future this industry will not propose a salvation only for couples who cannot conceive or only for singles who can’t have a child in their countries, but those with women who’d like to pursue their career and not get pregnant.  Or for women who don’t want to have stretch mark.  Or there might be also cases in which, and there has been one case in India for example, of a very small baby.  Sometimes when you order a product, especially babies, and then I’m sorry to say the word product, but it was born premature, very premature and the parents preferred not to come and pick it up and they went for an orphan in India.  But we should let people be more aware that it’s not only about genes or cars, but it’s about babies.

CLARK: Zippy Brand Frank is the producer of the documentary “Google Baby” which is airing on HBO.  Zippy Brand Frank, thanks for speaking with us.

FRANK: Thank you very much.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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• Jimmy Cliff’s official website

There are wiretaps, hidden microphones, ways to hack into your computer. Citizens in Malaysia, Russia, and China have come to expect that the authorities can learn what they’re up to.

The human rights watchdog group, Privacy International, says those three countries do the most surveillance of their people.

We’re looking for the country that ranks number four and number one in Europe. The country’s main source of information is its more than four-million surveillance cameras.

That’s one for every 15 people.

Not to put any pressure on you, but we want you to name names, specifically, the name of this country.

We’ll check your information with what we’ve already got in our files. when we answer today’s Geo Quiz.

That country is Britain. And one of its citizens set out to find out how long he could evade Big Brother. David Bond decided to go undercover. And he hired a team of private eyes to track him down. Bond filmed the whole thing for a documentary.

It’s called “Erasing David.” Bond knew that the detectives would catch up to him. He just didn’t know how much of an information trail he’d left behind.

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman.  This is The World.  Just ahead we turn to Chile for a taste of modern retro cumbia.  But first we turn to Europe for the answer to today’s Geo Quiz.  We were looking for the European country with the most surveillance and the least privacy protection.  That country is Britain.  And one of its citizens set out to find out how long he could evade big brother.  David Bond decided to go undercover and he hired a team of private eyes to track him down.  Bond filmed the whole thing for a documentary.  It’s called Erasing David.  Bond knew the detectives would catch up to him, he just didn’t know how much of an information trail he’d left behind.

DAVID BOND:  I really thought that they were going to be using very high tech stuff.  I thought they’d be tracking my mobile, which they were doing, but not as successfully as I worried.  What I missed, what I really didn’t realize was quite how much stuff is out there already.  When you try to disappear, you need to be very keenly aware of how much you’ve let go over your lifetime, which is irretrievable and undeletable in most cases.

WERMAN: Right.  That’s the curious thing because many people offer information voluntarily.

BOND: A lot of people now are willingly putting up a whole bunch of stuff about themselves which 20 years ago they never would have considered allowing other people to find out about, photos of them drunk at parties or worse.  And this kind of willingness that both we have and we’re kind of instilling into our children, that it’s okay to do this, is deeply concerning to me and certainly was a way that the private investigators were very quickly able to identify the kinds of things I was interested in.

WERMAN: Now David, the investigators you worked with said they would find you in four days, that wasn’t the case and we’ll let listeners see Erasing David to find out how long you stayed erased, but were you able to find in your time on the lam, were you able to find that sense of privacy that you thought would maintain your cover?

BOND: I wasn’t and that was perhaps the most disturbing thing about the making of the film for me personally, was the discovery that in order to try to find private space, in order to try to be so aware of how much you leak data in your everyday life, you being, or at least I began to become very sensitized to how much we give away and that led me into some quite paranoid thinking.  It was a pretty painful experience to be honest.

WERMAN: Now closed circuit TV cameras, CCTV, how did those cameras affect your goal of not getting discovered?

BOND: Well I spent a lot of time keenly aware of quite how often I walked under the scope of CCTV cameras.  But as it turned out, I was mistaken to think that they would be able to access, crack into, and track me using the police and state based CCTV network.  But having said that, it does nonetheless provide a constant reminder to us all in the U.K. that we’re being watched.  We have millions of them now.  The recent House of Lords report stated that they have no material affect on the prevention or detection of crime, and yet we merrily spend billions of pounds putting these things up.  There’s basically a very strong lobby from the people who make these things to persuade politicians that they’re effective and I’m not convinced that they are.

WERMAN: In the wake of the failed Times Square bombing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York wants to follow the British example and nearly double New York City’s 4,000 subway cameras.  The London subway has about 12,000 such cameras.  Are there lessons from the British use of CCTV that you might warn residents in New York City about?

BOND: I would strongly warn residents in New York City to resist, and I’ll tell you why.  Because there is no evidence that these cameras do anything other than show events after they’ve happened.  Occasionally that can be useful for prosecution and in the vast majority of cases, they’re not preemptively successful in stopping things happening.  What they do, do is infringe all of our privacy, day in, day out.

WERMAN: David you say at the end of the film that you really hope you can protect the identities of your children, but don’t you also want to protect your children from would-be bombers whose identities do need to be made transparent?

BOND: I do and I’m certainly not advocating the removal of all secret services who might be targeting particular individuals on good intelligence.  But what I do object to is a kind of blanket surveillance that assumes that we’re all either potential criminals, potential terrorists, we all need to be watched.  I deeply disagree with that.  That’s a fundamental change in the last 20 or 30 years from a system where we’re presumed innocent and only particular people are watched, to a system where everybody is watched and I deeply object to that.  I don’t want my kids to grow up feeling that way.

WERMAN: David Bond is the David in his documentary, Erasing David, speaking with us from London, so he’s clearly not permanently erased.  David, thank you very much.

BOND: It was a pleasure.  Thanks for having me on.

WERMAN: You can watch Erasing David online, there’s a link at the world dot org.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The big economic news over the past few months has been coming from Greece. The country in the middle of its “worst crisis” in modern history, as the Greek finance minister put it. Its massive debt and budget deficit are threatening the stability of the Euro and Greece is under intense pressure — and close surveillance — from other Eurozone countries to implement tough austerity measures. How are the Germans feeling about Greece? And how are the Greeks feeling about Greece?

Also on this edition of The World’s Global Economy podcast: potholes in Germany, film in Russia, and a new trade route through the Himalayas. Also, is it better to give charitable donations of money or goods to help rebuild Haiti?

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These women say this is the first time they’ve ever been to a theater. Some have never seen a movie.

As we pass into the theater, a few look confused as ushers hand out thick dark 3D glasses. The seats fill up so people sit on the steps and in the aisles. And then the lights go down.

Indigenous viewers are impressed by the 3D graphics in Avatar for many, it's their first time in a movie theater.

The movie tells the story of a planet called Pandora, home to the indigenous Na’vi. They’re fighting to protect their forests from a company set on mining a rare mineral called “unobtaneum.”

When it’s over, I speak with Mayra Vega. She’s 24 years old and head of the Women’s Association of the Shuar Nation. She says Avatar hit home for her people.

Mayra Vega, 24, Director of the Women's Association of the Shuar Nation, travelled overnight from the Amazonian city of Macas to see Avatar on the big screen.

“It left a huge impression on us. For example, the movies are almost real. It’s an example that makes us think a lot because the indigenous are defending their rights. We have to defend just as the indigenous so clearly defended in the movie. We had an uprising we had a confrontation with gases; it’s the same as what we just saw in the movie.”

Vega says just like in Avatar, the Shuar are fighting to protect their land from mining companies. And they’re not the only ones.

The Kichwa Community of Sarayaku took on CGC, an Argentine Energy company. Marlon Santi is President of the National Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador and a Sarayaku native. He sees the Sarayaku case as a real life Avatar story, where the indigenous triumphed over the oil company. But unlike in Avatar, they didn’t use violence.

The Sarayaku Case is one of the emblematic cases in the struggle for territorial and environmental defense, and for human rights.

