Protecting the Humanity of Vulnerable Populations in Conflict: IHL Film Series to Screen “Casualties of War”

Cinematic representations of the Vietnam War hit new levels of grim realism in the 1980s. In 1987 alone, Hamburger Hill, Good Morning Vietnam, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket were released to American audiences, bringing violent and unforgiving images of the conflict into shopping-mall movie theaters everywhere. Filmmakers in the 80s explored the chaos, violence and cultural […]

Humanity, Migration and the Consequences of Standing By: Lunch & Learn Tackles Immigration to Europe

A Hellenic Red Cross volunteer helps Syrian refugees arriving by boat (photo credit: Reuters) The movement of migrants from the Middle East to Europe and the West has been deemed an international crisis by media, government leaders and social media – where the hashtag #migrantcrisis has arisen to tag stories, images and discussions. In the […]

Oct. 21 Lunch and Learn: Protecting the Humanity of Migrant Populations

Since the beginning of human history, populations have moved from place to place, fleeing conflict, seeking opportunity or simply to explore new territory. And although immigration and migration are concepts as old as humanity itself, so are the tensions that arise as people travel from one homeland to another. What is often ignored, however, in […]

IHL Film Series: The Killing Fields of Cambodia and The Ripple Effects of a Humanitarian Crisis

Growing up in Longmont, I learned about the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia from those who had lived through it. Several friends of mine came to the area as refugees, fleeing Prime Minister Pol Pot’s efforts to purge Cambodia’s intellectual elite and return the country to an idealized agrarian society as part […]

September Lunch and Learn: Iran’s Revolutionary Past and Uncertain Future

Tehran, as viewed from the Modares Expressway (wikimedia commons) As an undergraduate, Jonathan Pinckney began what would become a years-long endeavor to better understand the complex history of nonviolent revolution and rebellion in countries around the world, including in Iran. While studying abroad in Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt, Pinckney, this month’s International Services Lunch and Learn […]

IHL Film Series Presents Dr. Strangelove: EVENT CANCELLED

A scene from 1964’s Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.  Please check our website, redcross.org/colorado to find out when it will return. More than a half-century after its original theatrical release, the absurdity and razor-sharp satire of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, or: How […]

IHL Film Series: “Hotel Rwanda” Speaks to Region’s Violent Past, Uncertain Present

Over the course of 100 days in 1994, between 500,000 and 1 million people were slaughtered by the Akazu, radicalized members of the Hutu ethnic group, in Rwanda. The early days of this Rwandan genocide form the backdrop of this month’s International Humanitarian Law Film Series installment: Hotel Rwanda. The critically-acclaimed 2004 film details the plight […]