Zach Niles and Banker White, Guinea/Sierra Leone/USA, 2005, 80m, 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. Presented in association with the New York African Film Festival and by American Documentary | P.O.V., premiering on PBS in 2007 (check local listings).

Nick Francis and Marc Francis, U.K., 2006, 78m, video, doc

In Amharic, Oromiffa and English with English subtitles

Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate an industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to buy our lattes and cappuccinos in their millions, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is on a one-man mission to save his coffee cooperative’s 75,000 struggling farmers from bankruptcy. As they strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans available to the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price. Against the backdrop of Tadesse’s journey to London and Seattle, the more powerful sides of the international trading system come into focus. New York coffee traders, auction houses and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the enormity of Tadesse’s task to find a long-term solution for his farmers. *Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006. Presented in association with the New York African Film Festival

Anthony Giacchino, USA, 2006, 82m, video, doc

In English

How far would you go to stop a war? On August 22, 1971, twenty-eight men and women in Camden, New Jersey, carried out a powerful act of civil disobedience against United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The group was part of a nonviolent antiwar movement popularly known as the “Catholic Left.” One of the most dramatic tactics utilized by this movement was breaking into draft board offices to remove and destroy government records that identified young men available for military service. The activists claimed that their actions were meant to show their belief that killing—even in war—was morally indefensible. And by conducting their raids mostly in inner cities, they hoped to call attention to war’s damaging effect on some of America’s most vulnerable populations. The documentary tells of the activists’ covert preparations, government intrigue, a government raid and arrest of the protesters, and an ensuing legal battle which the late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan called “one of the great trials of the twentieth century.” Thirty-five years later, key participants openly discuss their motives, their fears, and the tremendous personal costs of their actions. It is a story of resistance, friendship, and betrayal played out against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent periods in recent American history. Winner of both the Jury Prize and Audience Award for Best Documentary, Philadelphia Film Festival 2006.

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, India/UK, 2005, 91m, 35mm, drama

In Tibetan and English with English subtitles

Karma, a Tibetan filmmaker from New York, comes to Dharamsala – a small town in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, home to the exiled Dalai Lama and the spiritual and political focus of the Tibetan diaspora. Escaping from a deteriorating relationship back home, she is here to make a film about former political prisoners who have escaped from Tibet. Their harrowing stories of courage and suffering heighten her own sense of cultural alienation. One of Karma’s interviewees is Dhondup, an enigmatic ex-monk who has recently escaped from Tibet after spending four years in prison for his role in anti-Chinese activities. Dhondup confides in Karma that his real reason for coming to India is to fulfill his dying mother’s last wish, to deliver a gahu – a charm box that Tibetans use as a protection amulet – to a man named Loga. He appeals to her for help in finding him. As they set out to find Loga, Karma finds herself unwittingly falling in love with Dhondup even as she is sucked into the vortex of his quest, which becomes a journey into Tibet’s fractured past and a voyage of self-discovery. *Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival 2005.

Bernadine Mellis, USA, 2006, 53m, video, doc

In English

The Forest for the Trees is an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at an unlikely team of young activists and old lefties who come together to battle the U.S. government over alleged FBI and Police retaliation against an environmental activist. Filmmaker Bernadine Mellis is the daughter of legendary civil rights lawyer Dennis Cunningham, who started his career representing the Black Panthers and the Attica Brothers. Judi Bari was a leader in Earth First. Her car was bombed in 1990, and she was arrested as a terrorist on charges that were later dropped. Convinced it was a ploy by the FBI to discredit her and Earth First, Judi decided to sue. Cunningham took on Judi's case and after twelve years, Judi Bari v. the FBI finally gets a court date. Mellis is there at strategy meetings, at breakfast, and after court, documenting her morally driven, very tired dad, while offering us access into the life of the extraordinary Judi Bari, and a piece of U.S. history that is disturbingly resonant.

Milena Kaneva, Bulgaria/Italy, 2006, 65m, video, doc

In English, Karen and Burmese with English subtitles

Total Denial is the inspiring story of fifteen villagers from the jungles of Burma whose quest for justice eventually leads them to bring suit in a U.S. court against two oil giants - UNOCAL and TOTAL - for human-rights abuse. For five years producer/director Milena Kaneva collected accounts from Burmese villagers of forced labor, re-location of villages, rape, and murder associated with construction of the Yadana pipeline. Her “guide” during this journey was Ka Hsaw Wa, described by Kerry Kennedy in her book “Speak Truth to Power” as “A man of incredible courage and commitment, with the firm belief that one man can make a difference.” A member of Burma’s Karen ethnic minority, Ka Hsaw Wa was one of the leaders of the student movement for democracy in Burma in 1988 which was violently suppressed by the Burmese government. For more than a decade, he has gathered testimonies and other evidence on numerous cases of human rights and environmental abuse. Wanted by police in both Burma and Thailand, he is now based in the U.S., traveling back to both countries periodically at considerable personal risk, to document further abuses. In 1995, along with the co-founder of Earth Rights International, Katie Redford, Ka Hsaw Wa brought a landmark lawsuit against UNOCAL and TOTAL that drew international attention to the pervasive abuses in Burma.

