Mar 14, 2010 at 7:30 pm
War Against The Weak
With Justin Strawhand and Peter Demas
Program
War Against the Weak
Justin Strawhand, 2009, USA, 90 minutes, DVD
War Against the Weak is a shocking investigation of American eugenics, arguably the most dangerous pseudoscience of all time, which became the largely unknown foundation for Nazi genocide. Even before Hitler’s rise to power, a powerful mix of American corporate, scientific, academic and political elite was formulating a sinister racial and ethnic purification movement that attempted to breed a Nordic master race through the elimination of those deemed physically or mentally unfit. Under the Nazis, eugenic principles were applied without restraint, and with the support of Ivy League scientists funded by the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and others. Ingeniously condensed from the book by award-winning journalist Edwin Black, this film is a gripping account of bad science at its worst, and a warning bell in our impending genetic age.
90 min
Justin Strawhand’s first film, 8 BIT: A Documentary about Art and Videogames, which he produced and co-directed, premiered at the MoMA, was featured in Wired Magazine, and has toured the world to international acclaim. Artforum put it on their “Top Ten Films of 2006.” His sophomore effort, War Against the Weak, a visual history of the American Eugenics movement and its direct influence on the Holocaust, is currently touring the festival circuit. Justin is beginning work on a new film, Thinking Horror, an exploration of the philosophy of extreme nihilism.
Peter Demas is a Film/Television Producer in NYC experimenting with photography full time. He really loves his camera.
Presented with Kings County Cinema Society.
An informal organization devoted to the unfettered, unbiased love of film and the moving image in the borough of Brooklyn, and occasionally beyond.
