» See HRW’s work on Rwanda

Sometimes in April

Raoul Peck - France/Rwanda - 2005 - 140minutes - 35mm - drama

In English

“While in Kigali, I was moved by every single conversation I had. I saw people with courage, people full of life, real people, not victims. And to these people, I wanted to give a glimmer of hope.” — Raoul Peck

Shot on location in Rwanda, Sometimes in April is a compelling retelling of the tragedy of the some 100 days of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Written, directed and executive produced by acclaimed director Raoul Peck, the film’s epic canvas follows a Rwandan family as it is torn apart by the genocide. It also explores the response of the international community, particularly the United States, to the atrocities and efforts to seek justice for the crimes committed.

Sometimes in April is set in two periods that unfold concurrently. In April 1994, Hutu army officer Augustin defies the Hutu army leadership’s plans to perpetrate genocide against the Tutsi and opposition Hutus. He tries to get his wife (who is Tutsi) and family to safety. When he is separated from them, Augustin is caught in a desperate struggle to survive and is haunted by questions about what happened to his loved ones. In the present day, looking for closure and hoping to start a new life with his girlfriend Martine, Augustin visits the United Nations Tribunal in Arusha, where his brother Honoré is awaiting trial for the “bloodless” role he and other journalists played in the genocide. In the end, Augustin discovers the fate of his family and finds a measure of hope for the future. Courtesy of HBO Films Website: http://www.hbo.com

SHOWTIMES:

Opening Night, Thursday, 17th March, 19.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

Benefit Gala

Sometimes in April will be screened at the Human Rights Watch Benefit Gala on Wednesday, 16th March, 18.15 for 18.45 at the Curzon Mayfair

Benefit Gala reception afterwards at Dartmouth House

BENEFIT GALA TICKETS

Guardian (£5,000 for 4 tickets with reserved seating)
Underwriter (£2,500 for 2 tickets with reserved seating)
Benefactor (£1,000 for 2 tickets with reserved seating)
Patron (£350 per ticket)
Supporter (£175 per ticket)
Friend (£100 per ticket)

For Benefit Gala tickets or further information, please call 020 7713 2773 or email events@hrw.org

Download the invitation as a PDF file (624 Kb)
Download the reply card as a PDF file (380 Kb)

» See HRW’s work on the United States

Baadasssss! London Premiere

Mario Van Peebles - U.S. - 2003 - 108m - 35mm - drama

In English

One of the best and most entertaining movies about the making of a movie, Mario Van Peebles’s Baadasssss! is a brilliant re-telling of the making of his father Melvin’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the legendary 1971 hit which sparked the birth of independent black cinema. Embraced by the Black Panthers as a “revolutionary masterpiece,” Melvin’s film has been cited as inspiration by directors such as Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino.

In Baadasssss!, Mario himself stars as his charismatic father in this triumphant evocation of the tough, uncompromising world of guerrilla filmmaking, showing what one black man had to do to put the “hood” into Hollywood. Set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, Woodstock, hipsters, hucksters, free love, afros, and funk music, Baadasssss! is a hilarious yet considered portrayal of a seismic period in history following the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

Courtesy of bfi Distribution

SHOWTIMES:

Friday, 18 March 20.00, Ritzy Cinema – Mario and Melvin Van Peebles present
(Special event in the Ritzy Cafe to follow screening and discussion)

» See HRW’s work on Peru

Compadre U.K. Premiere

Mikael Wiström - Peru/Sweden - 2004 - 90m - 35mm - doc

In Spanish with English subtitles

In 1974, the Swedish photographer and journalist Mikael Wiström travelled across Peru chronicling the lives of people who literally had nothing and were forced to live off of what they could find in rubbish dumps. There, Wiström met Daniel Barrientos, a young man stricken with polio. Daniel asks Mikael what a young man his age is doing with such an expensive camera. From that moment, a complicated friendship, lasting over 30 years, develops between these two men. Following Wiström’s 1991 documentary The Other Shore, chronicling Daniel’s family’s continual struggle to create a decent life for themselves, Wiström returns once more to Peru in 2003 in hopes of coming to terms with both his responsibility and Daniel’s plight. In Compadre, Wiström not only documents the daily life of Daniel's family, but also involves the viewer in the great dilemma of the Western filmmaker being confronted with dire poverty, an existential inequality that puts great pressure on the friendship. Wiström may call Daniel his brother, but how far does his “fraternal” responsibility extend?

