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. Each year the festival's programming committee screens more than 500 films and videos to create a program that represents a range of countries and issues. The films are made available to wider audiences through a traveling festival.
Grand Valley State University School of Communications, Latin American Studies, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the Grand Rapids Community Media Center, are co-sponsoring the Grand Rapids Human Rights Watch Film Series at Wealthy Theatre. Four films will be shown between February 12 and 27. Tickets for each screening are $5 for general public and $2 for students. One of the filmmakers, State of Fear's Peter Kinoy, will be on hand at two events to discuss his work.
Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. It was started in 1978 as the Helsinki Watch, to monitor the compliance of Soviet bloc countries with the human rights provisions of the landmark Helsinki Accords. They currently track developments in more than 70 countries around the world, including the U.S. Some issues they follow include women's rights, children's rights, and academic freedom.
"Watching the films provides an opportunity to bear witness to human rights struggles around the world," said John Schmit, event organizer and professor in the School of Communications at Grand Valley. "It is both humbling and inspirational to see brave individuals rising above adverse conditions to claim their humanity."
Filmmaker Peter Kinoy will attend the February 12 screenings of State of Fear and hold discussions with audiences afterwards. He will also give a lecture on Monday, February 13 that is free and open to the public. It will be held at 7 p.m. in room 154 of Lake Superior Hall at Grand Valley.
Kinoy has worked for 25 years as a producer and editor in the New York media industry, has taught editing at Columbia University and has frequently worked on PBS documentary specials. He was editor on Michael Moore's TV Nation and the Showtime documentary Brotherhood of Hate.
For more information about the Grand Rapids Human Rights Watch Film
Series contact:
John Schmit at Grand Valley State University
(616) 331-8510 or [email protected] or
Jeff
Smith at Community Media Center (616) 459-4788 or [email protected].
The following films will be shown on dates listed at Wealthy Street Theatre (616) 459-4788 x122 or www.wealthytheatre.org. Still photos and complete descriptions are available from the Human Rights Watch Web site: http://hrw.org/iff.
" State of Fear
Sunday, February 12 at 7 and 9 p.m.
Pamela Yates, Paco de On¿s and Peter Kinoy - USA/Per¿ - 2005
In English and Spanish with English subtitles
State of Fear dramatizes the human and societal costs a democracy
faces when it embarks on a war against terror, a war potentially
without end, all too easily exploited by unscrupulous leaders seeking
personal political gain. The film follows events in Per¿, yet it
serves as a cautionary tale for a nation like the United States.
Filmmakers Pamela Yates, Paco de On¿s and Peter Kinoy masterfully
blend personal testimony, history, and archival footage to tell the
story of escalating violence in the Andean nation and how the fear of
terror undermined democracy, making Per¿ a virtual dictatorship where
official corruption replaced the rule of law. Filmmaker's Web site: http://www.skylightpictures.com
" Street Fight
Wednesday, February 15 at 7 and 9 p.m.
Marshall Curry - USA - 2005
Called "the best American political documentary since 1993's The War Room by the Washington Post, Street Fight tells a riveting story about the underbelly of American democracy. It chronicles the bare-knuckles race for Mayor of Newark, N.J. between Cory Booker, a 32-year-old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law School grad, and Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent who uses any means necessary to crush its opponents.
Street Fight is the winner of the Audience Award at Tribeca
Film Festival, SilverDocs Festival (Washington DC) and Hot Docs
Festival (Toronto), and was given the Jury Prize for Best
International Documentary at Hot Docs. Filmmaker's Web site: www.marshallcurryproductions.com
" Videoletters
Sunday, February 19 at 7 and 9 p.m.
Katarina Rejger and Eric van den Broek - Bosnia and
Herzegovina/Slovenia/Macedonia/Croatia/Serbia and Montenegro
(including Kosovo) - 2004/2005. In Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian,
Macedonian, Serbian and Slovenian with English subtitles
Videoletters is remarkable for many reasons, not least because it exemplifies the power of change inherent in the documentary form; the very making of the films fostered reconciliation between estranged individuals of the war-scarred former Yugoslavia. After the war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and drove millions from hearths and homes, the country crumbled into five separate republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.
In Videoletters, which was shot over the past five years frequently in tough and often dangerous conditions, the filmmakers act as initiators, mailmen, and recorders of a dispersed population who hardly have contact beyond the borders. In each episode, two people of different nationalities send each other a video letter, explaining how this could have happened. In each case, they were friends, neighbors, or colleagues before the war drove them apart. After exchanging the video letters, the participants usually arranged a meeting, the first since the war erupted.
Winner of the 2005 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize. Film's Web site: http://www.videoletters.net
" Mardi Gras: Made in China
Monday, February 27 at 7 and 9 p.m.
David Redmon - USA - 2004
In English, Cantonese,
Fujianese and Mandarin with English subtitles
This film tracks the "bead trail" from the factory in China to Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, poignantly exposing the inequities of globalization. Filmmaker Redmon gained unprecedented access to follow the stories of four young Chinese women working and living in the largest Mardi Gras bead factory in the world, located in Fuzhou, China. We witness their economic realities, self-sacrifice, and dreams of a better life.
Redmon inter-cuts these stories with strikingly candid interviews with the factory manager and the US businessman (who owns the factory) who offer their own visions on why globalization is a success. Brilliantly interweaving factory life with Mardi Gras festivities, the film opens the blind eye of consumerism by visually introducing workers and festivalgoers to each other. A dialogue results when bead-wearing partyers are shown images of the Chinese workers and asked if they know the origin of their beads, while the factory women view pictures of Americans exchanging beads, soliciting more beads, and celebrating. Film's Web site: http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com
