If anyone is interested I thought I would forward this email I received about the National Public Health Week Film Festival this week! It starts today and runs through April 6th. The festival is hosted by the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. Doors open at 5 pm and all films will begin at 5:30 pm each night. The festival includes free admission, food, and beverages for attendees.

Monday, April 2 – Nutrition & Food – Coffman Theater
Film: Farm to School: Growing Our Future (27 min.)
This event will mark the film’s public premiere. Farm to School partnerships have flourished in Minnesota, providing a new market for farmers and fresh, local food for students. This documentary explores the economic advantages and remaining challenges for businesses, farms, schools and communities as we work together to improve our children’s health and education.

Tuesday, April 3 – Health as a Human Right – Mayo Auditorium
Film: Crossing Midnight (29 min.)
The 2000 World Health Report ranked Burma’s overall health system performance as the second worst in the world. Due to military restrictions in border areas, lack of electricity, difficulties with transportation and insufficiently trained health staff, what might be considered a simple illness in the West is life-threatening in Burma.
Film: One Bridge to the Next (31 min.)
Healthcare for the homeless is an urgent public health concern. The unsheltered have significantly higher rates of HIV/AIDS (up to 35%); Hepatitis B (up to 30%); Active Tuberculosis (up to 68%); Body Louse Infectious (up to 56%).

Wednesday, April 4 – AIDS & GLBTQ Perspectives – Mayo Auditorium
Film: We Were Here (90 min.)
The film documents the coming of what was called the “Gay Plague” in the early 1980s. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed. It offers a cathartic validation for the generation that suffered through, and responded to, the onset of AIDS.

Thursday, April 5 – End-of-Life Decisions – Mayo Auditorium
Film: How to Die in Oregon (107 min.)
In the film, the filmmaker gently enters the lives of the terminally ill as they consider whether – and when – to end their lives by lethal overdose. The filmmaker examines both sides of this complex, emotionally charged issue. What emerges is a life-affirming, staggeringly powerful portrait of what it means to die with dignity.

Friday, April 6 – Sexual Health – Mayo Auditorium
Film: Orgasm, Inc. (78 min.)
Powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, desire – and that ultimate moment: orgasm.
Films: Vintage Sex Ed Shorts (20 min.)
Stick around after the program for hilarious, out-dated sex-ed films:
VD is for Everybody: c. 1974; Musical about venereal disease.
As Boys Grow: 1957; Short film about teenage boys and puberty.
Have You Got a Male Assistant?: 1973; British sex ed film.