Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival » Be Like Others

Tonight’s Film: ‘Be Like Others’ With Special Guest Scott Long of Human Rights Watch

julie — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:00:29 +0000

Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Rights Division at Human Rights Watch is tonight’s special guest at the screening of Be Like Others, an intimate documentary that reveals the restrictions and painful choices forced upon individuals confined to the fringes of Iranian society.

Directed by Tanaz Eshaghian, Be Like Others, follows the journeys of several young men (and one woman) at a sex-reassignment clinic in Tehran. These patients’ lives are fraught with physical and emotional turmoil. Many are shunned by their families; others have life-long physical pain from post-operation complications. Hope prevails in the idea that the operation will lead to a more public life without persecution.

Scott Long has documented and advocated against human rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV status for many years. His work led to the United Nations human rights mechanisms agreeing publicly for the first time to take up gay and lesbian concerns. As program director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) for almost six years, he edited or co-authored reports on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender parenting, and on the use of sexuality to target women’s and feminist organizing. He is the researcher and author of Public Scandals: Sexual Orientation and Criminal Law in Romania, a report by Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC, and of More than a Name: State-Sponsored Homophobia and Its Consequences in Southern Africa, also for Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC. He also researched and authored In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt’s Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct, Human Rights Watch’s detailed report on sexuality and Egyptian criminal justice.

Scott Long holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has taught at the University of Budapest, as well as holding a Fulbright lectureship at the University of Cluj-Napoca in Romania. He was a founding member of the Romanian gay and lesbian organization ACCEPT. His work spearheaded a European campaign and contributed strongly to Romania’s eventual repeal of Article 200 in 2001. While in the latter capacity shortly after the Romanian revolution, he began his career as a human rights activist, documenting and defending people imprisoned under Romania’s repressive sodomy law. He joined Human Rights Watch as a consultant in 2002 to develop a project on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and in March 2004 was hired as its director.

Be Like Others screens at 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information or to order tickets, please call the TIFFG Box Office at 416-968-FILM or toll-free 1-877-968-FILM. Tickets can also be purchased online at tiff.net/cinematheque and will be available at the theatre when doors open at eight.

Video: ‘Be Like Others’ (Trailer 3)

julie — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:27:39 +0000

Anoosh’s pending sex-change operations causes conflicts within the family.

Be Like Othersscreens Friday, February 26th, 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, part of the 7th annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Buy your tickets here.

Video: ‘Be Like Others’ (Trailer 2)

julie — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:42:46 +0000

A religious cleric explains the theology behind Ayatollah Khomeini’s approval of sex-change operations in Iran.

Be Like Othersscreens Friday, February 26th, 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, part of the 7th annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Buy your tickets here.

Video: Interview With Director Tanaz Eshaghian

julie — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:15:43 +0000

Writer/director Tanaz Eshaghian talks about her illuminating documentary, Be Like Others. In this interview, shot during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Eshaghian candidly discusses her experiences filming in Iran, her tremendous respect for the Persian sense of community, and what she hopes average viewers will take away from seeing the film.

Be Like Othersscreens Friday, February 26th, 9 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario, part of the 7th annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Buy your tickets here.

Be Like Others: Overview

julie — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:05:51 +0000

Be Like Others
Director: Tanaz Eshaghian
Country: USA/Canada/Iran
Year: 2008
Runtime: 74 minutes
Genre: Documentary
Screening Times: Friday, February 26, 9:00 p.m. Rated 14A

Buy tickets from Cinematheque Ontario

Synopsis:
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, a country with strict social mores and traditional values, sex-change operations are legal. Over twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa (religious edict) making sex change permissible for “diagnosed transsexuals.” Yet homosexuality is still punishable by death. With Iran’s international arms negotiations dominating news headlines worldwide, a very private kind of drama is unfolding behind the scenes. Highly feminine and attracted to members of the same sex, yet forced to live in secret for fear of retribution, a generation of young Iranian men are adopting an identity legally allowed to them — transsexual. In pursuit of what one man calls simply, “a decent life,” they flock to the country’s best-established gender reassignment surgeon, Dr. Bahram Mir Jalali, and are counseled by 24-year-old Vida, a post-op woman who claims to be “reborn” but warns of dangers that still await. Iranian-American filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian accompanies several young men as they contemplate and prepare for their transformation, then follows them into and out of surgery. Intimate and unflinching, Be Life Others is a fascinating look at those on the fringes of Iranian life — those looking for acceptance through the most radical of means.

Director’s Biography:
Tanaz Eshaghian was born in Iran in 1974 and emigrated to the United States shortly after the 1979 revolution. She grew up in New York, where she continued to speak Persian at home with her mother. In 1996, she graduated from Brown University in Semiotics. Her first film I Call Myself Persian, completed in 2002, told the story of how Iranians living in the U.S. were affected by prejudice and xenophobia after 9/11. In Love Iranian-American Style, completed in 2006, she filmed her traditional Iranian Jewish family, both in New York and Los Angeles, documenting their obsession with marrying her off and her own cultural ambivalence. For Be Like Others, her début feature-length film, Eshaghian returned to Iran for the first time in 25 years.

Film Festivals:
Sundance Film Festival, USA, January 2008
Berlin Film Festival, Berlin, Germany, February 2008
Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece, March 2008
Hot Docs Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, April 2008
Inside Out Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, May 2008
Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, February 2010

Awards:
Teddy Jury Prize and the ELSE Siegessäule Reader’s Choice Award, Berlin Film Festival
FIPRESCI Prize, Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival
Entertainment Partners Canada Award, Inside Out Film Festival

Media Coverage:
BBC News: Iran’s ‘diagnosed transsexuals’
Cinematical: Be Like Others – Film Review
Movieline: Director Tanaz Eshaghian On Her Gay Iranian Transsexual Doc
New York Magazine: ‘Be Like Others’ Director Tanaz Eshaghian on Sundance, Sex Changes, and the Ayatollah
The Reeler: Tanaz Eshaghian, Be Like Others
Screen Daily: Be Like Others – Film Review
Variety: Be Like Others – Film Review

Official Film Website:
Be Like Others

Overview by Julie Giles