HUMAN RIGHTS AND FILM 2010
Mar 4, 11, 14, 18, 25 & 28, 2010
Every March, we present a selection of powerful films with distinctive human rights themes. Just a few of the remarkable works we've presented over the years include the Academy Award-winning Born into Brothels, War/Dance, Shakespeare Behind Bars, Mardi Gras: Made in China, and dozens more.
The power of film cannot be underestimated to challenge the viewer and promote calls to action. Rather than wallow in despair, the films in this series will put a human face on threats to individual freedom and dignity, and celebrate the ability of the human spirit and intellect to prevail.
Special thanks to Andrea Holley, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Thu, Mar 4: 8
Thu, Mar 11: YOUTH PRODUCING CHANGE
Sun, Mar 14: THE GLASS HOUSE
Thu, Mar 18: PETITION
Thu, Mar 25: PROMISED LANDS
Sun, Mar 28: AMERICAN RADICAL: THE TRIALS OF NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
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8
By Jane Campion, Gus Van Sant, Wim Wenders, Mira Nair, Abderrahmane Sissako, Gaspar Noé, Gael Garcia Bernal & Jan Kounen
Thu, Mar 4, 7:30 pm
8 is comprised of eight shorts by some of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the world. Each was given complete freedom to address one issue from the United Nations "Millennium Development Goals." The goals range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015. (2009, 107 min, digital video)
YOUTH PRODUCING CHANGE
Thu, Mar 11, 7 pm
Filmmakers in person
Young people are on the frontlines of many of the world's human rights crises, but it's all too rare that we get to hear their point of view. Armed with digital cameras, computers and their own boundless creativity, these young people bravely expose human rights issues faced by themselves and their communities. It's time that we listen to what they have to say in this program of short films. Presented by Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, with founding presenter Adobe Youth Voices. (2005-2009, 72 min, digital video)
THE GLASS HOUSE
By Hamid Rahmanian
Sun, Mar 14, 2 pm
The Glass House follows four girls striving to pull themselves up by attending a one-of-kind rehabilitation center in Tehran. Forget about the Iran that you've seen before. With a virtually invisible camera, the film shows a side of the country few have access to: a society lost to its traditions with nothing meaningful to replace them, and a group of courageous women working to instill a sense of empowerment and hope into the minds and lives of otherwise discarded teenage girls. (2008, 92 min, digital video)
PETITION
By Zhao Liang
Thu, Mar 18, 7:30 pm
A harrowing investigation, Petition looks at the world of "petitioners," people who come to Beijing from all parts of China in order to plead their case against injustices, and who find themselves embroiled in a no-exit situation which leaves them homeless and impoverished. Living in makeshift shelters in the now-demolished "Petition Village," they wait for months or years to obtain justice. The director continued filming right up to the start of the Olympic Games, showing that the troubling contradictions of China continue in the midst of powerful economic expansion. (2009, 124 min, digital video)
PROMISED LANDS
By Susan Sontag
Thu, Mar 25, 7:30 pm
For decades essentially impossible to see, Susan Sontag's third directorial effort and her only documentary scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty, shot in Israel during the final days and immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. (1974, 87 min, digital video)
"Promised Lands hardly tells all the truths there are about the conflicts in the Middle East, about the October War, about the mood of Israel right now, about war and loss and memory and survival. But what the film does tell is true. It was like that. To tell the truth (even some of it) is already a marvelous privilege, responsibility, gift." — Susan Sontag, Vogue
AMERICAN RADICAL: THE TRIALS OF NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
By David Ridgen & Nicolas Rossier
Sun, Mar 28, 2 pm
A probing documentary about American academic Norman Finkelstein. A devoted son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israel and US Middle East policy, and author of five provocative books, including The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein has been at the center of many intractable controversies. Called a lunatic and a self-hating Jew by some and an inspirational street-fighting revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity, and nationhood. (2009, 84 min, digital video)
Read the New York Times review of American Radical:
Stephen Holden, "Is This a Man Who Sheds Light, or Simply Sets Fires?"