Artist in Person

In a film made over six years on a miniscule budget with nonprofessionals, John Gianvito melds fiction and documentary to examine the lasting ramifications of the Persian Gulf War on three characters in New Mexico. Unusually heartfelt and politically engaged, Mad Songs was named to the Village Voice list of the ten best undistributed films of the year. The Fernanda Hussein of the title is a Mexican American mother separated from her Arab husband and whose children are targeted due to anti-Iraqi sentiments. Although less than two months in duration, the Gulf War revealed the fervor and hatred that can arise in the U.S. alongside patriotism. While Hussein's anguish may be the most wrenching, it reverberates in the struggles of a teenage boy involved with antiwar activities, and of a vet, played by a Gulf War veteran, deeply impacted by what he witnessed. The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein is a haunting lament to "the utterly senseless destruction of innocents" (Gianvito), both here and in Iraq.