James Longley, USA, 2006, 96m, 35mm, doc

In Arabic and Kurdish with English subtitles

Triple award-winner at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival (Documentary Directing, Cinematography and Editing Awards), Iraq in Fragments is more than a singularly accomplished documentary film - it is an astonishing work of art. Culled from 300 hours of footage taken over a two-year period, and presented without scripted voice-over, the film is at once expansive and intimate, harrowing and transcendent. Filmmaker James Longley's (Gaza Strip) documentary feature shadows ordinary Iraqi citizens in three crucial yet fractured regions - Baghdad; the Shiite south; the Kurdish north - as they struggle through a chaotic present and face a distant, uncertain future. In old Baghdad, buildings burn, U.S. tanks patrol, and an 11-year-old mechanic scurries amid the rubble to please his intimidating boss as neighborhood men angrily indict the Americans. Then, guided by a young leader in Moqtada Sadr's Shiite revolutionary movement, the film proceeds south, where political arguments ricochet across cafés and meeting halls, and young Shiite men take to the streets to enforce religious laws and stage an anti-U.S. uprising. In the northern Kurdish countryside, where smoke from brick ovens billows in the sky, a farmer, grateful to America for removing Saddam, ruminates on the future of his family and people while his teenage son tirelessly tends sheep and dreams of becoming a doctor. These indelible portraits, painted with strikingly beautiful vérité immediacy and poetic visual juxtapositions, humanize the conflict and illuminate the textures and tensions of a country wrenched by occupation and pulled in disparate directions by religion and ethnicity. *Winner of the 2006 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize. Presented in association with the Tribeca Film Festival

Rex Bloomstein, UK, 2005, 88m, video, doc

In English and German with English subtitles

On the banks of the river Danube, surrounded by the beautiful landscape of Upper Austria, lies the picturesque town of Mauthausen. Two kilometers from its town centre is a place that attracts bikers, busloads of tourists, parties of schoolchildren, people from all over the world. Tour guides come to work here every day, while nearby the locals go about their daily lives. This is a place where thousands upon thousands of people from over thirty nations were tortured and murdered. This site is the former KZ – in German short for concentration camp. How does it feel to be a tourist at a former concentration camp? How does it feel to work here as a guide, day in, day out? How does it feel to live here as a local alongside the dark secrets of the past? And what of those who’ve chosen this town to be their new home? Stripped of the usual dramatic devices – survivor testimonies and archive footage – this is a radical, groundbreaking film about us facing our ultimate demons. It is a contemporary yet timeless piece on the horrors that the human race has and perhaps always will be inflicting on one another. *Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006. Presented in association with MAKOR/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y

Adrian Shergold, UK, 2005, 90m, 35mm, drama

In English

Pierrepoint is the devastating, true-life story of Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s most notorious hangman. Following in the footsteps of his father and uncle before him, Albert joins the “family business” in 1934. He rises through the ranks to become the most feared and respected executioner in the country, hanging over 600 people before his sudden resignation in 1956. Living a double life as a master hangman and humble grocery deliveryman/loyal husband, Pierrepoint’s obsession to become the “Number One” executioner in the land results in him executing some of Britain’s most infamous murderers and Nazi war criminals. But this also shatters Pierrepoint’s jealously guarded anonymity, turning him into a minor celebrity. As his two lives collide and 1950’s public opinion turns against capital punishment, Pierrepoint is troubled by his notoriety and ready to give it all up— but fate has other plans in store for him. *Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival 2005

Lucian Muntean & Nataša Stankovic, Serbia, 2005, 28m, video, doc

In Nepali and Tamang with English subtitles

Beautifully and sensitively produced, Punam tells the story of nine-year-old Punam Tamang, who lives in Bhaktapur in Nepal. Punam lost her mother when she was five years old and since that time she has been the family caretaker, providing for her younger brother Krishna (now seven) and her younger sister Rabina (now five). The Tamang children see little of their father because he works double shifts in a rice factory, in order to earn enough money for their school fees. He goes to work at 4 o'clock in the morning and comes back home at 8 o'clock in the evening. We also meet Punam's neighborhood friends, whose families do not make enough money to afford the school fee. Instead of studying, these children work each day with their parents at the local brick factories and stone quarries.