Distribution: Mikael Wiström

SHOWTIMES:

Sunday, 20 March 16.00, ICA Cinema – filmmaker present

Preceded on Sunday, 20 March by the short play from the Royal Court Theatre's International Playwrights Programme:

HAVANA by April De Angelis (U.K.)

directed by Ramin Gray
A meeting by a lake at a cheap hotel. Do the differences between an older British woman and a younger Cuban man make a connection possible?

Tuesday, 22 March 18.30, Gate Cinema – filmmaker present

» See HRW’s work on Peru

Dias de Santiago London Premiere

Josué Mendez - Peru - 2003 - 83m - 35mm - drama

In Spanish with English subtitles

After serving several years in the Peruvian army fighting terrorist subversion and drug - trafficking inside his own country, Santiago, an intense, angry, and frustrated 23 - year - old, returns to present - day Lima in hopes of living a normal life. Once home, Santiago desperately tries to fit in and to make things better for himself, his family, and his society at large, but he is blocked at every turn. His wife threatens to leave him, his old army comrades try to pull him into a life of crime, and his family rejects his attempts to emotionally connect with them. Santiago sees his options dwindling as his need for a job and a future grows more desperate.

Skillfully interweaving black and white and colour footage in a way that both heightens the film's realism and the protagonist’s sense of despair, director Josue Mendez creates a distinctive portrait of life in Lima for an abandoned generation.

Distribution: Mil Colores Media

SHOWTIMES:

Friday, 18 March 18.45, Ritzy Cinema

Monday, 21 March 18.45, Gate Cinema

» See HRW’s work on El Salvador

Innocent Voices London Premiere

FESTIVAL CENTERPIECE

Luis Mandoki - Mexico - 2004 - 120m - 35mm - drama

In Spanish with English Subtitles

Luis Mandoki, acclaimed Mexican director of Gaby-A True Story, now turns his lens on El Salvador during its bloody civil war (mid 1980s) in Innocent Voices. Weakened by two years of fighting, the El Salvadorian army decides to replenish its ranks with the nation’s young sons, most of whom are young boys under 11, kidnapped in sudden and terrifying village raids. Our protagonist, the fatherless 11-year-old Chava who manages to escape the fate of many of his young friends, feels powerless against the ceaseless violence everywhere. However, when Chayo’s charismatic, guerrilla fighting uncle Beto comes to visit, Chaya’s life is changed forever. In the end, Innocent Voices is a resounding celebration of the small acts of resistance performed by ordinary citizens, no matter their age.

Film’s website: http://www.vocesinocentes.com/

SHOWTIMES:

Saturday, 19 March 18.15, Ritzy Cinema

» See HRW’s work on Lebanon

The Kite London Premiere

Randa Chahal-Sabbag - France/Lebanon - 2003 - 80m - 35mm - drama

In Arabic with English subtitles

From acclaimed filmmaker Randa Chahal-Sabbag (Civilized People/Civilisees, winner of the HRWIFF 2001 Nestor Almendros Award) comes this beautifully rendered drama set in her native Lebanon. The Kite tells the story of 16-year-old Lamia, who, on her wedding day must cross the barbed wire barrier that separates her Lebanese village from that of her cousin and fiancé Samy, whose village has been annexed by Israel. Between the villages, the border is heavily patrolled. The checkpoint, controlled by both sides, permits newlyweds and corpses to return to their home villages. Lamia reaches the family of her fiancé, abandoning her younger brother, her school, her kite, her mother, her past. But she refuses to consummate her marriage; instead she gradually falls in love with a soldier who has been watching her since the day she crossed the border for the first time.

Distribution: Ognon Films

SHOWTIMES:

Saturday, 19 March 21.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

Sunday, 20 March 19.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

Thursday, 24 March 20.30, ICA Cinema

» See HRW’s work on Liberia

Liberia: An Uncivil War U.K. Premiere

James Brabazon and Jonathan Stack — U.S. - 2004 - 102m - video - doc

In English

“Liberia, a nation burdened by its past. America, a nation with no memory at all” - Jonathan Stack

In Liberia, the summer of 2003 was pure insanity: two armies are in the final battle of a decade - long civil war, holding the capital under siege while thousands die from mortar shells launched from afar. As the soldiers, mostly teenagers, fight a bloody urban battle, the nation prays that American forces show up to put an end to the violence. Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves, has a long intertwined history with America. While the rebel army, the LURD, attempts to overthrow the Liberian government, President Charles Taylor and his army maintain a strong grip on the city. The film journeys to the heart of the conflict by covering both sides; while filmmaker Jonathan Stack covers the defense of the capital from the inside, his filmmaking partner - James Brabazon - travels with the LURD rebels as they fight their way closer to the capital. The filmmakers won the International Documentary Association’s 2004 Courage Under Fire Award for their camerawork in the film. The film situates the fighting within the larger international political context, focusing particularly on America’s weak response. It completes the picture with a series of exclusive interviews with the elusive Charles Taylor, a man since indicted for war crimes for heinous abuses against civilians, sexual slavery, and the use of child soldiers. The film presents the complex layers of the conflict and focuses attention on the moral failure of the U.S. to respond to a growing humanitarian crisis.

Distribution: Gabriel Films

SHOWTIMES:

Saturday, 19 March 15.30, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

Tuesday, 22 March 18.15, ICA Cinema – filmmaker present

» See HRW’s work on Children’s Rights

Living Rights U.K. Premiere

Duco Tellegen - Japan/Kenya/Belarus - 2004 - 83m - 35mm - doc

In Japanese, Maasai and Russian with English Subtitles

Filmmaker Duco Tellegen (whose BEHIND CLOSED EYES featured in the 2002 HRWIFF) has made a career of exploring the rich psychological terrain of children and young adults in critical moments of change. In Living Rights, his emotionally powerful and visually striking new film, Tellegen explores dilemmas facing three different girls on three different continents, his remarkable ability to relate to the girls evident as their lives unfold before our eyes.

YOSHI tells the story of 16-year-old Yoshinori who has Aspergers Syndrome - a form of autism exposed in Mark Haddon’s extraordinary novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Yoshi’s dream is to attend a regular Japanese high school. With humor, wit and creativity Yoshi makes a strong case for all of us to believe he should.

TOTI is a Masai girl of fourteen. When she was eleven, her mother told her that she would be married off. The cattle her family would receive from her marriage were badly needed for the family to survive. Toti decided to run away, so her twin sister was married off in her place. Three years later, Toti decides to try and reconnect with her sister and family.

Eleven-year-old LENA lives with her foster mother Galah in a village near the nuclear reactor of Chernobyl. Lena's biological mother lives in Minsk, where radioactivity readings are much lower. She is unable to take care of Lena who is exhibiting health problems, and hopes Lena will choose to go live with an Italian family that has offered to adopt her. Pulling Lena the other way is Galah, who hopes Lena will choose to stay with her.

Distribution: Foundation Dovana Films

SHOWTIMES:

