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Silvia the Documentary   Cast to the Wind
Silvia the Documentary   Cast to the Wind
 
 

 
Silvia Baraldini

Silvia, the documentary

Silvia Baraldini moved to the U.S. in the 1960’s at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and came of age in a country burning in its own promise.  Moved by African American’s fight for human rights and incensed by the show of pretense in American democracy, Silvia began a life of political activism.

In the 1970’s when hundreds of politically

minded people folded back into the comforts of American society, Silvia deepened her conviction to revolutionary struggle. She became the national leader of the May 19th Communist Organization, a radical group of white, North Americans.  May 19th was a key element in a fragile but growing alliance of revolutionaries, African American, Puerto Rican and white who worked relentlessly to organize people to view the U.S. Imperialist system as the leading source of world oppression.  Most threatening to the government was their support for the Republic of New Afrika, a group of African Americans fighting to win land in the south on which to build a socialist nation under Black rule.  Members of the alliance were targets of the U.S. government’s counter insurgency program, COINTELPRO.  Using an array of tactics, the government put an end to the alliance; many political activists were arrested and imprisoned.  In 1983, Silvia was indicted and convicted under the RICO conspiracy law for helping to free Assata Shakur (a Black revolutionary) from prison.  Additionally she was charged with criminal contempt of court for refusing to answer questions to a Grand Jury investigating the Puerto Rican Independence Movement.  Silvia was given a 43-year prison sentence.  In 1999, after 17 years in U.S. prisons, she won the right to serve out her sentence in her homeland, Italy.  Within six months of her transfer to a prison in Rome, she was diagnosed with cancer and granted house arrest.  In September 2006, having been incarcerated since 1982, Silvia Baraldini was granted her freedom.  Our documentary presents Silvia’s side of the story, the side that was not supposed to be told.

Silvia Baraldini

"Silva in Rebibbia prison cell 1999", photo by Stefano Montesi.

If you would like to help support the documentary, “SILVIA” you can make a difference by making a tax deductible donation made payable to our non for profit fiscal sponsor, Women Make Movies and mail to Thin Edge Films 405 Route 385 Catskill, NY 12414.

Thank you for your interest in us and our work.

Cast to the Wind

Cast to the Wind is a short film that encapsulates Zimbabwe’s 1980 winning of Independence from the white settler colony,

 Cast to the Wind
Rhodesia after a 16-year war. The film calls the victory into question by exposing present day statistics attesting to Zimbabwe’s ruin at the hands of Robert Mugabe’s increasingly harsh government (a government elected by the people upon winning their independence).  Presenting Zimbabwe’s gallant effort to obtain justice and its eventual downfall as warning, the film makes a plea for our need to find new methods for obtaining a greater humanity based in our innate interconnectedness.