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Human Rights Watch film festival starts for 12th year
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| Wardance |
Clapham Picturehouse has teamed up with cinemas across the capital and Time Out magazine for the 12th Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. In all, 25 films and documentaries will be screened from 19 countries, and seven of them will be featured at the refurbished Picturehouse.
Many of the filmmakers will discuss the human rights issues their movies touch upon, with Reed Brody, director of The Dictator Hunter, visiting Clapham on March 16.
The documentation of dictators is one of the festival's themes and Brody was tireless in his pursuit of Chadian dictator Hissene Habré. "If you kill one person, you go to jail. If you kill 40 people, they put you in an asylum,'' says Brody. "But if you kill 40,000, you get a comfortable exile with a bank account in another country. That is what we want to change."
Continuing this thread on Sunday is the UK premiere of Michael Christoffersen's Milosevic on Trial, in which 2,000 hours of footage from Slobodan Milosevic's trail is culled to 69 minutes of stirring narrative.
Staying in Eastern Europe, Kalinovski Square sees a confrontation between the celebrated Belarussian director Yury Khashchavatski and Europe's last dictator', President Lukashenko of Belarus. The film addresses the rigged 2006 elections.
Of particular interest is the number of women filmmakers. Opening Picturehouse's stint on Friday is Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes. It is a stunning portrait of Edward Burtynsky, a celebrated photographer who specialises in large-scale studies of industrial vistas.
This year, three films look at the continuing violence in the Middle East, including Georgi Lazarevski's documentary This Way Up. Another UK premiere, it features an old people's home for Palestinians in the West Bank, while Open Heart highlights the plight of the Palestinian healthcare system.
Clapham's involvement in the festival closes with an award-winning film: War/ Dance. It is an extraordinary story about young Ugandans who pull themselves out of the clutches of civil war through song and dance. War/Dance was an Oscar nominee (Best Feature Documentary) and won Best Director For Documentary at Sundance.
Friday, March 14, 7pm:
Manufactured Landscapes
Sunday, March 16, 4pm: The Dictator Hunter, with director Reed Brody
Sunday,March 16, 6.30pm: Milosevic On Trial
Monday, March 17, 6.45pm: This Way Up, preceded by Open Heart
Tuesday, March 18, 9pm: Kalinovski Square
Wednesday, March 19, 6.30pm: War/Dance
The other cinemas involved in the festival are Brixton Ritzy, the Gate, the ICA and the Renoir.
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival; Clapham Picturehouse, 76 Venn Street, call 0871 704 2055, visit picturehouses.co.uk
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