Human Rights Watch Film Festival highlights of 15th edition

16 Documentaries and 5 Dramas; a Focus on the Power of the Media
www.hrw.org/en/iff
The 15th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will be presented in London from 23 March to 1 April, 2011, Human Rights Watch said today.

The international feature programme includes 16 documentaries and 5 dramas, from Belgium, Colombia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Guantanamo, Guatemala, Hebron, Iran, Ireland, Kenya, Lebanon, Los Angeles, Peru, South Africa, Turkey, Yemen and Yugoslavia. Many of the filmmakers and film subjects will attend the screenings to talk about their films. The festival will also include Youth Producing Change, a programme of 11 short films made by young people, presented by Adobe Youth Voices and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival programme this year is organised around four themes: Times of Conflict and Responses to Terrorism; Human Dignity, Discrimination and Resources; Migrants’ and Women’s Rights; and Truth Justice and Accountability. Many of this year’s films demonstrate the power of traditional and new media to influence filmmaking and impact human rights.

“By incorporating many forms of media, human rights filmmakers are increasing their impact, advancing the art of filmmaking, and bringing human rights stories to a broader audience,” said John Biaggi, Human Rights Watch Film Festival director.

The festival launches on 23 March in the Curzon Mayfair with a fundraising benefit and reception for Human Rights Watch, featuring Larysa Kondracki’s The Whistleblower, starring Rachel Weisz. Inspired by real events, this political thriller tells the story of a Nebraska police officer, Kathryn Bolkovac, who, working as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia, discovers a cover-up of a sex-trafficking ring and fights to bring those responsible to justice.

On 24 March, the Curzon Soho will host the opening night film and reception, with Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar nominee Incendies, set in the Middle-East, and adapted from the play by Wajdi Mouawad. The festival will close on 1 April at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton with Justin Chadwick’s The First Grader. Based on real events, The First Grader depicts an 84-year-old man’s pursuit of education in Kenya, and the universal desire to better one’s life.


The Power of the Media:

The Green Wave; !Women Art Revolution; Granito; The Team;
You Don’t Like The Truth – 4 Days Inside Guantanamo; and Impunity.

As with the protests in Tunisia and now Egypt, the rapid escalation of Iran’s 2009 election protests was due in no small part to the extensive use of social media. In The Green Wave, Ali Samadi Ahadi, the director, uses new media, interweaving animated blogs, tweets and video footage from mobile phones, to recount the dramatic events of this severe domestic crisis in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s !Women Art Revolution uses extracts from interviews –which the filmmaker started shooting in the 1960s – with women artists, scholars and curators to demonstrate how, just a generation ago, it was rare to find the work of female artists in major museums and galleries. In Pamela Yates’s Granito, the filmmaker uses her 30-year-old film outtakes as evidence to help build a case of genocide against Guatemala’s former president

Patrick Reed’s The Team shows how another medium – television – is used to address Kenya’s ethnic tensions, documenting the production of a Kenyan soap opera.

Luc Côté and Patricio Henríquez’s You Don’t Like The Truth – 4 Days Inside Guantanamo uses seven hours of declassified security camera footage from the Canadian government to show the interrogation of 16-year-old Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen and Guantanamo detainee, while Hollman Morris and Juan José Lozano’s Impunity shows how the Colombian government uses video conferencing as a tool in the demilitarisation hearings there.

Times of Conflict and Responses to Terrorism:

The Green Wave; Incendies; The Oath; The Team; This is My Land…Hebron; and You Don’t Like the Truth – 4 Days Inside Guantanamo.

In Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, the deep-rooted effect of sectarian conflict and civil war on one individual is revealed at the reading of a mother’s will when her surviving children discover that they have a brother and that their father, whom they thought was dead, is in fact alive.

Hebron is home to 160,000 Palestinians and 600 Israeli settlers in the city centre – plus 2,000 Israeli soldiers to defend them. The conflict between neighbours in This is My Land…Hebron is fuelled by the determination to conquer one more metre of the city, keep the enemy at bay, and simply stand one’s ground. The film includes interviews with both Israelis and Palestinians living in Hebron, as well as activists on both sides, members of the Israeli parliament and prominent Ha’aretz journalists, to lift the lid on a city fraught with violence and hate.

In The Oath, Laura Poitras, the filmmaker, shows the interlocking drama of two brothers-in-law, Abu Jandal and Salim Hamdan, whose associations with al-Qaeda in the 1990s propelled them on to two divergent paths. The film delves into Abu Jandal's daily life as a taxi driver in Sana’a, Yemen, and Hamdan’s military tribunal in the Guantanamo Bay prison. Abu Jandal and Hamdan’s personal stories—how they came to serve as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver, respectively—act as prisms through which to humanise and contextualise their world.

Human Dignity, Discrimination, and Resources:

12 Angry Lebanese: The Documentary; The First Grader; Life, Above All (Chanda’s Secret); Lost Angels; The Pipe; and A Small Act.

Thomas Napper’s documentary Lost Angels introduces viewers to Los Angeles’s skid row, home to many of the city’s estimated 48,000 homeless people. The characters include a former Olympic runner, a transgendered punk rocker, and an eccentric animal lover and her devoted companion. Residents face challenges with hope and a strong sense of community, while the local welfare officers see the roots of these problems in a political context.

Risteard Ó Domhnaill's documentary, The Pipe follows a four-year campaign to prevent Shell from laying a high-pressure pipe to transport natural gas through the town of Rossport in County Mayo, to an inland refinery. Many residents, angered by the lack of consultation and concerned about safety and environmental impact, confront Shell with a campaign of civil disobedience.

Jennifer Arnold’s A Small Act shows how one good deed can transform an entire life. When Hilde Back of Sweden sponsored the primary school education of Chris Mburu, his life in Kenya was forever changed. Now a prominent human rights lawyer Mburu hopes to replicate the generosity he once received by founding a scholarship fund to aid a new generation of Kenyan children.

Migrants’ and Women’s Rights:

Familia; Illegal; Pushing The Elephant; When We Leave; The Whistleblower; !Women Art Revolution.


Swedish filmmakers Mikael Wiström (Compadre, HRWFF 2005) and Alberto Herskovits have known and filmed Nati and Daniel Barrientos, and their family in Peru, for over 35 years. In Familia the filmmakers take an emotional look at the family’s separation when for economic reasons Nati decides to go to work as a hotel maid in Spain – an experience thousands of families go through each year.

Pushing The Elephant, is the story of a single mother of 10 children, Rose Mapendo. Imprisoned in the Democratic Republic of Congo during the 1998 conflict, she lost her husband, became separated from her 5-year-old daughter, Nangabire, and had to make excruciating decisions to keep her family alive. Eventually resettled in Phoenix, Arizona with her nine other children, she is finally reunited with Nangabire after 12 years apart. The filmmakers, Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel, show Rose as a loving and inspiring mother and also as an unstoppable ambassador for refugees, travelling the country and the world to share her experiences.

Feo Aladag’s feature When We Leave follows Umay’s flight from her violent husband in Istanbul with her 5-year-old son Cem to seek shelter in the arms of her family in Berlin. But Umay’s defiant actions bring shame on her family at home and abroad. When her family decides to return Cem to his father, Umay decides to flee again.

Olivier Masset-Depasse’s award-winning drama Illegal, based on actual events, looks at Belgium’s detention system for undocumented immigrants through the eyes of Tania, a Russian immigrant who has been working in Belgium for eight years. Because of her illegal status, she is in a state of constant alert, fearful that she or her 14-year-old son Ivan will be exposed. She is arrested and placed in an administrative holding centre, where she refuses to co-operate with the authorities and fights the system.

Truth, Justice, and Accountability:

Granito; Impunity; When the Mountains Tremble

Pamela Yates’ Granito is a story of destinies joined together by Guatemala’s past and of how her 1982 documentary When the Mountains Tremble, which also shows in the festival, emerges as an active player in the present by becoming forensic evidence in a genocide case against a military dictator. Yates was allowed to shoot the only known footage of the army as it carried out the genocide. Twenty-five years later, this footage becomes evidence in an international war-crimes case against the army commander who permitted her to film.

Impunity documents the hearings in which Colombian paramilitary members describe atrocities they have committed as the families of their victims listen and watch on computer screens. Through this testimony, footage of paramilitary crimes, and interviews with victims and experts, the brutal history of paramilitary violence comes to light. Yet due to serious irregularities in the justice and peace process, many families express their fear that they will never know the truth surrounding the deaths of their loved ones, and that the perpetrators will escape punishment.

