Seattle Human Rights Film Festival – Part 3 – Sunday

So, continuing our cheery theme, A Journey Through Hell opens our final day of the Seattle Human Rights Film Festival, Sunday, Feb. 8, 11:30 am, at the Northwest Film Forum (where all except our closing film will be).  A Journey Though Hell chronicles the dangerous journey by boat of Somali and Ehiopian migrants risking their lives being smuggled to seek refuge in Yemen.

Then at 1 pm, a double bill.  Argentina: Turning Around is about Argentina’s grassroots response to an economic meltdown following an embrace of globalization that, instead of making everyone rich, caused the economy to collapse.

Playing with Argentina: Turning Around at 1 pm is Voice of a Mountain, documenting “the lives of rural Guatemalan coffee farmers who took up arms against their government in a civil war that lasted 36 years”  and their life after the war.

Another double bill at 3:15 pm, our final show at the Northwest Film Forum.  Come Back to Sudan is about three of Sudan’s “lost boys” who came to America as refugees returning years later as young men to find their families and help their families rebuild.

As We Forgive, our second feature at 3:15 pm is about the incredible concept of not only being asked to forgive those who murdered your family in the genocide in Rwanda, but living in the same community with them and letting them help rebuild.

Then we have a break until 7 pm, when we move our festival over to the SIFF Cinema for our closing night film, Sand and Sorrow, on Darfur, executive produced and narrated by George Clooney. Chronicling the efforts of people like Samantha Power and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff to call attention to and ask for action to prevent the genocide in Darfur, and including then Senator Barack Obama speaking out at a rally in DC on Darfur.

Our regular festival will conclude then, but we are co-sponsoring, in partnership with the Global Fund for Women, a showing of Pray the Devil Back to Hell at the Varsity Theater in the U District, Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 7 pm. Pray the Devil Back to Hell is about the courage of thousands of Liberian women who come together to pray for peace and stage a silent protest for an end of a bloody civil war outside the Presidential Palace which helps bring about an agreement during the stalled peace talks.

Apologies for the rough cut of all these blogs, and it’s particularly hard getting this last one off in the middle of actually volunteering for the film festival!

Tags: human+rights, Seattle, film, Seattle+Human+Rights+Film+Festival, Somali, Ethiopia, Yeman, Argentina, Guatemala, Sudan, Rwanda, Darfur, genocide, George+Clooney, Barack+Obama, Liberia, Global+Fund+for+Women

Seattle Human Rights Film Festival – Part 2 – Saturday

Our Seattle Human Rights Film Festival continues this Saturday, February 7, at the Northwest Film Forum, starting with Breaking Ranks at 11:30 am, a documentary about four former US soldiers seeking asylum in Canada as part of their resistance to the war in Iraq.

Fire Under the Snow, a film about a Tibetan monk, Palden Gyatso, shows at 1 pm. Palden Gyatso has come to Seattle to speak about several times, and it is always a powerful experience. He was arrested in 1959 for taking part in a peaceful demonstration and was imprisoned and tortured for 33 years.

Israel drafts young women as well as men, and To See If I’m Smiling, our 3 pm film Saturday, follows six female Israeli soldiers stationed in Gaza and the West Bank.   Then at 5 pm, Female Faces of War examines the effect of the Iraq war on women – both women American soldiers and Iraqi women who are in the line of fire with their families.

Female Faces of War is the first film of the festival’s Stop Violence Against Women evening.

The Sari Soldiers, at 7 pm, Saturday, tells the story of six women in Nepal on opposing sides and in the middle of the conflict between the government and Maoist insurgents.  One of the women, Devi, is trying to find out the fate of her daughter and seeking justice.  Devi spoke out publicly when her niece is tortured and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army, whose 15 year old daughter is then abducted in retaliation. 

Our final film of Saturday evening, at 9 pm, is Shame, the courageous story of Mukhtaran Mia, a poor and illiterate Pakistani woman who was gang raped and paraded naked in public in retribution for her brother’s “crime” of being interested in a girl from a higher social class. Mukhtaran not only stands up to the Pakistani judicial system without the support of her family or villagers, but gives back to the community that betrayed her, building their first school.

Still to come, Sunday’s Seattle Human Rights Film Festival films!

