War/Dance

To open the festival, Human Rights Watch is hosting a Benefit Screening and Reception on May 9th at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Guests will be treated to a screening of Andrea Fine Nix's and Sean Fine's War/Dance, winner of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival's Documentary Directing Award. The film will be followed by a catered reception at Puck's at the MCA, and a discussion led by Elizabeth Evenson, Human Rights Watch's Leonard H. Sandler Fellow in the Africa Division.

Andrea Fine Nix and Sean Fine – US – 2007 – 105m – doc

In Northern Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group that abducts children and turns them into mindless soldiers, has killed Rose's parents, Nancy's father, and made Dominic into an assassin. All three children now live in Patongo, a large refugee camp where they attend a one-room school and practice for the annual National Music Competition held in Kampala, where schools from across the country vie for awards. Husband-and-wife documentary team Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine let the children tell their stories of horror, record their rehearsals, and follow them on their first trip to Kampala, where the three show with pride, joy and exuberance what talent and heart can achieve.

For tickets, please visit www.hrw.org/chicago or call 312-573-2450.

Winter in Baghdad

The Camden 28

Rosita

Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater – US/Nicaragua/Costa Rica – 2005 – 55m – doc

In English and Spanish with English subtitles

In January 2003, news spreads throughout Central and South America that a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl has become pregnant as the result of a rape. Rosa, or Rosita as the girl becomes known in the press, is the only child of illiterate campesinos working in Costa Rica as coffee pickers at the time of the assault. Fearing for their daughter's life and mental health, Rosa's parents are determined to obtain an abortion for their child. In both Nicaragua* and Costa Rica, abortion is illegal except when deemed necessary to save the life of the mother. Despite the odds of obtaining a rarely granted exception for a so – called "therapeutic" abortion, Rosa's parents move forward only to be forced into battle with two governments, the medical establishment, and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. The drama unfolds chronologically, combining the public media reports with the private remembrances of those involved – Rosa's parents, lawyers, doctors, psychologists, priests and journalists. *In October, 2006 Nicaragua’s legislature outlawed all abortion without exception.

Saturday May 12th at 1:00 pm double feature with PUNAM

Punam

Lucian Muntean and Natasa Stankovic – Serbia – 2005 – 28m – 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 and has since been the family caretaker, providing for her younger brother and sister as her father works double shifts in a rice factory to pay for their school fees. We also meet Punam's neighborhood friends, who cannot afford school; instead of studying, these children work each day with their parents at the local brick factories and stone quarries.

Source (Zrodj)

Martin Marecek and Martin Skalsky – Czech Republic – 2005 – 75m – doc

In Czech, Russian, English and Azerbaijani with English subtitles

Baku, Azerbaijan, is the site of the world's first oil well, and is once again becoming a focus for foreign investors with the development of a major oil and gas pipeline project. In Source, a small, inventive Czech crew films the surrealist Soviet-era oil fields around Baku, capturing striking images of cows grazing on polluted land and children playing in toxic sludge. 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?

Rain in a Dry Land

Anne Makepeace – 2006 – US/Kenya – 83m – doc

In English, Mai Mai and Somali with English subtitles

In 2004, thirteen thousand Somali Bantu refugees realized their dream of coming to America. Rain in a Dry Land chronicles two years in the lives of two families as they leave behind a 200-year legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges. Filmmaker Anne Makepeace brilliantly succeeds in capturing every step of this remarkable journey - from their very different new homes in Massachusetts and Georgia, through their encounters with racism, poverty, and severe culture shock, to their ultimate survival in a new land.

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars

Zach Niles and Banker White – Guinea/Sierra Leone/US – 2005 – 80 mins – doc

In English and Krio with English subtitles

This film is 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 among 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.

Dreaming Lhasa

Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam – 2005 – India/UK – 90 mins – drama

In English and Tibetan with English subtitles

Karma, a Tibetan filmmaker from New York, goes to Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama's exile headquarters in northern India, to make a documentary about former political prisoners who have escaped from Tibet. She wants to reconnect with her roots but is also escaping a deteriorating relationship back home. One of Karma's interviewees is Dhondup, an enigmatic ex-monk who has just escaped from Tibet. He confides to her that his real reason for coming to India is to fulfill his dying mother's last wish, by delivering a charm box to a long-missing resistance fighter. Karma finds herself unwittingly falling in love with Dhondup even as she is shares the passion of his quest, which becomes a journey into Tibet's fractured past and a voyage of self-discovery.

