Monthly Archives: January 2009

Media Release: Compelling, Diverse Tales of Campaigns to Win Rights

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January 25  |  2009 Film Festival, HRWFF Opening Night, News  |   julie

Film director Amos Gitai

The sixth annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, co-presented with Cinematheque Ontario, opens on February 24 with Amos Gitaï’s Plus tard, tu comprendras (One Day You’ll Understand). Starring Jeanne Moreau, Gitaï’s latest film is an exploration of the Holocaust, memory and loss that makes deep emotional connections.

This year’s festival, continuing through March 5, brings together eight powerful films that address major global issues and show personal struggles against difficult odds.

“This is an exceptional lineup of films that from diverse angles reaffirm the importance of historical memory and recognize the enormous courage of people fighting for justice around the world,” said Helga Stephenson, chairperson of the festival. “The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival continues to be a vital meeting place for Torontonians with an interest in and commitment to human rights.”

The programme includes Malcolm Rogge’s Under Rich Earth, an account of Ecuadorian farmers fighting against the forces of globalization; the Canadian premiere of Jawad Metni’s Remnants of a War, a documentary about leftover cluster-bomb munitions that continue to cause carnage in Lebanon; and Julie Bridgham’s The Sari Soldiers, the story of six women’s efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the violent wake of the royal coup in 2005. These three directors will be at the screenings of their films.

Plus tard, tu comprendras will open the festival, which features strong female characters, such as the grieving mother and the courageous activists in The Sari Soldiers, the  anti-heroine who exploits illegal immigrant labourers in Ken Loach’s It’s a Free World…, and the women grappling with recent atrocities in the Balkans in Aida Begi?’s Snow.

Both Lee Isaac Chung’s debut feature, Munyurangabo, a drama about vengeance and redemption in Rwanda, and Patricio Guzmán’s documentary The Battle of Chile, a chronicle of the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government, compel viewers to engage with issues of historical memory and moral responsibility.

The Opening Reception will be held at McKinsey & Co., 110 Charles Street West, 6 pm on Tuesday, February 24. Tickets are $100. The Closing Reception will take place on Thursday, March 5 at the Moose Factory Gallery, 22 Grange Avenue at 6 pm. Tickets are $30.  To purchase tickets for either reception, please call the Human Rights Watch office at 416-322-8448.

The opening-night screening will take place at the Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles Street West, Toronto at 8:00 pm.  All other films will be shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario‘s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West (McCaul Street entrance). Advance tickets for the sixth Annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival can be purchased online at cinemathequeontario.ca, by phone at 416-968-FILM (toll-free at 1-877-968-FILM) or in person at the TIFFG Box Office, located at 2 Carlton Street, West Mezzanine level (College subway station). Hours of operation are Monday to Friday, 10 am to 7 pm.

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s largest independent research and advocacy organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. It conducts fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in more than 90 countries around the world and publishes those findings in numerous reports each year. By generating press reporting and advocacy, Human Rights Watch seeks to shame abusive governments, change policies and practices, and inform the public about important human rights issues. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world. Human Rights Watch Canada thanks its supporters McKinsey & Co. Hero Ventures Ltd., Sonia and Arthur Labatt and Deluxe.

The Canada Committee
The Human Rights Watch Canada Committee was formed in 2002 and is part of a network of committees across 13 cities in Europe, Canada and the United States. These committees seek to increase awareness of local and global human rights issues, and enlist the public and influence governments to support basic rights for all. Composed of opinion leaders and activists from a variety of backgrounds, the committee was formed out of the belief that an engaged constituency is essential for the defense of human rights. Canada Committee members are regularly briefed by Human Rights Watch investigators, senior government officials and informed observers. The committee strengthens Human Rights Watch and its global defense of essential liberties by contributing financially, attracting potential supporters and promoting the organization’s message.

Cinematheque Ontario
Cinematheque Ontario is a year-round screening programme dedicated to presenting transformative world cinema through thoughtfully curated retrospectives, filmmaker monographs, and international programme tours. Cinematheque Ontario presents an ambitious selection of more than 300 films annually, including acclaimed directors’ retrospectives, national and regional cinema spotlights, thematic programmes, exclusive limited runs, and classic and contemporary Canadian and international cinema, including many new and rare archival prints.

Cinematheque Ontario thanks its supporters Bell, RBC, Ontario Media Development Corporation, Canada Council for the Arts, City of Toronto Economic Development Office, Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council.

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For more information and/or press interviews, please contact:

Cinematheque Ontario/Toronto International Film Festival Group Communications Department:
Tel: 1-416-934-3200
E-mail: proffice@tiffg.ca

Human Rights Watch:
Lija Skobe: 416-322-8448 or skobel@hrw.org
Karin Lippert: 416-923-4707 or klippert26@aol.com

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The Sari Soldiers – Program Notes

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January 17  |  2009 Film Festival, The Sari Soldiers  |   julie

The Sari Soldiers
 
“Impressive. . . One of several recent docs that give credence to the old feminist saw that if women were given power, they would speedily put an end to war” (Ronnie Scheib, Variety).
 
Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties.
 
When Devi, mother of a fifteen-year-old girl, witnesses her niece being tortured and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army, she speaks publicly about the atrocity. The army abducts her daughter in retaliation, and Devi embarks on a three-year struggle to uncover her daughter’s fate and see justice done.
 
The Sari Soldiers follows her and five other brave women, including Maoist Commander Kranti; Royal Nepal Army Officer Rajani; Krishna, a monarchist from a rural community who leads a rebellion against the Maoists; Mandira, a human rights lawyer; and Ram Kumari, a young student activist organizing the protests to establish democracy.
 
The Sari Soldiers intimately delves into the extraordinary journey of these women on all sides of the conflict, through the democratic revolution that reshapes the country’s future.
 
– Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
 
Co-presented with Hot Docs
 

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Munyurangabo – Program Notes

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January 17  |  2009 Film Festival, Munyurangabo  |   julie

Munyurangabo
 
“Like a bolt out of the blue, Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung achieves an astonishing and thoroughly masterful debut. . . . This is, flat-out, the discovery of this year’s Un Certain Regard batch” (Robert Koehler, Variety).
 
Ngabo is a teenaged boy named after the ancient Rwandan warrior Munyurangabo. He steals a machete in Kigali and sets out for the countryside with his friend.
 
This is a closely observed drama, led by two young men – real-life market porters in Kigali – who are acting on screen for the first time with breathtaking naturalism. But a darker undercurrent simmers beneath the growing tension between Ngabo and Sangwa. There can be no innocent machete in Rwanda. Ngabo has stolen the weapon to return to his own village and take revenge on those who killed his family.
 
Crafted with dramatic precision and deep humanity, Munyurangabo rises to a stunning plea for reconciliation delivered by a poet the boys meet along the way (embodied by Rwanda’s poet laureate, Edouard B. Uwayo).
 
– Cameron Bailey, 2007 Toronto International Film Festival Programme Book
 
Rated PG.
 

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The Battle of Chile, Parts 1 & 2 – Program Notes

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January 16  |  2009 Film Festival, The Battle of Chile, Parts 1 & 2  |   julie

The Battle of Chile, Part 1
 
“The major political film of our times – a magnificent achievement” (Tom Allen, Village Voice).
 
“Not only the best film about Allende and the coup d’etat, but among the best documentary films ever made, changing our concepts of political documentary within a framework accessible to the widest audience” (Time Out Film Guide).
 
Few documentaries have received the acclaim of Guzmán’s three-hour, on-the-street-as-it-happens record of one of the twentieth century’s most significant political events, the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government.
 
Broken into two sections, the film begins with “The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie,” detailing the increasingly violent response of elitist and right-wing sections of Chilean society to Allende’s surprise election victory in March 1973. The second part of the film, entitled “The Coup d’État,” shows how right-wing forces rallied to decimate a divided left, mounting a military assault that removed Allende and his supporters and ultimately resulted in his death.
 
The Battle of Chile is a raw elegy for thwarted democracy, a tumultuous and gripping account of a watershed moment in world history, and essential viewing for all.
 
“A landmark in the presentation of living history on film” (Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle).
 
– George Kaltsounakis
 

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Under Rich Earth – Program Notes

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January 15  |  2009 Film Festival, Under Rich Earth  |   julie

Under Rich Earth
 
In the opening moments of Malcolm Rogge’s unsettling and eye-opening Under Rich Earth, a group of small children point to some gun shells lying in the dirt at the edge of a rural road in Ecuador. Who put the shells there and why are matters of great contention and conflict.
 
In the mid-Nineties, a Japanese mining company secured the rights to extract copper in the northwest part of Ecuador known as Intag, one of the world’s most environmentally threatened regions. Residents staged massive protests against the project, which ended in the burning of a mining camp and the departure of the company.
 
But in 2002, despite an ordinance banning mining in the area, the Ministry of Energy and Mines sold the area’s two mining concessions, which ended up in the hands of the Canadian company Ascendant Copper. More protests followed, and tensions were exacerbated by the hiring of outside companies that used intimidation to control the area.
 
Using revealing and startling footage, Rogge reconstructs what happened that day in 2006, and links the violent images to global economics.
 
A display of front-line journalism at its best, the footage leaves little doubt of what actually occurred, yet the interpretations by the different parties, particularly those from the company that hired the shooters, provide a fascinating glimpse into corporate spin and the politics of globalization.
 
– Jesse Wente, 2008 Toronto International Film Festival Programme Book
 
Rated PG.
 

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