GU Law School film takes you to Africa - for free

One nice thing about having local access to three universities and two community-college campuses is the variety of programs these institutions offer to the general public. (And if you are willing to drive, other institutions can be found in Coeur d'Alene, Pullman and Moscow; the riches just never end).

For example, Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Peace and Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state, will speak at Gonzaga’s McCarthey Athletic Center at 7 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 4.

To prepare yourself for the talk, you might want to attend a free screening of the film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” a documentary about Liberia's civil war and the Christian and Muslim women’s peace movement in that country. The film will screen at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Barbieri Courtroom at the Gonzaga Law School. GU Law professor Mary Pat Treuthart, cohost of the Spokane Public Radio show "Movies 101," will facilitate a discussion afterward.

And, yes, full disclosure: Prof. Treuthart and I are married. But don't let that influence you. Let the fact that the screening offers up a view of the world the mainstream seldom addresses speak for itself.

Also, did I mention that the screening was free?