Director Lixin Fan will be a special guest at tonight’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival Opening Night Gala.
Lixin will introduce his award-winning film, Last Train Home, and participate in a Q&A session with Human Rights Watch Media Director, Minky Worden.
Director Alex Gibney will be in attendance for tonight’s screening of Taxi to the Dark Side at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario. Gibney will introduce the Oscar-winning documentary, which he directed, wrote, produced and narrated.
Michelle Shephard, National Security Reporter for The Toronto Star and author of “Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr,” is the second special guest on the evening’s roster.
Earlier today, Gibney sat down with Anna Maria Tremonti of CBC Radio’s “The Current” to talk about the film. He will appear later tonight on “The Hour” with George Stroumboulopoulous. You can also visit the festival’s del.icio.us page for access to additional audio and video interviews.
Tonight’s screening is sold-out. Taxi to the Dark Side will have an extended run at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto, starting Friday, March 7th.
Director Atom Egoyan opened the 5th Annual Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival, introducing Hana Makhlmalbaf’s Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame and talking of his own experience screening Ararat, which focused on the 1915 Armenian genocide in Turkey, at the same theatre some six years ago.
Egoyan has been a member of the Toronto Committee of Human Rights Watch for several years. He is the latest recipient of the Dan David Prize for “creative rendering of the past” in literature, theatre or film, joining playwright Tom Stoppard and novelist Amos Oz in sharing the $1 million prize.
Egoyan spoke to the artistic merits of Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame and the legacy passed down to the director from her father – Mohsen Makhmalbaf. A major figure in Iranian cinema, Mohsen established the Makhmalbaf Film House in which he taught film to a select group of pupils including his own three children. Makhmalbaf traveled secretly to Afghanistan during the Taliban rule and was one of the first filmmakers to shoot in the country after the group’s fall. He also founded a non-governmental organization for enabling Afghan children to go to school in Iran.
His elder daughter Samira directed a movie while living in Kabul called At Five in the Afternoon. Her latest film, Two-Legged Horse, from a script by her father, was also shot in Afghanistan. Hana’s directorial debut was at age 14 when she made a behind-the-scenes documentary of her sister Samira’s film, called Joy of Madness.
The Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival continues tomorrow night with El Ejido, The Law of Profit. Consuelo Rubio, Community Legal Worker for the Center for Spanish Speaking People, will introduce the film. Screening time is 7:30 PM at Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario.
Director Atom Egoyan will introduce Hana Makhmalbaf’s award-winning feature film Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame, the opening night selection for this year’s Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Egoyan will be joined on stage by special guest Sam Zia Zarifi, Washington Advocate and former Asia Research Director for Human Rights Watch.
The film presentation is schedule for Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 8 PM at the Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles Street West. It will be preceded by a reception at 6:30 PM.
Additional guest and speakers for the festival screenings at Jackman Hall (Art Gallery of Ontario) include:
Friday, February 29, 7:30 PM – El Ejido, The Law of Profit (Belgium/Spain)
Guest Speaker: Consuelo Rubio, Community Legal Worker for the Center for Spanish Speaking People.
Saturday, March 1, 7:30 PM – These Girls (Egypt)
Guest Speaker: Anna Maria Tremonti, Host of CBC Radio’s “The Current”
Sunday, March 2, 2:30 PM – We’ll Never Meet Childhood Again (UK/Romania)
Special Guest: Ellissa Beckett, Executive Director, The Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR).
Monday, March 3, 7:30 PM – Taxi To The Dark Side (USA)
Special Guests: Director Alex Gibney and Michelle Shephard, National Security Reporter for The Toronto Star.
Tuesday, March 4, 7:30 PM – Chop Shop (USA)
Special Guest: Jian Ghomeshi, CBC Radio & TV Personality
Wednesday, March 5, 7:30 PM – A Love During The War (Congo/Cameroon)
Guest Speaker: Sgt. Debbie Bodkin will share stories of her interviews with people in Sudan and the continuing plight of the people of Darfur.
Special Guest: Dr. Sumeet Sodhi, Director of Research and Operations for Dignitas International
Sgt. Bodkin and Dr. Sodhi will also be in attendance at the closing night reception prior to the screening at 7:30 PM. Tickets are still available for the reception. For details click here. The opening night gala is now sold-out.
Michelle Shephard, National Security Reporter for The Toronto Star, and author of “Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr” (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) will be a guest speaker at the Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival on March 3rd when she will introduce Taxi to the Dark Side director Alex Gibney.
The Oscar-nominated Taxi to the Dark Side has been lauded as a “chilling indictment” on the use of torture in the “war on terror.”
Toronto-born Khadr was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 at the age of 15 after a firefight with U.S. forces. The Pentagon has charged Khadr with five war crimes, including the murder of Christopher Speer, a Delta Force soldier and medic who died 10 days after the firefight from grenade wounds.
Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch along with Amnesty International, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and Human Rights First sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to formally request that the United States either try Mr. Khadr under juvenile justice rules or send him back to Canada.
Mr. Khadr is the only Westerner still held in Guantanamo Bay, and the U.S. administration has previously indicated that even his acquittal in a military court may not necessarily mean he would be released.
