Human Rights Watch Film Festival - 2011 Program
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Truth, Justice and Accountability:
Times of Conflict and Responses to Terrorism:
Human Dignity, Discrimination and Resources:
Migrants' and Women's Rights:
Truth, Justice and Accountability:
- Granito: How to Nail a Dictator - Director: Pamela Yates - The filmmaker finds herself and her 1983 documentary, When Mountains Tremble, providing evidence in court against Guatemala's former President and military chief for genocide against the country's indigenous peoples. This is a fascinating personal commentary about how film can not only record history, but change it.
- Impunity - Director: Hollman Morris and Juan José Lozano - The film exposes paramilitary violence in Colombia by documenting hearings in which Colombian paramilitary members confess their atrocities. Victims' families watch on computer monitors, yet most fear they'll never know the truth about what happened to their loved ones and that the guilty will go unpunished.
- La Toma - Directors: Angus Gibson and Miguel Salazar - The film documents the November 6, 1985 siege of Bogota's Palace of Justice by 35 heavily armed guerrillas. Supreme Court judges were among 100 people killed when the military moved in to quell the uprising. The families of twelve people who remained unaccounted for believe their loved ones were "disappeared" by government forces, tortured, and killed - allegedly for aiding the guerrillas. The families seek explanations and justice.
Times of Conflict and Responses to Terrorism:
- Better This World- Directors: Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega - A gripping documentary about teenagers anti-war activists, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, who allegedly engaged in activities at the 2008 Republican Party Convention that resulted in their being charged with domestic terrorism. Their lawyers use an entrapment defense based on the actions of an FBI informant.
- The Green Wave - Director: Ali Samadi Ahadi - Using internet posts of videos and tweets as reportage, the film provides a glimpse at the lives of Iranians who've risked everything to resisted oppression and exposed government violence and corruption.
- The Team - Director: Patrick Reed - Kenya's ethnic tensions are acted out in a popular TV series called The Team, a soap opera/sports show in which football players representing various tribes must find ways to overcome differences and play together to win. But the show's actors, who really are from rival tribes, become the cause of further dissent among the tribes who support them.
- If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front - Directors: Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman - Daniel McGowan, a former Earth Liberation Front (ELF) member, faces life in prison for arson against logging companies and other entities Elf deemed dangerous to the environment. The film examines disillusionment with nonviolent protest and considers how 9/11 brought changes in America's attitude towards those who protest.
- This is My Land…Hebron - Directors: Giulia Amati and Stephen Natanson - In Hebron, 600 Israeli settlers and 2,000 Israeli soldiers live surrounded by 160,000 Palestinians. As interviews with Israelis and Palestinians show, an atmosphere of hatred and violence permeates Hebron.
- You Don't Like The Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantanamo - Directors: Luc Côté and Patricio Henrique - Experts analyze declassified Canadian government security camera footage of the interrogation of Omar Khadr, a 16-year-old Canadian citizen accused by the US of terrorism and detained at Guantanamo. The shocking footage exposes psychological interrogation techniques and provokes consideration of their efficacy and legality.
Human Dignity, Discrimination and Resources:
- 12 Angry Lebanese: The Documentary - Director: Zeina Daccache - The filmmaker, a drama therapist, documents her work with 45 Lebanese prisoners who signed up for a jailhouse production of 12 Angry Men. The play is edited to include monologues and musical routines created by the inmates. Footage from rehearsals, drama therapy sessions and performances, plus on camera interviews, reveal the inmates' personalities, backgrounds and thoughts about the future.
- Lost Angels - Director: Thomas Napper - Delving into the history and introducing the current residents of Los Angeles' Skid Row, a community of some 48,000 homeless people who live on the streets, panhandling for food, sleeping in cardboard boxes, toting their belongings in shopping carts. Some of the residents are mentally ill, others are addicted to drugs or alcohol and some have recently lost their employment and homes and can't think of where else to go. The residents and expert commentators agree that the city isn't providing sufficient social services for these down and out people.
- Sing Your Song - Director: Susanne Rostock - This tributary biodoc chronicles the life of Harry Belafonte who began his singing career by touring a segregated United States and went on to use his entertainment career as a platform for opposing not only segregation, but other civil rights injustices in America and abroad, as well.
Migrants' and Women's Rights:
- Familia - Directors: Mikael Wistrom and Alberto Herskovits - Following one Peruvian family divided by economic necessity -- when the mother leaves to work as a maid in Spain and the rest of the family remains behind -- the film raises awareness about a situation that devastates families not only in Peru, but all around the world.
- Love Crimes of Kabul - Director by Tanaz Eshaghian - Shot inside Afghanistan's Badam Bagh women's prison, the film follows the cases of three young women charged with breaking moral law: Kareema is imprisoned for having sex with her fiancé, Aleema for escaping from a violent and abusive situation at home and Sabereh for allegedly having had sex with her neighbor. The women, and others similarly charged, are seen as criminals who must be severely punished in order to keep the male-dominated society on track.
- The Price of Sex - Director by Mimi Chakarova - Going undercover and filming with hidden cameras, the filmmaker infiltrates the dark and dreadful world of sex trafficking of Eastern European girls and young women in the Middle East and Western Europe. Lured by offers of jobs as waitresses or housemaids, the naïve girls travel abroad, where they are held captive and sold into sex slavery. Their stories are horrifying, and the trafficking business continues to grow.
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