The World In Film
Defending human rights with film

-- Leah Otto Johnson

As part of their Traveling Film Festival, Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the larger human rights organizations in the United States, showcases highlight-titles from its annual film festivals.

HRW created its International Film Festival (HRWIFF) nearly 17 years ago to showcase films that thematically address current and past human rights issues from across the globe; the organization said it had recognized film’s power to not only persuade but to educate and rouse viewers.

"Through the eyes of committed and courageous filmmakers, we showcase the heroic stories of activists and survivors from all over the world," its Web site states. "The works we feature help to put a human face on threats to individual freedom and dignity, and celebrate the power of the human spirit and intellect to prevail."

According to their Web site, titles from HRWIFF’s festivals can be licensed for viewing as part of its traveling festival. For $250 per title, a minimum of three films can be licensed from HRW for up to one semester and screened twice. In addition to the DVD or VHS cassette, HRW would provide support materials for the film, including information on HRW-related work to the film’s topic, film images and press kits.

The festival travels to the United States and Canada, and visited over a dozen states last year, including Minnesota-neighbors Ohio, Iowa and Indiana.

What started in 1978 as the Helsinki Watch grew into several "Watch" committees, and in 1988 the committees united to form HRW. Comprised of over 150 professional lawyers, journalists, academics and country experts, HRW conducts fact-finding investigations into such global issues as women and children’s rights, academic freedom, international justice and arms-flow to abusive forces.

Because of its fact-finding investigation(s) in Rwanda, HRW helped to provide sufficient evidence to the war crimes tribunal, which convicted several genocidaires who participated in the killing of more than a half-million people in 1994.

Currently, HRW is campaigning for such issues as the crisis in Darfur, the forced recruitment of children into the Burma national army, the discrimination of Palestinian Arab children in Israeli schools, and the abuses of U.S. prisoners held in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world.

As part of its 2007 film festival in London, HRWIFF will feature titles from 20 different countries, including Afghanistan, Germany, Iraq, Israel and Palestine. Titles showcased in London that are currently available on DVD include When the Levees Broke — A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee), Why We Fight (Eugene Jarecki) and Water (Deepha Metha).

Shocked both by the disaster of Hurricane Katrina as well as by the clumsy and disordered emergency response and recovery effort, Lee produced When the Levees Broke — A Requiem in Four Acts. To share the story accurately, Lee interviewed nearly 100 people, including Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin; activists Al Sharpton and Harry Belafonte; musicians Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard; and residents of New Orleans, La.

"New Orleans is fighting for its life," said Lee. "These are not people who will disappear quietly — they’re accustomed to hardship and slights, and they’ll fight for New Orleans.

Why We Fight, a film that questions both the current war in Iraq as well as the overall anatomy of American war-making, and Water, which focuses on the social conditions and depravation of widows as well as the circumstances surrounding child marriage prevalent in India today, were discussed in previous "World in Film" articles. Visit The Metropolitan’s online archive section at http://themetropolitan.metrostate.edu for further information (September and November issues).

A historical piece entitled, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Ken Loach), about two brothers who joined the all-volunteer guerilla armies during the 1920 Irish War of Independence, will be showcased as part of the upcoming traveling festival Toronto, Ontario. The film stars Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) and will be released in the U.S. (limited) on March 16.

Offside (Jafar Panahi), another film to be showcased in Tornoto, is a comedy about a group of girls in Iran who attempt to enter a football (soccer) stadium, considered illegal for women after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, to fight for the rights of women. The film will be released in the U.S. (limited) by Sony Pictures Classics on March 23.

For further information about HRW’s film festivals or about the organization itself, visit http://hrw.org. To learn more about HRWIFF’s traveling festival or to make a booking, contact Andrea Holley at (212) 216-1839, or visit http://hrw.org/iff/2006/traveling.

"...Film [is] a medium that has the power to share individual stories of suffering and of strength across both physical and philosophical borders," HRW’s Web site states. "We seek to empower everyone with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a very real difference."

Send film comments and suggestions to ottole@go.metrostate.edu.