Another case involves the Waorani: beneath their territory in Yasuni National Park lie 846 million barrels of oil. Yasuni is a biodiverse hotspot that’s often referred to as a grand lung of the earth. It is also one of the few places left on earth where uncontacted indigenous groups live in isolation. Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has offered to forgo drilling in this pristine environment… if the international community will pay Ecuador more than three and a half billion dollars … about half the value of the oil. But Correa has recently questioned the deal causing an uproar at home.

At a reception after the film Marlon Santi says he hopes the president will ultimately bow to public pressure and keep his commitment to preserve Yasuni. And he thinks Avatar could help with that.

“Honestly, this is the first time I’m seeing this movie, and it’s reality, what’s happening now just in another dimension.”

Veteran Achuar leader Luis Vargas tries out the 3D glasses.

Others say there was at least one thing in the movie that veered from their reality Achuar leader Luis Vargas says it’s where the white guy sweeps in to the rescue. But he says that’s to be expected.

“This is a Hollywood movie, so it’s practically a given that a mestizo comes to the defense and leads (the people) to triumph in the end.”

Still, he liked the film and his fellow Achuar leader Ernesto Vargas says he hopes another group will get a chance to see it.

“Think of how much better it would be if we showed this film to people who actually want to exploit petroleum. I think it would serve them very well, even more than us.”

As for Ecuador’s President Correa, he saw the movie with his children the day after it premiered in Ecuador. No word yet on what he thought of it.

For the World, I’m Melaina Spitzer in Quito, Ecuador.

Video produced by Siegmund Thies.

The film broke through the “one billion dollars in ticket sales” barrier this past weekend. That’s thanks in part to big international audiences. “Avatar” is already the most successful movie EVER in the country we want you to name today.

Art: Arne Hückelheim

This country has 11 time zones — with an estimated 1300 movie screens. And Avatar sounds like THIS over there… What language can you hear there — other than the fictional Na’vi?

And which country ranks third after France and Germany in international ticket sales for Avatar?

That’s for you to ponder and for us to reveal in just a bit…

It took just 17 days. US ticket sales account for about a third of Avatar’s success. The rest comes from overseas. So far France is the top international market. The movie has raked in more than 85 million dollars in ticket sales there. Next is Germany. An THIRD is the country we asked you to name in our Geo Quiz today.

Allan Cullison reports in the Wall Street Journal today that — in less than 3 weeks — Avatar has become the most successful movie ever in.

Russia…The answer to our Geo Quiz.

• Scenes from a Parish
• Wikipedia: Lawrence, MA

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

KATY CLARK: The Catholic Church in the U.S. faces many other challenges. Attendance at many of its churches has dwindled. Though in some places it’s grown, that growth has come almost exclusively from immigrants who often want to worship in their own language and style.  Other churchgoers don’t always like that. A documentary that airs tonight on PBS as part of the Independent Lens series focuses on these tensions.  Here’s The World’s Patrick Cox.

PATRICK COX: The film is called “Scenes From a Parish.”  The crew spent five years following several parishioners of Saint Patrick’s in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It’s one of the poorest cities in the country, and a hub for Puerto Ricans and Dominican immigrants.

ELVYS GUZMAN: [In Spanish]

COX: Elvys Guzman is one of the people profiled in the documentary. He was raised in the Dominican Republic, and to the older parishioners at Saint Patrick’s he still looks like the gang member he once was, with his tattoos and street swagger. Guzman is one of hundreds of people at Saint Patrick’s who celebrate mass in Spanish. The church has greatly expanded its services to Spanish speakers, offending older parishioners like Edna McGregor.

EDNA MC GREGOR: When I found out that the mass was being done in Spanish and English, I called and I asked to speak to Father Paul. He was on the other line so I left him a message. And in the message I put, “Father Paul, if the mass is done in Spanish and English, I wish you would get somebody else to take my place because I do not get anything out of the mass.”