Tags: Seattle+Human+Rights+Fim+Festival, Amnesty+International, human+rights, film, Palden+Gyatso, Tibet, conscientious+objectors, Iraq+war, Israel, Palestine, Stop+Violence+Against+Women, Nepal, Pakistan, women’s+rights

Seattle Human Rights Film Festival – Part 1: Weds. – Fri. Films

So, I’m way behind, and the Seattle Human Rights Film Festival (SHRFF) is almost here. Our local Amnesty International group has been putting on the festival for 17 years, and after the closing of the AIUSA film festival office a few years ago, it’s entirely a local volunteer produced festival. Selecting films, talking to film makers, getting sponsors, the website (www.shrff.org), selling tickets. . . 

We start out tomorrow, Wednesday, February 4, 7 pm with One Water, at Foege Auditorium at the University of Washington, in partnership with the UW Global Health Resource Center.  One Water “highlights a world where water is exquisitely abundant in some places and dangerously lacking in others.”

Our official opening night, at the  Cinerama, is Thursday, February 5, 7 pm with In Prison My Whole Life, which about the investigation into Mumia Abu Jamal’s case by a young man born on the day Mumia was arrested.

Following up on the death penalty abolition theme is our first film Friday night (Feb. 6, 7 pm), At the Death House Door,as we move the festival over to the Northwest Film Forum on Capitol Hill. At the Death House Door is a very thought provoking film about a death row minister, Pastor Carroll Pickett, originally in favor of the death penalty, who turns against it based on his experience escorting men to die. 

Letter to Anna follows at 9 pm Friday, about the still unsolved murder of a Russian journalist, known for her reporting on Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaja. She was shot in the elevator of her building on the day she learned she was going to become a grandmother.

Coming next – Saturday and Sunday’s films! 

Full schedule online at: http://www.shrff.org

Tags: Seattle+Human+Rights+Film+Festival, Seattle, film, human+rights, Amnesty+International, Mumia+Abu+Jamal, death+penalty, Anna+Politkovskaja, Carroll+Pickett

A Dream in Doubt – Hate Crimes in post 9/11 America

Yesterday I went to a pre-screening of A Dream in Doubt at Northwest Film Forum, which will play on PBS’s Independent Lens later this month. A Dream in Doubt is about the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh whose killed because of his beard and turban in a hate crime in the Phoenix area four days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; and his brother, Rana Singh Sodhi’s fight against the hatred threatening his family and community. While there is an outpouring of support against the bigotry from the greater Phoenix community, other friends in the Sikh community are also assaulted, and another brother is murdered under mysterious circumstances while driving a cab in San Francisco.

Ironically, most of the Sikhs immigrated to America because of the prejudice and discrimination against their religion in India.  Following Indira Ghandi’s murder in 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards, a large number of Sikhs were massacred in mob violence. 

I felt the movie was very fair with the perpetrator, who may very well have mental issues (and certainly, anger management problems); but also considered himself a “patriot” at the time for killing Sodhi, and trying to kill a couple others. While there may be something to the issue of how, as he maintained from death row (now reduced to life in prison), the news playing over and over again affected him (which he compares to the rioting in the black community following the Rodney King verdict, with the police abuse having played over and over); still, we’ve had that lynch mob psychology long before television existed. 

Really disturbing was another man they interviewed, who, while he thought they should ask questions first, if someone happens to look like the perpetrators of Sept. 11 (or really, more specifically, bin Laden); that if in fact, the people these vigilantes stop happen to be from the same country, they should be beaten (not killed, though, because then you’d be in trouble).  Of course, the stupidity of this logic would show if you applied it to the worst terrorist attack before Sept. 11, which was in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, two clean cut former military men.  So, by this logic, it would be okay to randomly beat up white guys with short, military haircuts, just because they happened to look like and wear their hair the same as the terrorists in Oklahoma City (as long as they were from the same country, which was, the U.S.).

Which, of course, would never happen.  That is the thing, there is the whole racist and xenophobic element of the attacks on the Sikhs and others after the September 11 terrorism.  It’s too easy for a lot of people to see anyone different as the other, to feel uncomfortable with them being here in the first place, and judge them all together when even one person in their community does something wrong.

In addition to Rana Singh Sodhi and the film maker, the panel included Sukhvir Singh, a Sikh taxi driver who was violently assaulted right here in Seattle, and who’s perpetrator had just been sentenced.  This is one of those things you like to think “can’t happen here”.  Yet another reminder, the Seattle Civil Rights Commissioner who spoke about the attacks on gay people in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

A Dream in Doubt is playing again in Seattle tomorrow, April 21, at 4 pm at the University of Washington, Gates Hall, Room 138.  There are also still upcoming ITVS Community Cinema screenings of A Dream in Doubt in other cities across the country, including in Portland, Oregon on Weds. April 30. Then it will be on PBS stations across the country on May 20.

