April 18, 2013 — Movie City News’ announces the release of “A Whisper to a Roar.”
Excerpt…
“At a time when only 57.5 percent of all eligible voters bothered to submit a ballot in one of the most contentious presidential races in American history, people around the world were putting their lives on the line for the privilege of standing in long lines to vote. Typically, when given the opportunity to participate in elections that aren’t rigged from the start, people recently freed from tyranny wouldn’t think of not exercising their right to make their preferences known. Even so, several prominent democracies have instituted compulsory voting as a way to trump apathy and lethargy. (In Chicago, it’s widely believed that dead people vote early and often in some precincts.) Ben Moses’ occasionally disturbing, if ultimately inspirational documentary, “A Whisper to a Roar,” doesn’t soft-peddle the dangers of challenging the status quo in countries where sham elections and corruption are standard operating procedure. In the Ukraine, we listen to former president Viktor Yushchenko describe the experience of being poisoned with dioxin for daring to challenge the entrenched incumbent. Oliver Stone and Sean Penn may have thought Hugo Chavez was the bee’s knees, but Moses was able to document the abuses that followed his evolution from reformer to despot. The documentary also takes us to Zimbabwe, Malaysia and pre-Arab Spring Egypt. The segments are interwoven to demonstrate how pro-democracy movements around the world are similar to each other, while taking into account the cultural and political peculiarities that make them unique. What the film doesn’t do is suggest that, once established, democracies will endure against the many threats to freedom.”