Sunday, 20 March 14.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

Tuesday, 22 March 18.45, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

» See HRW’s work on Serbia and Montenegro

Midwinter Night’s Dream U.K. Premiere

Goran Paskaljevic - Serbia and Montenegro - 2004 - 95m - 35mm - drama

In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles

Goran Paskaljevic’s Balkan Caberet (The Powder Keg), which played to sold out audiences at the 2000 HRWIFF London, is a seminal film on the tragedy and social self-implosion of Serbian society in the 1990’s. In 2004 Paskaljevic has crafted what may be the defining film on postwar Serbia and the quiet tragedy that is unfolding in this psychologically devastated country. Set in the winter of 2004, Lazar, a Serbian Army deserter sent to prison for many years, returns to his fomer home in hopes of returning to his former, normal life. There he finds squatters - Jasna, a single mother who is raising her autistic 12-year-old daughter Jovana (stunningly played by Jovana Mitic who is severely autistic). Refugees from Bosnia, they have been squatting in Lazar's apartment for some time now. Like Lazar, Jasna, whose husband never accepted their daughter's autism and abandoned them, also wishes to turn the page on a difficult past. Lazar doesn't have the heart to make them leave. Little by little, among these three beings marginalized by society, a special kinship develops.

Distribution: Bavaria Films

SHOWTIMES:

Sunday, 20 March 18.45, Gate Cinema – filmmaker present

Tuesday, 22 March 21.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

» See HRW’s work on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Private U.K. Premiere

Saverio Costanzo - Italy - 2004 - 94m - 35mm - drama

In English and in Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

Winner of the Golden Leopard for Best Film and Silver Leopard for Best Actor for Mohammad Bakri (Locarno Film Festival 2004), filmmaker Saverio Costanzo’s Private approaches the Israeli Palestinian conflict through the eyes of one Palestinian household - a well-educated, middle-class family who own a luxury car and a spacious home in the countryside. The family members are totally divided about what they should or should not do. Understandably worried about the safety of her sons and daughters, mother Samia wants to leave. Her husband, Mohammed, feels quite differently, insisting that they stay in their house and deal with the situation as it develops. Soon, their domestic arguments give way to a harsher reality when a group of Israeli soldiers enters the home unannounced and occupies it as an observation post, effectively turning the family into prisoners. They divide the house into three areas: one for the Israelis, one for the Palestinian family, and a common space to be shared. Humiliated at being rendered powerless in their own home, the elder teenage children, Yousef and Miriam, start to vent their anger at their parents and take matters into their own hands.

Private is uncompromising in its realistic depiction, chillingly portraying the quotidian tensions that underlie the larger political struggle, reducing it to something we can all relate to: a family, a house, and its invasion by strangers. As the two parties get to know each other and come to an uneasy equilibrium, we begin to hope that some kind of understanding will follow. However, Costanzo provides no easy outs, no Hollywood resolutions; this war offers no obvious answers and the director captures its harrowing complexities with unerring accuracy.

Distribution: Metrodome Group

SHOWTIMES:

Saturday, 19 March 20.45, ICA Cinema – filmmaker present

Monday, 21 March 20.45, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

» More on HRW’s work on Iraq

Pulled from the Rubble

CLOSING NIGHT

Margaret Loescher - U.K. - 2004 - 63m - video - doc

In English

In August 2003, Gil Loescher went to Baghdad on a humanitarian research trip. He and his colleagues were in a meeting with the head of the United Nations in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, when a truck full of explosives was driven into the side of the building. Gil was the only survivor from the most devastated section of the building. All the other people in the meeting died.

Through poignantly honest narration, and observational scenes of high emotion, his daughter records the family's recovery during the months after the bombing. Using the camera becomes her way of dealing with the suddenness of the family's changed reality, and a way of re-visiting the haunting images of the bomb site - a place of both horror and hope.

Film’s website: http://www. pulledfromtherubble.com

SHOWTIMES:

Wednesday, 23 March 20.45, ICA Cinema – filmmaker present

Thursday, 24 March 21.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

» See HRW’s work on Sierra Leone

The Refugee All Stars Preview Screening

Zach Niles and Banker White - Guinea/Sierra Leone/USA - 2004 - 86m - video - doc

In English

The Refugee All Stars tells the remarkable and ultimately life-affirming story of a group of six Sierra Leonean musicians who come together to form a band while living as refugees in the Republic of Guinea. Forced from their homes in Sierra Leone, the members of the band represent the thousands of stories that exist amongst the survivors of the Sierra Leonean civil war. Following the group over the course of three years, we see the band travel amongst Guinean refugee camps and back to war-ravaged Freetown as part of the UNHCR’s “go-and-see” program. Through the uplifting music and emotional stories of these six characters, we begin to understand the brutal realities of a war so often dismissed by the mass media and are witness to the ability of individuals to sustain hope and create art in a landscape dominated by rage and loss.