Tags: Sikhs, human+rights, Independent+Lens

Seattle Human Rights Film Festival – This Week!

Coming soon to a theater near you. . . human rights!  Our Amnesty International Puget Sound film festival committee has been previewing films and tracking down sponsors since September, and we’re pleased to present our 16^th Annual Seattle Human Rights Film Festival from February 13 -17 at Cinerama and Northwest Film Forum.

Wednesday night, February 13, at 7 pm, we have a very special opening night showing of New Year Baby at Cinerama (2100 4^th Ave., Seattle).  New Year Baby is about director Socheata Poeuv, who was “born on Cambodian New Year in a Thai refugee camp.  Socheata never knew how she got there.  After her birth, her family left their past behind and became American.  Her parents hid the story of surviving the Khmer Rouge genocide.  In New Year Baby, she journeys to Cambodia and discovers the truth about her family.  She uncovers their painful secrets, kept in shame, which also reveal great heroism.”

New Year Baby made me laugh as well as cry, as I got to know Socheata and her family, their heroism and the strength to not only survive but pass on the very love and values to their children the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy.  We’ll have a panel discussion afterwards, including a local member of the Cambodian-American community.

Then, starting on Friday, February 15 through Sunday, February 17, we move our film festival over to Northwest Film Forum (1515 12th Ave., on Capitol Hill in Seattle).  Amazingly, we somehow left your  Valentine’s Day free from human rights films and panels.  We’re sorry, we know it would have made for a romantic evening. . . (OK, even some of our film festival committee members rebelled)!

Friday night, February 15, is Denounce Torture night.  At 7 pm we will be showing The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, about an Iraqi journalist, Yuris Khatayer Abbas, who is arrested by American soldiers with his brothers and eventually taken to Abu Ghraib prison and charged with trying to assassinate Tony Blair. Animation, home movies, testimony from a former guard and footage from embedded reporter Michael Tucker (Gunner Palace) combine to “trace the moving story of an ordinary man trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.”

Join us for a discussion with James Yee, former US Army Muslim Chaplain for Guantanamo Bay, following the film.

Confessions of an Innocent Man shows at 9 pm Friday.  “Confessions of an Innocent Man is a raw expose that examines (Canadian citizen) William Sampson’s harrowing experience while imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for a crime he did not commit.  With no evidence of guilt and despite pleading his innocence, Sampson was repeatedly tortured and received no counsel or visitation from his government until after his captors got what they wanted: a confession.”  Join us for a discussion with filmmaker David Paperny after the film.

On Saturday, February 16, we start at 1 pm, with a double bill of A Lesson in Belorussian and Yahoo in China.  A Lesson in Belorussian (note, spelling from English subtitled version of the film) is about Franek Viacorka and his classmates from a school established by his father to promote the Belarusian language, which goes underground when banned in 2003.  The students run an underground newspaper, record music with activist lyrics and organize an opposition concert, in spite of the imprisonment of Franek’s father and threats of their own arrest.  (Actually, Franek himself has been recently arrested, and just released.)

Also showing on this double bill, Yahoo in China, which looks into the complicity of Yahoo! in giving over their customer’s information to the Chinese government to help them arrest dissidents, including journalist and poet Shi Tao, imprisoned for sending an e-mail to a US based pro-democracy site about orders to the media to downplay the upcoming 15^th Anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.  The film maker tries to talk to Yahoo! in both Hong Kong and the US, in Michael Moore style.

At 3 pm on Saturday, we follow a group of young Palestinian men secretly crossing the border to work in construction in Israel in 9 Star Hotel.  “Building luxury condominium by day, and hiding in makeshift tents to avoid authorities at night, they share food, friendship, nostalgia and an uncompromising urge to survive.” Peter Lippman of the Palestinian Solidarity Network will lead the discussion following the film.

Saturday night is Stop Violence Against Women night. At 6:30 pm, we show Killer’s Paradise about the murders of young women in Guatemala.  “Since 1999 more than two thousand women have been murdered in Guatemala, with the numbers escalating each year.  Yet, lawmakers and government officials continue to turn a blind eye.

Then at 9 pm we screen The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.  “Shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this extraordinary film shatters the silence that surrounds the shocking plight of women and girls caught in this country’s intractable conflict. The most moving and harrowing moments of the film come as dozens of survivors recount their stories with an honesty and immediacy pulverizing in it’s  intimacy and detail.” 

