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15th HRW Film Festival
Spotlight on Human Suffering and Triumph
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This year’s 15th annual HRW Film Festival departs from the recent past to feature a broader variety of films
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Though
the world focus continues to zero in on events in Iraq (with graphic visions
from the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Baghdad embedded in our minds),
this year’s 15th annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival departs
from the recent past to feature a broader variety of films instead of a Middle
East juggernaut.
Seven
compelling films from that region of the world (out of 27) will be shown at the
festival. But in an effort to highlight human rights violations around the world
(not only in the Middle East), a broader spectrum of the human condition will be
offered to independent film enthusiasts at the festival’s June run in New
York. According to festival literature, the Human Rights Watch wants people to
remember suffering around the world in addition to the attention on Muslim
countries.
Case
in point is the selection of Maria Full of Grace as the opening film for
the festival. This fascinating film from Joshua Marston, winner of the Sundance
Audience Award, tells the story of a young Colombian woman consciously thrust
into the dark and dangerous world of international drug trafficking. Peru’s
Francisco J. Lombardi’s What the Eye Doesn’t See (about fictional
stories told against the real background of President Fujimori’s toppling)
also will hit the screens on opening night. Lombardi is receiving this year’s
annual Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award.
And
the festival’s other major award for “courage and commitment in human rights
filmmaking” will be awarded to New
York directors Zana Briski and
Ross Kauffman for Born into Brothels, which details the pitiful lives of
the children of Calcutta’s
red-light-district prostitutes.
As
for those seven films of particular interest to Muslims, we are treated to a
diverse group of subjects that takes us from Canada
to Pakistan
to Israel.
Each of these films zooms in on human choices and beliefs, and strives to tear
down misconceptions about Islam and Muslim/Arab/Asian culture. As the festival
concludes its New York
run in the next two weeks and begins its tour of other major US
cities, Muslims and non-Muslims alike would do well to view any one of these
films.
IslamOnline.net
will be reviewing these following seven films in the next weeks. Here are
synopses of what is to come:
DISCORDIA
(New
York premiere), Ben Addelman and
Samir Mallal,
Canada,
2004, 71 m, documentary
Collegiate
free speech passions ignite at Montreal’s
Concordia
University
when it is announced that the former Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin
Netanyahu, will speak. Students on both sides of the issue—pro-Israel and
pro-Palestinian—as well as those in between, clash in a day’s worth of
debate that explodes into violent confrontation. That riot makes it way around
the world courtesy of media like CNN and Al-Jazeera. The film focuses on three
young students: Samer, the son of Palestinians who lost their land in 1967;
Noah, the co-president of the Jewish students’ association that is sponsoring
Netanyahu’s visit; and Aaron, vice president of the student council, who
happens to be a Jew sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
THE
KITE (New
York premiere), Randa
Chahal-Sabbag, France/Lebanon,
2003, 80m, drama
This
drama set in Chahal-Sabbag’s native Lebanon introduces us to 16-year-old Lamia
on her wedding day. She must cross over a barbed-wire barrier separating her
from her fiancé (and cousin) Samy, whose village is now part of Israel. The
heavily watched border only allows newlyweds and corpses to pass to their home
villages. Lamia
leaves her family, school, and former life (and her kite) to marry Samy. But on
her way over she begins to fall in love with a border patrolman who has watched
her for a long time, which leads her to reject her marriage.
A
PLACE UNDER THE HEAVENS
(New York
premiere), Sabiha Sumar,
Pakistan,
2003, 53m, documentary
When
Pakistan
was born from India
in 1947, so began a study into the formation of an Islamic country. Sumar
explores the role of women in the country through the marriage of Islam and the
state. How have Pakistani women survived and thrived as the country swung from
Islamic modernism to fundamentalism? Through a mix of interviews, the film
focuses on the rise of madrassas, or religious schools, and shows the
impetus driving a young mother who is encouraging her child to become a
religious martyr when he grows up. The reasons for the choices individual
Pakistani women make are extremely nuanced and often misconceived by the rest of
the world, Sumar shows. Her film is a compelling look at the uneasy balance of
power between liberal and conservative extremes in Pakistan.
LEILA,
Dariush Mehrjui,
Iran,
1999, 129m, drama
This
film showcases the Human Rights Watch’s commitment to bring rarely seen older
films with human rights themes to a wider global audience. Leila is a
first run release that looks at Iranian society through the story of Reza and
Leila. This affluent, deeply committed young couple is heartbroken to learn
Leila cannot conceive a child. Drawing on seldom-used religious allowances,
Reza’s mother advises him to take a second wife solely to conceive a child.
His excruciating choice sets up an agonizing and moving love story.
ONE
SHOT
(New York
premiere), Nurit Kedar,
Israel,
2004, 60m, documentary
The
elite Israel Defense Force Snipers is the most lethal and secretive weapon of
the Israeli army. Kedar spent a year convincing the army to allow her access to
the snipers. The result of her efforts is a chilling and intriguing film about
their lives and choices. Any Israeli soldier with five weeks of training can
choose to become a sniper. Since the last Intifida, snipers have focused on
target killing. They specialize in patiently waiting for that one perfect shot.
Kedar explores this question: Are they skillful heroes taking down dangerous
terrorists or cold-blooded murders? These snipers speak for the first time on
film about what they do and how they feel about it.
PARADISE
LOST (New
York premiere), Ebtisam
Mra’ana, Israel,
2003, 56m, documentary
After
Palestine
became Israel
in 1948, the fishermen’s village
of Paradise
situated on the now-Israeli coast overlooking the Mediterranean
remained a Palestinian city. Mra’ana sets out to trace the secrets of her
village and find the legendary “bad girl” Suaad, a girl of Paradise
who became a PLO activist, served time in prison, and then left the country when
she was released. Mra’ana finds Suaad as Mrs. Suaad George, a doctor of law in
the United Kingdom.
Through numerous interviews she rediscovers Suaad’s history and her own role
as a modern Arab woman in a traditional village.
PERSONS
OF INTEREST
(New York
premiere), Alison Maclean and Tobias Perse, United
States, 2003, 63 minutes,
documentary
Perhaps
the most anticipated film of the festival is Persons of Interest, a
Sundance film selection that ferrets out the secrets of detainees—innocent
Arab or Muslim immigrants who were taken into custody by the US Justice
Department after September 11 and held indefinitely for reasons of national
security. These detainees, many of whom were denied legal representation and
family communication, were thrust into obscurity by the US
government (the purported protector of freedom). They were silenced and hidden
from the public, who rarely heard about this atrocity. Persons of Interest
explores their experiences to become the “only window into the human costs of
post 9/11 immigration policy.”
The
HRW International Film Festival begins this week and will run until June 24 at
the Walter Reade Theater in New
York. It is copresented with the
Film Society of the Lincoln
Center.
For more information visit www.hrw.org.
**
Dilshad
D. Ali's writing reaches across the United States to address lifestyle
topics pertinent to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ali has covered movie
premieres, film festivals, art exhibits, concerts, and numerous other cultural
stories, including the affect of September 11 on New York’s cultural landscape
for IslamOnline. Ali, a 1997 University of Maryland journalism graduate, resides
in New York with her husband and two children.
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