Author: The Librarians

A team of 17 working to cover your every need.

FIFOG – Festival International du Film Oriental de Genève, 21-29 avril 2018

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The 2018 edition of FIFOG starts tomorrow!

“The 13th International Oriental Film Festival of Geneva will take place from the 21st to the 29th of April 2018 in Geneva, Lausanne and neighbouring areas of France. Over a hundred quality films, spanning all genres, whose aesthetics match the difficult conditions of their genesis, will be screened, accompanied by discussions with either authors or specialists.

The aim of this 2018 edition is to highlight and inspire hope. We want to celebrate the visions of women, amplify the voices of the youth, and explore the complexities of oriental societies. On this occasion, we take the opportunity to showcase the creativity of women, as they give expression to the hope of people who will not be silent in their struggle for a better life.”

Check out the full programme and enjoy!

Book of the Week: “Weapons of math destruction: how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy”

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A former Wall Street quantitative analyst sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life and threaten to rip apart our social fabric.

“We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives — where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance — are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.

But as Cathy O’Neil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when they’re wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: if a poor student can’t get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), he’s then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a “toxic cocktail for democracy.” Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.”

Publisher: London: Penguin Books, 2017
Call Number: 384 HEIA 120998

Film of the Week: “I am not your negro” by Raoul Peck

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“Master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, Remember This House. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin’s original words and flood of rich archival material.”

“I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.”

Publisher: Black Out, 2017
Call Number: 973 IAM

Book of the Week: “The full transcripts of the Putin interviews” by Oliver Stone

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Academy Award winner Oliver Stone interviews Vladimir Putin.

“Oliver Stone was able to secure what journalists, news organizations, and even other world leaders have long coveted: extended, unprecedented access to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Putin Interviews are culled from more than a dozen interviews with Putin over a two-year span, never before has the Russian leader spoken in such depth or at such length with a Western interviewer.

No topics are off limits in the interviews, which first occurred during Stone’s trips to meet with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow and most recently after the election of President Donald Trump. Prodded by Stone, Putin discusses relations between the United States and Russia, allegations of interference in the US election, and Russia’s involvement with conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere across the globe. Putin speaks about his rise to power and details his relationships with Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump. The exchanges are personal, provocative, and at times surreal.”

Publisher: London: New York: Hot Books, 2017

Call Number: 947.086 HEIA 120532

Photo Credit: “Vladimir Putin & Oliver Stone”, Kremlin.ru, CC By 2.0 (via WikiCommons)