Film’s website: http://www.refugeeallstars.org

SHOWTIMES:

Sunday, 20 March 16.30, Ritzy Cinema – filmmakers present
(Special event for the film from 8 to 11pm in the Ritzy Cafe!)

Monday, 21 March 18.30, Ritzy Cinema – filmmakers present

» See HRW’s work on Chile

Salvador Allende London Premiere

Patricio Guzmán - France/Chile/Germany/Belgium/Spain/Mexico - 2004 - 100m - 35mm - doc

In Spanish with English subtitles

Filmmaker Patricio Guzmán, the director of “The Battle of Chile” and “The Pinochet Case,” has spent his 40-year filmmaking career chronicling his country’s political history. Chileans will never forget September 11. On that day, in 1971, extreme right forces that enjoyed strong support from the Nixon administration succeeded in their plans to get rid of democratically elected President Salvador Allende, who had recently won the Presidency after twenty years of campaigning. The fascist regime, which replaced Allende, led hundreds of thousands of Chileans, including director Patricio Guzmán, to flee the country into exile. In this extraordinary film, Guzmán interweaves his own footage of Allende's rise and fall with interviews with friends and family, to piece together a portrait of the complicated, passionate man who took his political philosophy from a shoemaker. The film includes a frank interview with the former U.S. Ambassador to Chile, who recalls looking on in dismay as the CIA plotted Allende's demise.

Distribution: jbaproduction@club-internet .fr

SHOWTIMES:

Monday, 21 March 18.15, ICA Cinema

Wednesday, 23 March 18.30, Gate Cinema

» See HRW’s work on Iraq

Three Kings

David O. Russell - U.S. - 1999 - 115m - 35mm - drama

In English

Screened at the festival in 1999, Three Kings resonates with renewed force today as insurgency and armed conflict continue to engulf Iraq. The film - visually bold and stylistically hip - follows a small group of adventurous American soldiers in Iraq at the end of the 1991 Gulf War who are determined to steal a huge cache of gold reputed to be hidden somewhere near their desert base. Finding a map they believe will take them to the gold, the soldiers embark on a journey that leads to unexpected discoveries, enabling them to rise to a heroic challenge. As they encounter the kinds of action several of them had anticipated eagerly, they learn that the human face of politics changes everything. Rare in a political film, Three Kings is both beautifully realized and star studded, featuring A-list Hollywood talent that includes director David O. Russell, and actors George Clooney, Ice Cube, and Mark Wahlberg.

Film’s website: http://three-kings.warnerbros. com/

SHOWTIMES:

Saturday, 19 March 21.00, Ritzy Cinema

» See HRW’s work on LGBT rights

Tying The Knot U.K. Premiere

Jim de Sève - U.S. - 2004 - 82m - 35mm - doc

In English

Three years in the making, Tying the Knot documents the political war between gay people who want to marry and those determined to stop them. When a bank robber’s bullet ends the life of cop Lois Marrero, her wife of 13 years, Mickie, discovers a police department willing to accept the women’s relationship, but unwilling to release Lois’s pension. When Sam, an Oklahoma rancher loses his husband of 25 years, distant cousins of his deceased spouse challenge his will and move to evict Sam from his home. As Mickie and Sam take up battle stations to defend their lives, Tying The Knot digs deeply into the meaning of marriage today. From a historical trip to the Middle Ages to gay hippies storming the Manhattan marriage bureau in 1971, from the ground-breaking fronts of Holland and Canada to the battle - lines of San Francisco and Boston, this eye-opening exploration of the embattled institution looks at rights, privilege, and love as gay activists and right-wing politicos lock horns in the fight for marriage.

