AFRICA
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
19-27 March 2009
The Ritzy, ICA, Clapham Picturehouse, Curzon Renoir
“A film festival that wagers hope against injustice, imagination against apathy.” – Ariel Dorfman
(London – 16 February 2009). From 19—27 March, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (HRWIFF) returns to four cinemas across London with a programme that includes 16 features and nine shorts from 21 countries, one World premiere, one European premiere, 10 UK premieres, and two London premieres. Thirteen of the 16 features focus on the following places: Afghanistan; Burma; Ecuador; Gujurat, India; Kashmir; Lebanon; Liberia; the Palestinian territories; Russia; Rwanda; South Africa; and Sudan. Many screenings are followed by lively debate and discussion between filmmakers, audiences and human rights experts.
Five titles in this year’s HRWIFF focus on Rwanda, South Africa, Liberia, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan including the World Premiere of Anne Aghion’s film My Neighbor, My Killer.
Rwanda:
MY NEIGHBOR, MY KILLER (World premiere) directed by Anne Aghion
Saturday, 21 March 21.30, Ritzy filmmaker present
Sunday, 22 March 17.00, Ritzy filmmaker present
Thursday, 26 March 18.30, ICA
Could you ever forgive the people who slaughtered your family?
In 1994 Rwanda’s Hutu populace was incited to wipe out the country’s Tutsi minority. From the crowded capital to the smallest village, local “patrols” massacred lifelong friends and family members, most often with machetes and improvised weapons. In 1999 the government began Gacaca (ga-CHA-cha)—open-air hearings with citizen-judgesmeant to try their neighbours and rebuild the nation. As part of thisexperiment in reconciliation, tens of thousands of confessed genocide killers are sent home from prison, while traumatised survivors are asked to forgive them and resume living side-by-side. Filming for close to a decade in a tiny rural hamlet, award-winning filmmaker Anne Aghion has charted the impact of Gacaca on survivors and perpetrators alike. Through their fear and anger, accusations and defences, blurry truths, inconsolable sadness and hope for life renewed, she captures the emotional journey to co-existence.
US—2009—80m—doc
In French and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles
South Africa:
TAPOLOGO (UK premiere) directed by Gabriela Gutierrez Dewar and Sally Gutierrez Dewar
Saturday, 21 March 16.00, Ritzy filmmakers present
Sunday, 22 March 16.00, ICA filmmakers present
A moving story of women in South Africa who have turned their tragedy into a tool.
The impact of South Africa’s unprecedented mining boom on the labour camps that support the industry is told through the brutal realities facing women in these communities. Freedom Park squatter camp, situated in the Northwest province, accommodates a migrant workforce that mines the world’s largest single source ofplatinum. The women in this community service the needs of the male miners as a means of basic survival. A group of HIV-infected former sex-workers have created a network called Tapologo and have learnt to be home-based care-workers, transforming degradation into solidarity and squalor into hope. As we learn each woman’s story, we come to understand how she herself was transformed—from someone who had lost hope into someone who decided to help others in the same situation. An inspiring and emotional tale, TAPOLOGO shows how one’s own experience is often the best source of help for others.
South Africa/Spain—2008— 88m—doc
In English and Tswana with English subtitles
Liberia:
PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL (UK premiere) by director Gini Reticker
Friday, 20 March 18.30, Renoir filmmaker present
Saturday, 21 March 15.30, ICA filmmaker present
Monday, 23 March 18.30, Ritzy
A story of the power of women’s solidarity in Liberia in the face of almost impossible odds.
With skilful eloquence, PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL tells the remarkable story of how thousands of women in Liberia helped peacefully end the country’s second bloody civil war. Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian woman who witnessed both civil wars, had a dream: “To get the women of the church together to pray for peace.” She invited ordinary mothers, grandmothers, aunts and daughters from neighbouring churches to start the Christian Women’s Peace Initiative. They dressed in pure white and sat by the thousands to protest the war. When peace talks in Ghana came to a standstill, the women literally formed a barricade around the building and didn’t allow the men to exit until a deal was bartered. The women of Liberia are proof that non-violent and peaceful protest isn’t just a fantasy—it can be a triumphant reality. PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL is a commanding, inspiring, and emotionally stirring documentary about the futility of war and the splendour of peace.
