Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2011
The 22nd annual edition of the festival returns with stories of resilience from across the globe about the universal issues that grip our time. Human Rights Watch—one of the world’s leading independent human rights organizations—invites you to engage with these compelling films that are spurring vital dialogue. One of the most striking themes in this year’s selection is the power of media in all its forms to influence the craft of filmmaking and to impact human rights. Many titles are making their exclusive New York or U.S. debuts.
The festival will launch on June 16 with a fundraising Benefit Night for Human Rights Watch, featuring the Bosnia-set political thriller The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Weisz. More information about the film and the benefit is available on hrw.org
The main program will begin on June 17, with the Opening Night presentation of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, the latest documentary from Pamela Yates, here with her sixth film in the festival. Another highlight is the Festival Centerpiece on June 25, Sing Your Song, an inspiring portrait of Harry Belafonte, with the legendary entertainer and activist present to discuss the film. On June 26 the festival will feature a special program, No Boundaries: Tim Hetherington, a tribute to the visionary work of the late photographer, filmmaker and journalist. The Closing Night screening on June 30 will be Life, Above All, a moving coming-of-age drama set in a South African township ravaged by HIV/AIDS.
Lineup
The Resistance Saga: Granito: How to Nail a Dictator
Post-Event Discussion & Reception
Granito: How to Nail a Dictator (2011) is a political thriller detailing international efforts to build a genocide case against Guatemalan General Efraín Ríos Montt. The case included outtakes from When the Mountains Tremble as forensic evidence in the prosecution of Montt.
The Whistleblower
North American Premiere
Q&A with Yim Soon-rye
The All the President’s Men of bioresearch, this sharply suspenseful powerhouse thriller by Yim Soon-rye (one of Korea’s few female directors) is a based on the true story of one of the biggest scientific frauds of the 21st century.
The Resistance Saga: When the Mountains Tremble
Better This World
Q&A with filmmakers and film subject Bradley Crowder
Two boyhood friends from Midland, Texas fall under the sway of a charismatic revolutionary ten years their senior at the volatile 2008 Republican Convention.
The Green Wave
Screenings on June 18 & 19 will be followed by discussions with Dr. Payam Akhavan (film subject, professor at McGill University).
Samadi’s sharp portrait of modern political rebellion spans the 2009 elections in Iran and the brutal suppression of mass protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
If a Tree Falls
Q&A with filmmaker
Posing hard questions about affecting change in the United States, this chronicle of the Earth Liberation Front is a fascinating exploration of a modern revolutionary movement
Love Crimes of Kabul
Q&A with filmmaker
Eshaghian’s intimate portrait follows three young Afghan women accused of committing “moral crimes” as they courageously and cannily navigate prison and court.
12 Angry Lebanese: The Documentary
This is the extraordinary record of the director’s project in Lebanon’s largest prison to stage a version of the play 12 Angry Men with inmates.
The Team
Q&A with filmmaker
A group of Kenyans produce a TV soap opera hoping to bridge deep ethnic divisions in a country struggling to recover from violence after the 2007 elections.
Impunity
Q&A with filmmakers
The brutal history of illegal paramilitias and their victims in Colombia is freshly documented through the lens of the country’s controversial Justice and Peace process.
You Don’t Like the Truth – 4 Days Inside Guantanamo
This stunning documentary is based on security camera footage from an encounter in Guantanamo Bay between Canadian intelligence agents and 16-year-old Canadian detainee Omar Khadr.
The Price of Sex
Q&A with filmmaker
Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova exposes the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe, filming undercover with extraordinary access.
Familia
Q&A with filmmaker
This poignant, powerful documentary sensitively observes one matriarch’s decision to work as a hotel maid in Spain and the impact on her extended family in Peru.
Sing Your Song
Harry Belafonte in person!
With remarkable intimacy, visual style, and musical panache, Rostock’s documentary surveys the life and times of pioneering singer/actor/activist Harry Belafonte.
No Boundaries: Tim Hetherington
Screening of Diary followed by a panel discussion
In Diary, a highly personal and experimental film that expressed the subjective experience of his work, Tim turns the camera inward after more than a decade reporting.No
Lost Angels
Napper’s empathetic but tough-minded documentary invites us into a part of the homeless capital of America—Los Angeles—that many choose to ignore: Skid Row.
Life, Above All
Closing Night Film & Reception
Screening followed by discussion with filmmaker Oliver Schmitz.
In this artful reinvention of the “coming-of-age story,” a girl in a South African township struggles when the spread of HIV/AIDS afflicts her own mother.
This Is My Land… Hebron
Q&A with filmmakers
Amati and Natanson’s documentary listens to voices from all sides to examine Hebron, home to one of the first Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
La Toma (The Siege)
Q&A with filmmakers
This challenging film recounts the action-packed day of the Siege of the Palace of Justice in Colombia and the dramatic trial of a key colonel 25 years later.
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