Wednesday,
February 20 – Saturday, February 23
Selections
from the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, 6th
Edition
 The
works featured during Selections from the Human Rights Watch
International Film Festival help to put a human face on threats
to individual freedom and dignity, and celebrate the power of
the human spirit and intellect to prevail. They enable people
to see human rights issues and their impact through the art
of film, a medium that has the power to share individual stories
of suffering and of strength across borders of all kinds. We see
these films as capable of creating forums for discussion in
communities across the Delaware Valley. We seek to empower everyone
with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a very
real difference.
For
the sixth year, Film @ International House along with The Greenfield
Intercultural Center and the Middle East Center at the University
of Pennsylvania, presents Philadelphia premieres of works from
this powerful Human Rights Watch program.
Wednesday,
February 20 at 7pm
Enemies
of Happiness
dir.
Eva Mulvad, Denmark, 2006, BetaSP, 58 mins, color, English,
Farsi and Pashto w/ English subtitles
 Enemies
of Happiness centers
on Malalai Joya, who became one of Afghanistan’s most famous
and infamous women when she challenged the power of warlords
in the country’s new government in 2003. Two years later, the
28-year-old ran in her country’s first democratic parliamentary
election in over 30 years. A survivor of repeated assassination
attempts, she campaigned surrounded by armed guards. Joya is
a controversial voice for a nation ruined by war, still ruled
by fear, but desperate for a change for the better.
Winner
of the 2007 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize and the Sundance Film
Festival, World Cinema Prize Documentary
preceded
by
Sari’s
Mother
dir.
James Longley, US, 2006, BetaSP, 21 mins, color
 From
the director of the Academy Award nominated Iraq in Fragments,
this powerful documentary follows an Iraqi mother struggling
under US occupation to care for her 10-year old son dying of
AIDS. Determined to help him any way she can, Sari’s mother
embarks on a Sisyphean journey to Baghdad, into the offices
of government officials, devastated hospitals and through the
country’s labyrinthine healthcare system.
Thursday,
February 21 at 7pm
Carla’s
List
dir.
Marcel Schupbach, Switzerland, 2006, BetaSP, 100 mins, color,
French and English w/ English subtitles
Filmmaker
Marcel Schupbach was given unprecedented access behind the scenes
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
in The Hague. In an atmosphere of high tension, prosecutor Carla
Del Ponte and her team relentlessly pursue notorious perpetrators
of crimes against humanity. Serbia and Croatia – as well as
the International Community – pledge total cooperation in helping
locate the suspects, but this does not seem to produce any concrete
results. And time is running out – in September 2007, Del Ponte’s
appointment as prosecutor ends. Moving between The Hague, New
York, Zagreb and Washington, Carla’s List vividly
brings to life Del Ponte’s dogged race against the clock in
pursuit of justice.
Friday,
February 22 at 7pm
The
City of Photographers
dir.
Sebastian Moreno Mardones, Chile, 2006, BetaSP, 80 mins, color,
Spanish
w/
English subtitles
During
Pinochet’s long rule, a motley crew of photojournalists shot
and framed Chile’s people and turmoil from many points of view.
In the streets, in the middle of bloody riots and protests,
these fearless photographers learned their craft and created
many of the now legendary images which helped focus world attention
on the Pinochet regime’s repressive tactics. Pinochet had the
power and the guns, but these photographers had a camera – the
people’s weapon. They lived dangerously and they lived to tell.
preceded
by
Suffering
and Smiling
dir.
Dan Ollman, Nigeria/US, 2007, BetaSP, 65 mins, English and Yoruba
w/
English subtitles
 Focusing
on the legendary African singer and activist Fela Anikulapo
Kuti and his son Femi, Suffering and Smiling depicts
the impact of their politically charged music. Following Nigeria’s
independence in 1960, Fela Kuti used his songs to speak out
against the country’s corrupt leaders giving voice to Nigeria’s
disenfranchised underclass and singing of a free and united
Africa until his death in 1997. Equally passionate and charismatic,
Femi sings about the dire situation in his country, asking why
the world’s most resource-rich continent has the poorest people.
Saturday,
February 23 at 2pm
Strange
Culture
dir.
Lynn Hershman Leeson, US, 2007, BetaSP, 76 mins, color
 Strange
Culture chronicles
the breathtaking miscarriage of justice that befell Steve Kurtz,
a college professor, artist, and member of the politically charged
art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble. In 2004, Kurtz
was preparing an interactive exhibition at the Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art which would have had participants
test food labeled “organic” for the presence of genetically
modified organisms. When his wife died from heart failure, Kurtz
called 911, but when the police arrived and saw the scientific
materials for the exhibition they called the FBI. Kurtz was
held as a suspected bio-terrorist. Three years later, he faces
up to 20 years in prison on mail and wire fraud charges relating
to his acquisition of materials for the art exhibit.
Filmmaker
Lynn Hershman Leeson enlisted actors Thomas Jay Ryan, Tilda
Swinton, Josh Kornbluth and Peter Coyote to dramatize the story
Kurtz cannot legally discuss, while interweaving news footage,
animation, testimonials and footage of Kurtz.
Official
Selection, Berlin International Film Festival 2007
Saturday,
February 23 at 7pm
White
Light/Black Rain
dir.
Steven Okazaki, US, 2007, BetaSP, 86 mins, English, Japanese
and Korean w/ English subtitles
An
extraordinary new film by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven
Okazaki (The Mushroom Club, Days of Waiting),
White Light/Black Rain stands as a powerful warning
to today’s world. Featuring unforgettable interviews with fourteen
survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, the film
reveals both unimaginable suffering and extraordinary human
resilience. These indelible accounts are illustrated with survivor
paintings and drawings and historical footage and photographs,
including newly uncovered material. We cannot afford to forget
what happened on those two days in 1945.
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