*Academy Award Nominee, Best Feature Documentary. Winner Best Documentary, Tribeca Film Festival
Liberia—2008—72m—doc
In English and Liberian English [Pidgin] with English subtitles
Uganda / Democratic Republic of Congo:
THE RECKONING: THE BATTLE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT(London premiere) directed byPamela Yates, Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onis
Tuesday, 24 March 18.30, ICA filmmakers present
Wednesday, 25 March 18.30, Ritzy filmmakers present
An insightful documentary that follows two riveting dramas—the prosecution of unspeakable crimes and the International Criminal Court’s fight for justice.
The International Criminal Court represents the most ambitious attempt ever to apply the rule of law on a global scale and to protect the most basic human rights. Launched in 2002, it is the first permanent international court set up to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. Pamela Yates’s THE RECKONING: THE BATTLE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTfollows ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for three years across four continents as he and his team tirelessly issue arrest warrants for Lord’s Resistance Army leaders in Uganda, prepare to put Congolese warlords on trial, challenge the UN Security Council to help indict Sudan’s president for the Darfur massacres, and shake up the Colombian justice system. Moreno-Ocampo has a mandate but no police force. At every turn he must put pressure on the internationalcommunity to muster political clout for the cause. As this tiny court in The Hague struggles to change the world and forge a new paradigm for justice, victims suffer and wait. Will the court succeed and will the world ensure that justice prevails?
*Official selection, Sundance Film Festival 2009
US—2009—95m—doc
In English and Acholi, French, Spanish and Swahili with English subtitles
Sudan:
BACK HOME TOMORROW (UK premiere) directed by Paolo Santolini and Fabrizio Lazzaretti
Wednesday, 25 March 18.30, ICA filmmakers present
Thursday, 26 March 19.00, Ritzy filmmakers present
A cinematically stunning examination of two lives affected by conflict that illustrates how hope prevails in even the most desperate of settings.
The Italian aid organisation Emergency offers medical help to civilian casualties in war zones, of whom about one-third are children. In BACK HOME TOMORROW, directors Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini use the moving stories of two of these children to show the work Emergency does. Yagoub, who fled with his family from Darfur and now lives in the Mayo Refugee Camp in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, looks jealously at the other kids playing football. He has to undergo a serious heart operation, but neither his family nor his fellow tribesmen can come up with the money to pay for it. Then there’s Murtaza. He’s recuperating in hospital in Kabul after losing his left hand to a landmine. Murtaza also has to find his way among his fellow patients, who fervently compete with each other in wheelchair races and kite-flying contests. The directors deliver these two fascinating and
heartfelt stories without commentary and combine them in a way that is both compelling and poignant.
Afghanistan/Sudan—2008—90m—documentary.
In Dari, Nuba and Arabic with English subtitles
For further press information / DVD screeners / images / filmmaker interviews please contact: Sarah Harvey, Publicity: 020 7703 2253 / .
Box Office information:
Ritzy Cinema: 0871 704 2065 /
ICA: 0207 930 3647 /
Clapham Picture House: 0871 704 2055 /
Curzon Renoir: 0871 704 2055 /
For30years,HumanRightsWatchhasspokenoutagainstsystemicabuseandoppression,demandingjusticefortyrannizedpeoplearoundtheworld.Byfocusinginternationalattentionwhereverrightsareviolated,wegiveapowerfulvoicetotheoppressed.Byapplyingpressureandholdinghumanity’smostheinousabusersaccountablefortheircrimes—nomatterwhoorwheretheyare—wehelpmakejusticepossiblewheretherewasnonebefore.Aroundtheworld,ourstaffandsupportersshareadeepsenseofresponsibilitytobearwitnessandtakeaction.
Frommanyoftheworld’smostdesperateplacestothehighestlevelsofgovernment,weworktenaciouslytolaythelegalandmoralgroundworkfordeep-rootedchanges.Bydoingso,wehelpbringgreaterdignityandsafetytotheworldandmakeagenuineimpactonpeople’slives.Twentyyearsago,wecreatedtheHumanRightsWatchInternationalFilmFestivaltoeducateandgalvaniseabroadcross-sectionofconcernedsupportersthroughthepoweroffilm.Sincethattime,HumanRightsWatch’sInternationalFilmFestivalhasbecomealeadingvenuefordistinguishedfiction,documentary,andanimatedfilms,andvideoswithadistinctivehumanrightstheme.Throughtheeyesofcommittedandcourageousfilmmakers,weshowcasetheheroicstoriesofactivistsandsurvivorsworldwide.Weseektoempowerourviewerswiththeknowledgethatpersonalcommitmentcanmakeaveryrealdifference.