Film’s website: http://www. tyingtheknotthemovie.com

SHOWTIMES:

Friday, 18 March 21.00, Ritzy Cinema – filmmaker present

Saturday, 19 March 16.15, ICA Cinema – filmmaker present

» See HRW’s work on Argentina

Una de Dos U.K. Premiere

Alejo Hernán Taube - Argentina - 2004 - 88m - 35mm - drama

In Spanish with English subtitles

December 2002. Argentina is in turmoil over the economic crisis and street demonstrations. The story unfolds in a rural town, seemingly not much affected by the events in the capital which are presented only in the form of actual TV news reports. Instead, the filmmaker concentrates on people living on the fringes of society who fall in love while they struggle to get by. Martin has made a lot of money passing on counterfeit coins. Pilar is from a good family which is rapidly slipping into poverty. A powerful erotic undercurrent draws them together...

Distribution: CCC

SHOWTIMES:

Wednesday, 23 March 20.15, Ritzy Cinema

Thursday, 24 March 18.30, Ritzy Cinema
(Special event for the film from 8 to 11pm in the Ritzy Cafe!)

Preceded on Thursday, 24 March by the short play from the Royal Court Theatre's International Playwrights Programme:

SHOTGUN DREAMING by Lola Arias (Argentina)

translated by William Gregory
directed by Roxana Silbert
Nightime in the city. A Bedroom. A man and a young woman.
They only met tonight but their conversation quickly takes a sinister turn.

Video Letters U.K. Premiere

Katarina Rejger and Eric van den Broek - Bosnia and Herzegovina/Slovenia/Macedonia/Croatia/Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo) - 2004/2005 - 75m - video - doc

In multiple languages with English subtitles

With strong vision and intense dedication, filmmakers Rejger and Van den Broek (The Making of a Revolution) present Videoletters, a truly groundbreaking and emotionally uplifting series of twenty short documentary films - a selection of which will screen at the festival in three separate programmes. Videoletters is remarkable for many reasons, not least because it exemplifies the power for change inherent in the documentary form: the very making of the films fostered reconciliation between estranged individuals of the war-scarred former Yugoslavia. After the war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and drove millions from hearths and homes, the country crumbled into five separate republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.

In Videoletters which was shot over the past five years, frequently in tough and often dangerous conditions, the filmmakers act as initiators, mailmen and recorders of a dispersed population who hardly have contact beyond the borders. In each episode, two people of different nationalities send each other a video letter, explaining how this could have happened. In each case, they were friends, neighbours, or colleagues before the war drove them apart.

"We are still friends, none of you are guilty, we don't blame all Serbs," a Croatian man says on the screen; on the couch a Serb family is in tears as they watch the video letter of their friend whom they have not seen since the 1990s wars that drove the two families apart. People express their anger and sadness. They try to put rumours and false information behind them. They admit guilt. This stunning series of films literally reach across the emotional and physical divide to open up a new path for the future. After exchanging the video letters, the participants usually arrange a meeting, the first since the war erupted.

And, in a true testament to the power of the series and commitment of the filmmakers, they have managed the remarkable feat of convincing every public television station in the former Yugoslavia to broadcast at least ten of the video letters, the first time the stations have agreed to work together on joint programming since before the war. The series will be broadcast in 2005, ten years after the Dayton peace agreements that ended the 1992-95 war in Bosnia were signed.

Film’s website: http://www.videoletters.net

SHOWTIMES:

Saturday, 19 March 14.00, ICA Cinema – filmmakers present

Sunday, 20 March 14.00, ICA Cinema – filmmakers present

Wednesday, 23 March 18.30, Ritzy Cinema
(Special event for the film from 8 to 11pm in the Ritzy Cafe!)

Best of Fest

Due to popular demand following sold-out screenings in 2004, we are delighted to announce BEST OF FEST which will give you the chance to catch two of the must-see films in this year's festival again on Friday 25 March. Please check the Ritzy Box Office for full details nearer the time.

SHOWTIMES:

Friday 25 March
at 19.00 - THE REFUGEE ALL STARS
and 21.00 - SOMETIMES IN APRIL at the Ritzy Cinema
(Special event for these films from 8 to 11pm in the Ritzy Cafe!)