Switch Off

Manel Mayol – Spain – 2005 – 87m – doc

Spanish and Mapudungun with English subtitles

The Pehuenche-Mapuche people live above the Bobo River, in Ralco valley, Chile. For over four centuries they have fought off all invaders who tried to enter the valley, from the Incas to the Spanish conquistadors. In 2004, Spain's largest hydroelectric company, Endesa, constructed the world's third largest dam which flooded the Ralco valley and forced the "exchange" of whole villages to much higher ground. Despite protections for indigenous people enshrined in the Chilean constitution, the government has shown little inclination to enforce their rights against the wealthy Spanish multinational.

Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon

Khalo Matabane – South Africa – 2005 – 80m – drama

In English, French, Zulu and Swahili with English subtitles

An inventive film from Khalo Matabane, a major new South African voice, fuses fiction and documentary to explore Johannesburg as an unlikely haven for the world's war refugees. The struggle for reconciliation is nudged aside to reveal a country coming to terms with its new status as a promised land. What does a richer African nation owe to its poorer neighbours? How does political crisis shape personal identity? And is the war over now?

KZ

Rex Bloomstein – UK – 2005 – 88m – doc

In English and German with English subtitles

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? These questions are explored in a visit to the pictureseque Danube town of Mauthausen. Stripped of the usual dramatic devices - survivor testimonies and archive footage - this is a groundbreaking film about facing our ultimate demons. *Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006.

Sunday May 13th at 3:00 pm
Wednesday May 16th at 9:00 pm

Men on the Edge

Avner Faingulernt and Macabit Abramzon – Israel – 2005 – 90 mins – doc

In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

On the border between Gaza and Israel lies an isolated and abandoned beach where, against all odds, Israeli and Palestinian fishermen lived and fished together from 1999 to 2003. The Palestinians were teaching the Israelis ancient fishing techniques transmitted from one generation to the next and the Israelis, by their presence, were enabling the Palestinians to continue to fish in Israeli waters. The film intimately documents these four crucial years in the lives of this group of men from warring cultures, who are brought together by their shared work and the natural threats they face each day in the open sea. Ultimately it is not the harshness of nature that is the greatest obstacle to their work, but the pressures of politics and the fighting surrounding their enclave. *Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006.

Sunday May 13th at 5:00 pm

Total Denial

Milena Kaneva – Bulgaria/Italy – 2006 – 90m – doc

In English and Karen and Burmese with English subtitles

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, relocation of villages, rape, and murder associated with construction of the Yadana pipeline. Her “guide” during this journey was Ka Hsaw Wa, a member of Burma’s Karen ethnic minority, and 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, at considerable personal risk, he has gathered testimonies and other evidence on numerous cases of human rights and environmental abuse. 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.

The Forest for the Trees

Bernadine Mellis – US – 2006 – 53m – 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. Mellis is there at strategy meetings, offering us access into the life of the extraordinary Judi Bari, and a piece of U.S. history that is disturbingly resonant.

Amu

Shonali Bose – India – 2006 – 106m – drama

In English, Bengali, Hindi, and Punjabi with English subtitles

Amu begins with the everyday dilemmas of a young Indian-American, Kaju, returning to the "foreignness" of her homeland. The film gathers a potent political charge as Kaju begins to realize how her own privileged life in America was born out of communal violence in India, particularly the massacre of four thousand Sikhs after Prime Minister Gandhi was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Writer-director Shonali Bose was a student in Delhi during those days, and wrote down the stories of survivors she met in relief camps, giving Amu's flashback scenes the impact of first-hand experience. The film makes a strong case that the massacres were not spontaneous, and depicts corrupt politicians and police who went unpunished. Kaju's questions produce difficult answers that force her to face the truth of India's history and her own.