For downloadable images please see festival website at: http://www.hrw.org/en/iff/press

FOR FURTHER DETAILS about filmmaker interviews, DVD screeners and press ticket requests please contact:

Sarah Harvey Publicity - 020 7232 2812
Sarah Harvey sarah@sarahharvey.info
or Helene Muron at assistant@sarahharvey.info


NOTES TO EDITORS:

FULL SYNOPSYS AND LISTINGS:

Benefit Film & Reception
THE WHISTLEBLOWER
Larysa Kondracki—Canada/Germany—2010—111m—drama


Wednesday, 23 March | Curzon Mayfair plus panel discussion and reception
18.15 for 18.45


Based on true events, this compelling political thriller recounts the story of Nebraska police officer Kathryn Bolkovac, who discovers a deplorable cover-up and launches an indomitable fight for justice in the former Yugoslavia. Kathryn (Academy Award®-winner Rachel Weisz) accepts a well-paying UN peacekeeping job, courtesy of a private military contractor. She arrives in post-war Bosnia expecting a harmonized international effort, but she finds chaos and disorder instead. When a brutally injured young woman lands in the UN’s care, Kathryn unearths an underworld of trafficking and traces the path of criminality to a shocking source.

For Benefit Film & Reception tickets, donations or more information, please contact the London Development and Outreach team on 020 7713 2773 or londonoutreach@hrw.org. Tickets start at £75.

Opening Night Film & Reception
INCENDIES

Denis Villeneuve—Canada/France—2010—130m—drama


Thursday, 24 March | Curzon Soho

18.20, screening followed by discussion with special guests


Masterfully adapted from the acclaimed play by Wajdi Mouawad, Incendies brings to life a moving and epic tale through the unravelling of one woman’s mysterious past. At the reading of their mother Nawal’s (Lubna Azabal) will, twin siblings Simon and Jeanne learn for the first time that they have a brother and that their father, whom they thought was dead, is in fact alive. Their mother's last wishes send Jeanne and Simon on an expedition in search of their tangled roots. Shifting back and forth in time, Incendies follows two parallel journeys—the twins’ and Nawal’s own life-changing search to find her son during a time of civil war and sectarian conflict. Through the juxtaposition of these two quests, Villeneuve crafts a powerful story of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love. (Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2011)



Closing Night Film & Reception
THE FIRST GRADER
Justin Chadwick—Kenya/UK—2010—103m—drama


Friday, 1 April | Ritzy Cinema

19.00, Screening followed by discussion with Filmmaker Justin Chadwick



Based on real events, The First Grader recounts the rousing tale of one man’s pursuit of education in Kenya and the universal desire to better one’s life. When the Kenyan government announces it will offer free primary education for the first time, an 84-year-old man shows up on the doorstep of a rural school, ready for class. Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo) was part of the generation that helped liberate Kenya from British colonial rule. As a Kikuyu who participated in the Mau Mau rebellion, Maruge was held in internment camps for years and never had the benefit of an education. Now, the government still wants to deny him that right. Maruge’s life starkly illustrates how the past always impacts the present. His history proves to be the source not just of his challenge, but also his eventual triumph.



TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND ACCOUNTABILITY


GRANITO (UK premiere)
Pamela Yates—US—2011—100m—doc

In English and Quiche and Spanish with English subtitles


Friday, 25 March 18.15, ICA + Q&A with filmmakers
Saturday, 26 March 16.00, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmakers


Part political thriller, part memoir, Granito takes us through a haunting tale of genocide and justice that spans four decades, two films, and filmmaker Pamela Yates’s own career (The Reckoning, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2009). Granito is a story of destinies joined together by Guatemala’s past and of how a documentary film from 1982, When the Mountains Tremble, emerges as an active player in the present by becoming forensic evidence in a genocide case against a military dictator. In an incredible twist of fate, Yates was allowed to shoot the only known footage of the army as it carried out the genocide. Twenty-five years later, this footage becomes evidence in an international war-crimes case against the very army commander who permitted Yates to film. Irrevocably linked by the events of 1982, each of the film’s characters is integral to the country’s reconstruction of a collective memory, the search for truth, and the pursuit of justice. Through the work of American filmmakers, forensics experts in Guatemala, and lawyers in Spain, the quest for accountability in Guatemala continues—with each individual contributing his or her own “granito”, or tiny grain of sand. (Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2011)


WHEN THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE
Pamela Yates—US—1983—83m—doc

In English and Quiche and Spanish with English subtitles


Saturday, 26 March 18.40, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmaker


In the early 1980s, death squads roamed the Guatemalan countryside in a war against the unarmed indigenous population that went largely unreported in the international media. Filmmakers Pamela Yates and Newton Thomas Sigel threw themselves into the task of bringing the crisis to the world’s attention by making a documentary that took them into remote areas of the country where civilian massacres were taking place. Central to their story is Rigoberta Menchú, a Quiché woman who was spurred into radical action by the murders of her father and two brothers. No less admirable, however, is the courage of the filmmakers. When the Mountains Tremble, which was originally released in 1983, has been digitally re-mastered and updated since Menchú was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.