Roy Westler, Israel, 2005, 52m, video, doc

In Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles

Shadya Zoabi, a seventeen-year-old Muslim girl from a small Arab village in northern Israel and a World Champion in karate, lives according to her own principles. Shadya’s brothers are against her involvement in karate. In their view, a Muslim woman has a specific path in life, and it is forbidden to stray from this destiny. In spite of Shadya’s father’s support, the social pressure from her brothers and the surrounding community is difficult to overcome. Shadya is a story about the coming of age of a young Muslim woman who desires to succeed on her own terms but who is still committed to her life within the Muslim community. Will she succeed in balancing her ambitions after her marriage? Will she stay a World Champion?

Diana Ferrero, US/Italy, 2005, 27m, video, doc

In French, English and Farsi with English subtitles

From France and Iran, two tales of the hijab. Samah, a Muslim teenager in Paris, wears the headscarf by choice, struggling with the 2003 French "anti-veil law." K, a young mother in Tehran, is forced to wear the hijab by the Islamic regime. But she wears it her own way...

Michael Caton-Jones, UK/Germany, 2005, 115m, 35mm, drama

In English and Kinyarwandan with English subtitles

Based on a story co-written by BBC journalist David Belton, who was working in Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide, Shooting Dogs is a powerful fictionalised account of what took place at a Kigali school during six days in April 1994. Joe (Hugh Dancy) is a young British man using his gap year to teach in Rwanda. Enthusiastic about Africa and popular with the students, Joe works alongside Father Christopher (John Hurt), head of the school, whose many years in Africa have wearied him and challenged his faith, but who still has a deep-seated love of the people. When tension between Tutsi and Hutu escalates into genocide, the school becomes a haven for Europeans and Tutsis, under the protection of the U.N. Joe and Christopher stay behind when the Europeans are evacuated to safety, only to find that the Rwandans are to be abandoned to their fate. Focusing on the human aspects of the story and determined to bring veracity and authenticity, the filmmakers used the real locations and hand-held cameras to give a documentary feel, and many of the Rwandan cast and crew had themselves witnessed and survived the genocide. This accomplished film serves as a timely reminder that questioning the West's role in Africa is as vital for the future as for understanding the past.

Simone Aaberg Kærn and Magnus Bejmar, Denmark/Sweden/Germany/Finland, 2005, 78m, 35mm, doc

In Danish and English with English subtitles

Artist, pilot, and filmmaker Simone Aaberg Kærn has been obsessed with female fighter pilots since she was little. These fearless women, the first generation of whom flew fighter planes in World War II, inspired and challenged her to become a pilot. When she reads one day in her local Danish newspaper about a young Afghan girl, Farial, whose dream is to become a fighter pilot, Simone decides right then to launch a remarkable art project. Buying the only plane she can afford, a 40-year old “Donald Duck” Piper-Colt—a tiny, slow moving plane made out of canvas that needs gas every three hours—she maps out a 6000km flight plan from Denmark to Afghanistan. The geography of her journey requires flying through a number of former war zones where the airspace is heavily restricted. Since 9/11 and the war on terror, the world’s unrestricted airspace has been shrinking rapidly, but Simone feels the skies “should be liberated and free, like the oceans." Along her journey Simone must rise to one challenge after another—rejections from Bosnia and Iran to fly over their airspace causes her to creatively re-route her flight. She challenges every military authority she comes across and, in a truly remarkable scene, defies the American military’s refusal to allow her entry into Afghanistan, and flies illegally to her meeting with Farial. Joyful moments abound—a visit with an adventurous female fighter pilot squadron in Turkey, the faces of incredulous Afghan airport workers on the tarmac in Kabul, and the incredible beauty of low-level flight.

Martin Mareček & Martin Skalský, Czech Republic, 2005, 75m, video, doc

In Czech, Russian, English and Azerbaijani with English subtitles

Azerbaijan is ranked one of the world’s most corrupt countries, where a reigning ruling family is in its second generation of power. Baku in Azerbaijan, is also the site of the world’s first oil well, and is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors as the origin of a major oil, gas, and pipeline project developed by an international consortium led by BP. In Source, a small, mobile and highly inventive Czech film crew travels around the country to investigate and record the impact of this most recent energy boom. They film the surrealist Soviet-era oil fields around Baku, with locals oblivious to the environmental dangers, striking images of cows grazing on polluted land and children playing in toxic sludge. With startling access and more then a little black humour, the filmmakers interview a fascinating cross section of people involved with and affected by the oil boom - allegedly corrupt politicians, oil company employees, businessmen, angry women whose husbands and sons work for very little money in shockingly polluted conditions in this industry. Source also cleverly examines the links from commuter highways in the West back to energy development in Azerbaijan. With the majority of the population living under the poverty line, the country’s post-Soviet government is promising oil will bring widespread economic benefits to all, but could this “liquid gold” be more of a curse than a blessing for this troubled country? Presented in association with the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival