USA,
2006, 82 min
Shown in 2006
CREDITS
- dir
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Adrian Belic
- prod
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Adrian Belic
- cam
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Adrian Belic
- editor
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Jennifer Chinlund
- mus
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Marcello De Francisci
- source
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Wadi Rum, 219 Pueblo Way, Vallejo, CA 94591 FAX: 707-644-5523 TEL: 415-716-0660 EMAIL: wadirum1@aol.com
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COMMENTS
Adrian Belic in attendance.
OTHER
Ed, Jim and Walt are not your average weekend warriors. Ordinary, inconspicuous Americans with wives, careers and hobbies, these three friends realize their deepest passion in life through self-financed humanitarian missions to war zones around the globe. In Beyond the Call, documentary filmmaker Adrian Belic (Genghis Blues, SFIFF 1999) tracks these self-styled knights in shining armor—the trio met as members of the service organization Knights of Malta—from Afghanistan and Tajikistan to Burma and the Philippines as they risk life and death to hand over cash, food, clothing and medical supplies to desperate refugees. Indifferent to politics or religion and frustrated with bureaucracies that more often than not obstruct the flow of international aid, these intrepid do-gooders embark on their privately funded missions simply because they can. On the home front, the organization of three known as Knightsbridge receives up to 500 emails a day requesting help. Ed, a former mortgage banker, Walt, a rural Pennsylvania farmer, and Jim, a cardiologist, each brings his own area of expertise to the group, pooling its resources to collect donated goods and hand-deliver them overseas. Whether installing a solar-powered oven at a girls’ school in Afghanistan or delivering a million dollars worth of medicine to a refugee camp in Manila, the winsome subjects of Beyond the Call demonstrate time and again how altruism makes the world go round.
—Andy Bailey
FACTOID #273
In 2006 the Festival widened its scope, screening films at seven satellite venues throughout the city including an arts venue (Intersection for the Arts), a pub (Edinburgh Castle) and a fire station (San Francisco Fire Station #7).