IMPUNITY (UK premiere)
Juan José Lozano and Hollman Morris—Colombia/France/Switzerland—2010—85m—doc

In Spanish with English subtitles



Tuesday, 29 March 21.00, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmakers

Thursday, 31 March 18.30, ICA + Q&A with filmmakers


What is the cost of truth for families immobilised by Colombia’s violent past? In 2005, Colombia started gathering evidence about the horrific violence being carried out by illegal paramilitary units. A highly controversial justice and peace process allowed paramilitary leaders to hand in their weapons and give themselves up voluntarily in exchange for reduced sentences. Impunity documents the hearings in which paramilitaries describe atrocities they have committed in gruesome detail as the families of their victims listen and watch on projected computer screens. Through a series of these testimonies, footage of paramilitary crimes, and interviews with victims and experts, the brutal history of paramilitary violence comes to light. Yet due to serious irregularities in the justice and peace process, many families express their fear that they will never know the truth surrounding the deaths of their loved ones, and that the perpetrators will escape punishment. In an era where many countries are tempted to sacrifice justice in the name of “peace,” what happens in Colombia will resonate beyond its borders.


TIMES OF CONFLICT AND RESPONSES TO TERRORISM



THE GREEN WAVE (UK premiere)
Ali Samadi Ahadi—Germany/Iran—2010—80m—doc



Friday, 25 March 18.40, Curzon Soho

Saturday, 26 March 21.15, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmaker

Sunday, 27 March 15.30, ICA + Q&A with filmmaker


From the widespread hope of political change in Iran through the 2009 elections to the brutal suppression of the mass protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, The Green Wave recounts the dramatic events of the most severe domestic crisis in the history of the Islamic Republic. In May 2009, the youthful green-clad crowds were enraged and the atmosphere was explosive. Yet Election Day in June was a disappointment on a massive scale. The film recounts the ways in which the authorities violently crushed the protests that took place directly thereafter and exposes the arrests and interrogations that followed in intense detail. Interweaving animated blogs and tweets, video footage caught by those present, and extensive interviews, The Green Wave is a remarkable portrait of modern political rebellion, an exposé of government-sanctioned violence, and a vision of hope that continued resistance may galvanise a new Iran. (Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2011)


THIS IS MY LAND… HEBRON (UK premiere)

Giulia Amati and Stephen Natanson—Israel/Italy—2010—75m—doc

In English and Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles


Wednesday, 30 March 21.00, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmakers

Thursday, 31 March 18.40, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmakers



Hebron is the largest city in the occupied West Bank, home to 160,000 Palestinians. It is also home to one of the first Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the only one right in the heart of a Palestinian city. Once a bustling hub of activity, the city centre now resembles a ghost town. A colony of 600 Israeli settlers lives in the city centre, requiring a garrison of more than 2,000 Israeli soldiers to defend them. The cultural and economic life of the town is being suffocated. It’s a war between neighbours where the main goals are to conquer one more metre of the city, keep the enemy at bay, and simply stand one’s ground. Featuring interviews with both Israelis and Palestinians living in Hebron, as well as activists on both sides, members of the Israeli parliament and prominent Ha’aretz journalists, This Is My Land… Hebron lifts the lid on Hebron as it is today - a city fraught with violence and hate.

THE TEAM (UK premiere)
Patrick Reed—Canada—2010—80m—doc

In English and Kikuyu and Luo with English subtitles



Sunday, 27 March 16.30, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmaker

Monday, 28 March 21.00, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmaker



A group of Kenyans breach social barriers to produce The Team, a TV soap opera, hoping taboo story lines can bridge deep ethnic divisions as their country struggles to recover from the violence after the 2007 elections. Ethnic conflict broke out in Kenya when supporters of the main candidates clashed over the disputed result. Fifteen hundred Kenyans died and more than half a million were displaced. When international forces mediated a settlement, it appeared that peace had returned. But to many, it remains clear that tribalism in Kenya is a powder keg that could easily reignite. The TV show’s story line follows the ups and downs of a co-ed football team—representing a cross-section of society—as its members encounter various daily challenges affecting their ability to succeed. The set becomes a microcosm of the issues facing Kenya today, as cast members are not immune to the violence and discrimination plaguing Kenyans. The Team asks: can one television show captivate an audience and ultimately save a nation?


