January
31 - February 4, 2007
Selections
from The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, 5th
Edition
Presented
in conjunction with Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
and co-sponsored by The Solomon
Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, the
Greenfield Intercultural
Center and the Middle
East Center at the University of Pennsylvania
On
the occasion of the fifth edition of Selections from the Human
Rights Watch Film Festival, Film @ International House recognizes
Arancha Garcia del Soto
of Fordham University for her tireless support and inspiration.
The
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival has become a
leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and animated
films and videos with a distinctive human rights theme. Through
the eyes of committed and courageous filmmakers, it showcases
the heroic stories of activists and survivors from all over
the world. The works featured 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.
Wednesday,
January 31 at 7pm
Switch
Off (Apaga y Vamonos)
dir.
Manel Mayol, Spain, 2005, BetaSP, 87 mins, color, Spanish and
Mapudungun w/ English subtitles
 The
Pehuenche-Mapuche people live above the Biobio River in Ralco
Valley, Chile. For over four centuries they have fought off
invaders who tried to enter the valley, from the Incas to the
Spanish conquistadors. In 2004, Endesa, Spain's largest hydroelectric
company constructed the world’s third largest dam which flooded
the Ralco Valley and forced the “exchange” of whole villages
to much higher ground. Despite protections for indigenous people
enshrined in the Chilean constitution, the government has shown
little inclination to enforce their rights against the wealthy
Spanish multinational. Protestors – including activists, journalists,
and lawyers – found themselves arrested under Pinochet’s anti-terrorist
laws, facing anonymous witnesses whose identities are concealed
from even the court.
Thursday,
February 1 at 7pm
Source
dir.
Martin Marecek & Martin SkalskÝ, Czech Republic, 2005, BetaSP,
75 mins, color, Czech, Russian, English and Azerbaijani w/ English
subtitles
 Azerbaijan
is ranked one of the world’s
most corrupt countries, where a reigning ruling family is in
its second generation of power. Baku is the site of the world’s
first oil well, and once again is a focus for foreign investors
as the origin of a major oil and gas pipeline project developed
by an international consortium led by BP. In Source,
a small, mobile and highly inventive Czech film crew travels
around the country to investigate and record the impact of this
most recent energy boom. They film the surrealist Soviet-era
oil fields around Baku , with locals oblivious to the environmental
dangers, striking images of cows grazing on polluted land and
children playing in toxic sludge.
Friday,
February 2 at 7pm
Black
Gold
dir.
Nick Francis and Marc Francis, UK, 2006, BetaSP, 78 mins, color,
Amharic, Oromiffa and English w/ English subtitles
 Multinational
coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets
and dominate an industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee
the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil.
But while we continue to buy our lattes and cappuccinos in the
millions, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that
many have been forced to abandon their fields. Nowhere is this
paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.
Tadesse Meskela is on a one-man mission to save his coffee cooperative’s
75,000 struggling farmers from bankruptcy. As they strive to
harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans available to
the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt
to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.
Official
Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006
Saturday,
February 3 at 7pm
Dreaming
Lhasa
dir.
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, India/UK, 2005, BetaSP, 91 mins,
color, Tibetan and English w/ English subtitles
 Karma,
a Tibetan filmmaker from New York, comes to Dharamsala – a small
town in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, home to the exiled
Dalai Lama and the spiritual and political focus of the Tibetan
diaspora. She is there to make a film about former political
prisoners who escaped from Tibet. One of Karma’s interviewees
is Dhondup, an enigmatic ex-monk who recently escaped from Tibet
after spending four years in prison for his role in anti-Chinese
activities. Dhondup confides in Karma that his real reason for
coming to India is to fulfill his dying mother’s last wish,
to deliver a gahu – a charm box that Tibetans use as a protection
amulet – to a man named Loga. As they set out to find Loga,
Karma finds herself unwittingly falling in love with Dhondup
even as she is sucked into the vortex of his quest, which becomes
a journey into Tibet’s fractured past and a voyage of self-discovery.
Official
Selection, Toronto International Film Festival 2005
Academy
Award Nominee for Best Documentary
Sunday,
February 4 at 7pm
Iraq
in Fragments
dir.
James Longley, USA, 2006, 96 mins, 35mm, color, Arabic and Kurdish
w/
English subtitles
Filmmaker
James Longley's documentary feature shadows ordinary Iraqi citizens
in three crucial yet fractured regions – Baghdad, the Shiite
south and the Kurdish north – as they struggle through a chaotic
present and face a distant, uncertain future.
Winner
of the 2006 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize. Triple award-winner
at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival (Documentary Directing, Cinematography
and Editing Awards)
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