The most disturbing part to me was when the filmmaker (herself a survivor of a gang rape) goes into the jungle and interviews soldiers who were (self admitted) rapists. 

Join us after the film for a discussion with director, Lisa F. Jackson and Tonya Sargeant, volunteer with Mama Makeka House of Hope.  Also join us for a reception following the screening, with food from Indo Padi Restaurant.  RSVP at filmfest@aiwashington.org .

Our final day, Sunday, February 17 starts with China Blue, about sweatshop workers in China. “Shot clandestinely, this is a deep-access account of what both China and the international retailers don’t want us to see: how the clothes we buy are actually made.  Following a pair of denim jeans from birth to sale, China Blue links the power of the U.S. consumer market to the daily lives of a Chinese factory owner and two teenaged factory workers.”

Then at 3 pm on Friday, our final film Bombhunters follows rural villagers in Cambodia who seek out and dismantle unexploded bombs and landmines to sell the scrap metal for profit.  Join us for a discussion with director Skye Fitzgerald after the film.

Tickets $8, $40 festival pass. 

Full listings and tickets online at:

http://www.aiwashington.org/films.html

Tags: Seattle+Human+Rights+Film+Festival, Amnesty+International, human+rights, Seattle, film, movies, Cambodia, torture, Abu+Ghraib, Saudi+Arabia, Belarus, Yahoo!, China, Israel, Palestine, Guatemala, Stop+Violence+Against+Women, Congo, sweatshops, anti-torture

Taxi to the Dark Side

Once again, this is not The America I Believe In, but there it is.  America as a sick, demented, torturer.  Yes, it sickens me the most, that this is my country doing this, our country now torturing around the world.  Openly, no longer hidden from the public, who should be more outraged.  Our country, which is not a dictatorship.  We’re a democracy, so this is us.

I went to see a special advance showing of Taxi to the Dark Side with other local Amnesty International members tonight.  Taxi to the Dark Side is yet another a truly disturbing and well made documentary on the subject of torture – torture by the US.   A young taxi driver from Afghanistan is taken in to Bagram by US soldiers after being turned in as the driver of a get away card for a missile attack against the US base.  As it later turned out, turned in by the man who was making the attacks himself, then ingratiating himself by turning in random people as the attackers.

The taxi driver died from torture, his legs having been pulverized by kicking (much of it while chained in a stress position) to the point where, had he lived, his legs would have had to have been amputated.  A man who left behind a family, including a wife and young daughter.  A man only known as a number, a hooded non-entity, by his torturers.  Young American soldiers “just following orders” (who, of course, when the shit hits the fan are the only ones court marshaled, not those giving the orders).  Never the less, just as with the soldiers interviewed in Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, the fact is some of them really started getting into it, this time continuing to kick and beat his legs because he screamed out, then to make him scream out.

Torturing using stress positions, chains, cages, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation etc..  Once again, with Alfred McCoy pointing out these are techniques developed by the CIA, not something “the night shift” at Abu Ghraib dreamed up on their own. 

You have the Bush administration, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, actively advocating for torture and making sure laws are passed that they’ll never be prosecuted for war crimes; then they’re “Shocked! Shocked!” that torture is going on.

So “enhanced techniques” are approved because we’re not getting enough information from a suspected Al Queda mastermind, then spread from Guantanamo to Belgram then from both to Abu Ghraib.  Oh, wait, the information we got through torture, and used to justify the Iraq war?  Oops, it wasn’t true.  Of course, you can get people to confess all kinds of things when tortured; but is it true? 

Encouraging is that there were some willing to speak out and outraged within the system, including a group of JAGs (Judge Advocate Generals), someone from within the administration (after which he was kept out of the loop) and John McCain, who knows about torture too well from his own past.  Alas, he allowed himself to be bullied into standing down on the issue when it came to voting, evidently due to threats from Bush of thwarting McCains chance for election with conservatives.

This is our country.  Does this make us any safer?  In addition to unreliable intelligence, what else does it give us? Other than a recruitment add for terrorists?

This isn’t tv.  The “ticking time bomb” scenario isn’t reality.  Turn off the torture porn.  This is real, and it’s happening in our name. This is not the America I Believe In. 

Tags: Amnesty+International, human+rights, torture, anti-torture, Taxi+to+the+Dark+Side, documentary