THE OATH
Laura Poitras—US/Yemen—2010—96m—doc

In English and Arabic with English subtitles


Saturday, 26 March 18.00, ICA + Q&A with filmmaker (TBC)

Monday, 28 March 18.40, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmaker (TBC)


Unfolding like a gripping novel that constantly subverts expectations, The Oath shows the interlocking drama of two brothers-in-law, Abu Jandal and Salim Hamdan, whose associations with al-Qaeda in the 1990s propelled them on to two divergent paths. The film delves into Abu Jandal's daily life as a taxi driver in Sana’a, Yemen, and Hamdan’s military tribunal in the Guantanamo Bay prison. Abu Jandal and Hamdan’s personal stories—how they came to serve as Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver, respectively—act as prisms through which to humanise and contextualise a world demonised by the Western media. As Hamdan’s trial progresses, his military lawyers challenge fundamental flaws in the court system. As charismatic Abu Jandal speaks with his son, students, and journalists, he unveils the complex evolution of his belief system since 9/11. Exquisitely constructed and with astonishing access to subjects and information, The Oath brilliantly illuminates a realm unknown to most. (Excellence in Cinematography Award, Sundance Film Festival 2010)



YOU DON’T LIKE THE TRUTH – 4 DAYS INSIDE GUANTANAMO (UK premiere)
Luc Côté and Patricio Henríquez—Canada—2010—99m—doc

In English and Arabic with English subtitles



Friday, 25 March 16.00, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmakers

Saturday, 26 March 16.00, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmakers


You Don’t Like the Truth – 4 Days Inside Guantanamo is a stunning 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. Based on seven hours of video footage recently declassified by the Canadian courts, this documentary delves into the unfolding high-stakes game of cat and mouse between captor and captive over a four-day period. Maintaining a surveillance-camera style, the film analyses the political, legal, and psychological aspects of the interrogation through interviews with Khadr’s lawyers, a psychiatrist, an investigative journalist, former Guantanamo detainees, and a former US interrogator. This unique depiction of Omar Khadr’s interrogation offers an unusual insight into a world where “the truth” itself is often negotiated. (Special Jury Award, IDFA 2010)
HUMAN DIGNITY, DISCRIMINATION AND RESOURCES


12 ANGRY LEBANESE: THE DOCUMENTARY
Zeina Daccache—Lebanon—2009—78m—doc

In Arabic with English subtitles


Wednesday, 30 March 21.15, ICA


In Lebanon's largest prison, inmates stage a version of Reginald Rose’s play 12 Angry Men. Revealing the tremendous dignity and despair of the prisoners, Zeina Daccache's inspired theatre project transforms their lives, offering an extraordinary experience for the audience. For nearly a year and a half, 45 prison inmates found themselves working together to present their version of the play, here renamed 12 Angry Lebanese. A theatre director who specialises in working with disadvantaged and traumatised people, Zeina Daccache is a powerhouse. The drama therapy sessions, the interviews with the inmates, and the interaction with both Daccache and the audience convey an extraordinary message of trust, forgiveness, and change. Daccache exposes the complex layers of each actor’s personality as well as the remarkable evolution they experience as a group.

A SMALL ACT
Jennifer Arnold—US—2010—88m—doc

In English and Kikuyu and Swedish with English subtitles


Tuesday, 29 March 18.30, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmaker and film subject

Wednesday, 30 March 18.30, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmaker and film subject


One good deed can transform an entire life. When Hilde Back sponsored the primary school education of Chris Mburu from her home in Sweden, his life in Kenya was forever changed. Now a prominent human rights lawyer, Mburu hopes to replicate the generosity he once received by founding a scholarship fund to aid a new generation of Kenyan children. The brightest students in Mukubu primary school are poised to become the next leaders of Kenya, but they cannot afford to pay school fees to continue their education. The future of their families rests in the hands of the scholarship committee. With limited income, how many students can Mburu’s fund help? As the committee deliberates, violence erupts around Kenya’s elections, affecting all involved. With clarity and grace, A Small Act bears cinematic witness to the ripple effect a single action can generate even in the midst of persistent poverty and political turmoil.


