Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2011
Incendies Incendies
Incendies and Granito
12 Angry Lebanese - The Documentary (Country: Lebanon; Year: 2009; Director: Zeina Daccache)
A multiple award winning documentary looking at a drama project in a Lebanese prison.
Familia (Country: Sweden; Year: 2010; Director: Alberto Herskovits, Mikael Wiström; Writer: Alberto Herskovits, Mikael Wiström; Stars: Nati Barrientos), Official Site
Observes one matriarch's decision to go to work as a hotel maid in Spain and the impact that choice has on her extended family in Peru.
The First Grader (Country: UK, Kenya; Year: 2010; Director: Justin Chadwick; Writer: Ann Peacock; Stars: Naomie Harris, Tony Kgoroge, Sam Feuer, Nick Reding, Oliver Litondo, Vusi Kunene, Dan 'Churchill' Ndambuki, John Sibi-Okumu, Israel Makoe, Lydia Gitachu, Lwanda Jawar, Agnes Simaloi, Shoki Mokgapa, Melvin Alusa, Peter Marias), Official Site
The story of an 84-year-old Kenyan man's fight for education and equality.
Four Days Inside Guantanamo (You Don't Like The Truth - Four Days Inside Guantanamo) (Country: Canada; Year: 2010; Director: Luc Côté, Patricio Henriquez), Official Site
Documentary based on security camera footage from an encounter in Guantanamo Bay between a team of Canadian intelligence agents and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, then a 16-year-old detainee.
Granito (Granito: How To Nail A Dictator) (Country: US, Guatemala, Spain; Year: 2010; Director: Pamela Yates)
Documentary charting the Mayan people's fight for justice in Guatemala and the key role played by documentarian Pamela Yates.
The Oath The Oath
The Oath and The Pipe
The Green Wave (Irans Grüner Sommer) (Country: Germany; Year: 2010; Director: Ali Samadi Ahadi), Official Site
Story of the 2009 Iranian elections and subsequent protests, told by bloggers from within the country
Illegal (Country: Belgium, Luxembourg, France; Year: 2010; Director: Olivier Masset-Depasse; Writer: Olivier Masset-Depasse; Stars: Anne Coesens, Essé Lawson, Gabriela Perez, Alexandre Gontcharov)
A young Russian woman detained as an illegal immigrant in Belgium desperately fights the system, trying to get back to her teenage son.
Incendies (Country: Canada; Year: 2010; Director: Denis Villeneuve; Writer: Denis Villeneuve with the collaboration of Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne, based on a stage play by Wajdi Mouawad; Stars: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard, Abdelghafour Elaaziz, Allen Altman, Mohamed Majd, Nabil Sawalha, Baya Belal, Bader Alami, Karim Babin, Yousef Shweihat), Official Site
A mother's past sends her twin children on a Middle Eastern odyssey.
Life, Above All (Chanda's Secret) (Country: South Africa, Germany; Year: 2010; Director: Oliver Schmitz; Writer: Dennis Foon, based on the book Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton.; Stars: Khomotso Manyaka, Lerato Mvelase, Harriet Manamela)
A 12-year-old girl struggles to protect her family as her stepfather descends into alcoholism and her mother becomes increasingly ill, in a small town full of prejudice and hostility.
Lost Angels (Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home) (Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Thomas Q Napper; Writer: Christine Triano; Stars: Kevin Cohen, Danny Harris, Linda Harris, Terri Hughes, Catherine Keener, Albert Olson), Official Site
The plight of those on Los Angeles' Skid Row.
Four Days Inside Guantanamo Four Days Inside Guantanamo
Four Days Inside Guantanamo and The Green Wave
The Oath (Country: US, Cuba, Yemen; Year: 2010; Director: Laura Poitras)
The story of two men whose fateful encounter in 1996 set them on a course of events that led them to Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo, and the US Supreme Court.
The Pipe (Country: Ireland; Year: 2010; Director: Risteard Ó Domhnaill)
A documentary about a County Mayo campaign against the laying of a new Shell oil pipeline.
Pushing The Elephant (Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Beth Davenport, Elizabeth Mandel), Official Site
A mother is reunited with the daughter 12 years after she was separated from her during the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A Small Act (Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Jennifer Arnold; Writer: Jennifer Arnold)
Giving poor children in Kenya a chance of further education and offering them hope for a better life.
The Team (Year: 2010; Director: Patrick Reed; Writer: Patrick Reed)
A group of Kenyans breach social barriers to produce The Team, a TV soap opera, hoping taboo storylines can bridge deep ethnic divisions as their country struggles to recover from the violence after the 2007 elections.
The First Grader The First Grader
The First Grader and A Small Act
This Is My Land... Hebron (Country: Israel, Italy; Year: 2010; Director: Giulia Amati, Stephen Natanson), Official Site
Life in the torn city of Hebron, from a Palestinian and Israeli perspective.
Unwanted Witness (Country: Colombia, France, Switzerland; Year: 2010; Director: Juan José Lozano, Juan José Lozano), Official Site
Exploration of a highly controversial justice and peace process in Colombia, which allowed paramilitary leaders to hand in their weapons and give themselves up voluntarily in exchange for reduced sentences.
When The Mountains Tremble (Country: US; Year: 1983; Director: Newton Thomas Sigel, Pamela Yates; Stars: Rigoberta Menchú, Susan Sarandon), Official Site
In the early 1980s, death squads roamed the Guatemalan countryside in a war against the unarmed indigenous population and filmmakers tried to bring their plight to the attention of the world.
When We Leave (Die Fremde) (Country: Germany; Year: 2010; Director: Feo Aladag; Writer: Feo Aladag; Stars: Sibel Kekilli, Nizam Schiller, Derya Alabora, Settar Tanriogen, Serhad Can, Almila Bagriacik, Tamer Yigit, Alwara Höfels, Florian Lukas, Blanca Apilanez Fernandez, Mustafa Jouni, Aram Arami, Ufuk Bayraktar, Edin Hasanovic, Nursel Köse)
hen young Turkish-German woman Umay can no longer stand her husband’s ill-treatment, she flees from Istanbul with her five-year-old son into the arms of her family in Berlin. But love, affection, and loyalty soon become irrelevant as they struggle to reconcile Umay’s willful self-determination with the social system that governs their lives.
The Whistleblower (Country: Canada, Germany; Year: 2010; Director: Larysa Kondracki; Writer: Larysa Kondracki, Eilis Kirwan; Stars: Rachel Weisz, Monica Bellucci, Benedict Cumberbatch, Liam Cunningham, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn, David Hewlett, William Hope, Sergej Trifunovic, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Luke Treadaway, Jeanette Hain, Alexandru Potocean, Johan Philip Asbæk, Demetri Goritsas), Official Site
The story of Nebraska police officer Kathryn Bolkovac, who discovers a deplorable cover-up and launches an fight for justice in the former Yugoslavia.
Pushing The Elephant Pushing The Elephant
Pushing The Elephant and Lost Angels
!Women Art Revolution (Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Lynn Hershman-Leeson; Stars: Lynn Hershman-Leeson), Official Site
One part of a transmedia project that includes the interactive video installation RAW WAR presented at New Frontier. This seminal documentary depicts the history of women artists who have used art as an activist practice to fight oppression and protest gender and racial exclusion – creating what many historians feel is the most significant art movement of the late-20th century.
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