JAMES RUTENBECK: I talked to someone who visited Saint Patrick’s in the 1970s and he said it was like being in Dublin. It was a provincial church with a very strong Irish-American identity.

COX: This is James Rutenbeck, director of Scenes From a Parish. He says Puerto Ricans and Dominicans started moving to Lawrence in the 1970s, just as the city’s economy was collapsing, its great textile mills closing. White people left by the tens of thousands. Some stayed but they haven’t forgotten those times.

FATHER O’BRIEN: There’s a whole history there that’s very difficult for many of the older residents to process. And the idea of people not speaking English and speaking Spanish only is a real point of contention for them because the Spanish is so much associated with all that trauma of their pain.

COX: Which is why Father Paul O’Brien, who runs Saint Patrick’s, has faced such opposition. The Harvard educated Father Paul is the central figure in film. He shoots hoops with young Latinos, and he raises money to build a community center. As a Spanish speaking Irish- American, he stands for what the Catholic Church in the United States might become. In the film he defends the changes he has made at Saint Patrick’s.

FATHER PAUL: There are people who tell me how much they resent me for leading a parish that will not be mono-cultural or mono-linguistic. There are rare people who will actually sit down and tell me I’m very angry with you, would you please leave, whatever.  Why are you doing this to us? Why are you taking these things away? There are more people who will leave me anonymous voicemails and scream those things at me.

COX: Not that any that dissuades Father Paul from continuing to offer mass in Spanish. It’s his belief that people need to worship in their native tongue, in their own way. Filmmaker James Rutenbeck, himself a practicing Catholic, shares that belief. He’s come to love the Spanish services at Saint Patrick’s.

RUTENBECK: There’s so much more energy and vitality and a kind of spiritual expression there that you don’t see at the 4 o’clock mass on a Saturday where it’s very quiet and reserved and less expressive.

COX: The documentary is full of Spanish language devotional songs. For Paul McManus, another priest at Saint Patrick’s, they represent how the church should move forward in a city like Lawrence, even in the face of opposition.

FATHER MCMANUS: The resistance may have spoken with their feet and may have walked to other places. But the fact is this immigration wave hasn’t ended. It’s been going on for decades and for one reason or another they’re still coming, and they’re coming in great numbers. And so while there are needs in other languages, the greatest need here in Lawrence is to be open and to assist our brothers and sisters who are speaking, some of them only Spanish.

COX: And so, in the space of a few years, this one Catholic parish has flipped its unofficial language of worship from overwhelmingly English to predominantly Spanish.  For The World, I’m Patrick Cox.

CLARK: You can hear more coverage of language in our weekly podcast, The World in Words. Just go to theworld.org/language.

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MARCO WERMAN: Sadly, the people of Iraq are used to the kind of violence that Pakistan saw today.  This year, we’ve heard that the level of violence in Iraq is down, but that doesn’t mean the bombings have stopped.  And the scars left by those attacks are all over the capital, Baghdad.

Some Iraqi film-makers have decided to make a statement, using the visible scars of violence as a backdrop for a film festival.   Screenings are being held on the very sites of some of the deadliest bombings to hit Baghdad in recent months.  Husam Al Shara is one of the organizers of the festival.

HUSAM AL SHARA: [speaking Pashto] From these places that have been attacked by terrorists, we want to send a message that in Iraq culture, civilization and cinema are still alive. This is a chance to remind people what happened here.

WERMAN: And what happened was devastating.  One location for film screenings is beneath the bombed facade of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.  Less than four months ago, two truck bombs ripped through the building and the nearby Finance Ministry.  Ninety-five people were killed.  This week, Baghdad residents gathered in that same place to watch a comedy called “Taqweem Shakhasi,” which translates as “Personal Calendar.”  The film pokes fun at Iraqis unable to remember the days of the week as they try to cope with the confusion brought on by war.  Movie-going was fashionable among Iraqis before the war.  There were 60 working film theaters in Iraq then.  Today, only five of those theaters are still going.

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