LIFE, ABOVE ALL (CHANDA’S SECRET)
Oliver Schmitz—Germany/South Africa—2010—105m—drama

In English and Sepedi with English subtitles



Sunday, 27 March 14.00, Ritzy

Monday, 28 March 16.00, Curzon Soho


Life, Above All (Chanda’s Secret) reinvents the coming-of-age story when a young girl must maintain the facade of a normal life amidst utter instability. The spread of HIV/AIDS appears to be ravaging Chanda’s South African township even though no one will speak the actual words. When her mother’s illness becomes apparent, the community turns against Chanda’s family. Her mother chooses to leave home on the advice of a well-meaning but overbearing neighbour, who has her own secrets. Filmmaker Oliver Schmitz explores cultural taboos, adolescence, and religion through the lens of a poorly understood and much-feared disease, instilling his film with a keen sense of insight and emotional gravitas that is at once artful and accessible.


LOST ANGELS (UK premiere)
Thomas Napper—US—2010—77m—doc

In English


Sunday, 27 March 19.00, Ritzy+ Q&A with filmmaker
Thursday, 31 March 21.00, Ritzy+ Q&A with filmmaker


Los Angeles, California has been designated the homeless capital of America, with an estimated 48,000 individuals living on the streets. Thomas Napper’s empathetic but tough-minded documentary invites us into a part of the city that many choose to ignore—downtown’s skid row. As we meet the residents of this distressed area, including a former Olympic runner, a transgendered punk rocker, and an eccentric animal lover and her devoted companion, their remarkable stories paint a multifaceted portrait of life on the streets. Residents face undeniable challenges, including mental illness and addiction, with hope and a strong sense of community. Lost Angels spotlights the efforts of local welfare officers who see the roots of these problems in a political context. The film serves as a scathing condemnation of the ‘Safer Cities Initiative’, which seeks to reduce crime in the area. Residents feel that the policy targets the low-income and homeless population in an effort to pave the way for gentrification. Passionate, polemic, and generous in spirit, Lost Angels reveals a unique vitality to life on skid row and an inspiring humanity in those who live there.


THE PIPE
Risteard Ó Domhnaill—Ireland—2010—83m—doc

In English



Wednesday, 30 March 18.40, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmaker

Thursday, 31 March 18.30, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmaker


Risteard Ó Domhnaill's engrossing and provocative documentary follows a four-year campaign to prevent Shell from laying a gas pipeline in County Mayo, Ireland. Shell’s plan is to build a high-pressure pipe to transport natural gas through the town of Rossport to an inland refinery. But many residents of Rossport, a small farming and fishing community, fear that the project will prove dangerous and environmentally harmful. Feeling that they have not been seriously consulted on a project that could have a profound impact on their community, the citizens of Rossport confront Shell with a campaign of civil disobedience. The film plunges us into clashes between community activists and police and shows how the tension surrounding the project creates rifts within the community. The Pipe serves as a stirring tribute to the brave men and women who fought for their rights and stood up to a corporate giant—even with the knowledge that Rossport will be forever changed.


MIGRANTS’ AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

FAMILIA (UK premiere)
Mikael Wiström and Alberto Herskovits—Sweden—2010—82m—doc

In Spanish with English subtitles



Sunday, 27 March 18.40, Curzon Soho + Q&A with filmmakers

Monday, 28 March 18.30, Ritzy + Q&A with filmmakers



A poignant and powerful documentary, Familia sensitively 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. Working with a family they have known for over 35 years, Mikael Wiström (Compadre, HRWFF 2005) and Alberto Herskovits take an emotional look at the family’s separation due to economic circumstances, providing a unique insight into the experience of thousands of families who do the same each year. The film develops the double plot line of Naty’s lonely life in unknown surroundings as a maid in Spain and the life of Daniel, her husband, and the family she leaves behind in Peru. Stunning camera work adds to the emotional strength of the film as each member of the family struggles to cope in her or his own way.


ILLEGAL
Olivier Masset-Depasse—Belgium/France/Luxembourg—2010—95m—drama

In French and Russian with English subtitles



Tuesday, 29 March 16.00, Curzon Soho

Thursday, 31 March 21.00, ICA


Based on actual events, Olivier Masset-Depasse's award-winning film vividly depicts the harsh reality for those detained in Belgium's detention centres. Tania is a Russian immigrant who has been working in Belgium for eight years. Her illegal status means she's in a state of constant alert, fearful that she or her 14-year-old son Ivan will be exposed. Tania is arrested and placed in an administrative holding centre. Following the advice of the people around her, she stays silent and refuses to co-operate with the authorities. Threatened with deportation and desperate to be reunited with her vulnerable son, Tania battles a system with the odds stacked against her, fighting for her rights and her freedom. In the end, it is not only Tania’s fight but also the truth of the detention system in