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Human Rights Watch Film Festival · 2010

Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2010

Full line-up

Programme

16 films · 7 reviews

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Balibo (The Balibo Conspiracy)

Review preview for Balibo

Despite its structural instability, Connolly still manages to find plenty of poignancy and to gather an emotional head of steam.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
As Indonesia prepares to invade the tiny nation of East Timor, five Australian based journalists go missing, a month later a veteran correspondent follows them, determined to find out the truth.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2009; Director: Robert Connolly; Writer: Robert Connolly, David Williamson; Stars: Anthony LaPaglia, Oscar Isaac, Nathan Phillips, Gyton Grantley, Damon Gameau, Tom Wright, Paul Sonkkila, Mark Leonard Winter, Mark Winter) , Official site

Full review

Budrus

Documentary charting a pacifist protest against Israeli incursion.

(Country: Israel, Palestine, US; Year: 2009; Director: Julia Bacha; Writer: Julia Bacha)

UK Premiere

Crimson Gold (Talaye Sorgh)

Review preview for Crimson Gold

Unobtrusive direction, naturalistic performances and humanist sentiment are de rigeur, along with sequences of guys driving around, as well as, more often than not, impenetrable night-for-night visuals.

Keith Hennessey Brown · 3.5 out of 5
Anatomy of a murder, Iranian style.

(Country: Iran; Year: 2003; Director: Jafar Panahi; Writer: Jafar Panahi; Stars: Hussein Emadeddin, Kamya Sheissi, Azita Rayeji, Shahram Vaziri, Ehsan Amani, Pourang Nakhayi)

Full review

Good Fortune

Are international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa undermining the very communities they aim to benefit?

(Country: US; Year: 2009; Director: Landon Van Soest)

UK Premiere

Honeymoons (Medeni mesec)

Review preview for Honeymoons

Young love has no currency compared to dirty currency and freedom is a dream rather than a promise.

Angus Wolfe Murray · 3.5 out of 5
Two young couples leave Albania and Serbia in search of a better life further west, but find the reality is out of step with their dreams.

(Country: Serbia/Albania; Year: 2009; Director: Goran Paskaljevic; Writer: Goran Paskaljevic, Genc Permeti; Stars: Nebojsa Milovanovic, Jelena Trkulja, Jozef Shiroka, Mirela Naska, Bujar Lako, Yllka Mujo, Lazar Ristovski, Petar Bozovic, Danica Ristovski, Mira Banjac, Vlasta Velisavljevic, Ljuma Penov, Ivan Bekjarev, Zinaida Dedakin, Ratko Miletic) , Official site

Full review

UK Premiere

In The Land of the Free...

Review preview for In The Land of the Free...

Jackson’s narrative, like the film as a whole, is committed but calm, letting the facts speak for themselves. And the mood and atmosphere of Louisiana, and America, in its most turbulent years is vividly conveyed.

Jeff Robson · 4.5 out of 5
Probe into the case of the Angola 3 - who were convicted in the US of murdering a prison guard, despite no physical evidence or credible eye witnesses.

(Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Vadim Jean; Stars: Narrated by, Samuel L Jackson)

Full review See: Interview with Vadim Jean about In The Land Of The Free

European Premiere

Iran: Voices Of The Unheard

Review preview for Iran: Voices Of The Unheard

Not always easy and a little historically confusing, this is nevertheless a very powerful and brave work.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
The untold story of Iranian secularists.

(Country: Canada, Iran; Year: 2009; Director: Davoud Geramifard) , Official site

Full review

18537

Moloch Tropical

Haitian auteur Raoul Peck meticulously drapes the poetic across the political in his reflection on the universal malady of absolute power corrupting absolutely.

(Country: Haiti, France; Year: 2009; Director: Raoul Peck; Writer: Jean-René Lemoine, Raoul Peck; Stars: Nicole Dogue, Oris Erhuero, Tasha Homan, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Elli Medeiros, Mireille Metellus, Sonia Rolland, Zinedine Soualem)

UK Premiere. Opening Night

Mrs. Goundo's Daughter

A Malian mother’s fight for asylum in the US to protect her two-year-old daughter from female genital cutting.

(Country: US; Year: 2009; Director: Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater; Writer: Ousmane Diallo, Boua Koné, Cheickné Soumaré)

UK Premiere

Nero's Guests

Journalist P Sainath writes about the thousands of farmers who commit suicide each year due to poverty and the inability to repay debts.

(Country: India; Year: 2009; Director: Deepa Bhatia)

UK Premiere

No One Knows About Persian Cats (Kasi az gorbehaye irani khabar nadareh)

Review preview for No One Knows About Persian Cats

The 'story' is somewhat simplistic, but the state-of-a-nation snapshot it allows to be revealed is complex and highly emotive.

Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
Fiction meets documentary in this story of underground musicians in Tehran.

(Country: Iran; Year: 2009; Director: Bahman Ghobadi; Writer: Bahman Ghobadi, Hossein Mortezaeiyan, Roxana Saberi; Stars: Hamed Behdad, Ashkan Koohzad, Negar Shaghaghi)

Full review

The Red Chapel (Det røde kapel)

A journalist with no scruples, a self-proclaimed spastic, and a comedian travel to North Korea under the guise of a cultural exchange visit to challenge one of the world’s most notorious regimes.

(Country: Denmark; Year: 2009; Director: Mads Brügger; Stars: Mads Brügger, Simon Jul Jørgensen, Jacob Nossell)

See: Sundance Film Festival 2010: Days Seven and Eight

London Premiere

The Sun Behind The Clouds: Tibet's Struggle For Freedom

Examination of the conflict between the old and young in Tibet as the Dalai Lama's struggle for a peaceful resolution sits uneasily with the next generation.

(Country: Austria, France, India, Netherlands, China, US, UK, Germany; Year: 2010; Director: Ritu Sarin, Tenzing Sonam; Writer: Tenzing Sonam)

UK Premiere

War Don Don

The story of the sensational trial of Issa Sesay - a senior commander of the rebel Revolutionary United Front - in Sierra Leone.

(Country: US; Year: 2010; Director: Rebecca Richman Cohen) , Official site

European Premiere

Women Without Men (Zanan-e bedun-e mardan)

Four women search for freedom in Iran, 1953.

(Country: Germany; Year: 2009; Director: Shirin Neshat; Writer: Shahrnoush Parsipour; Stars: Bijan Daneshmand, Pegah Ferydoni, Arita Shahrzad, Shabnam Toloui, Orsolya Tóth)