Human Rights Watch at TIFF

HUMAN RIGHS WATCH AT TIFF

This year the annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents ten feature films that inspire hope, confront oppression, seek truth and demonstrate humanity’s will to defend their own rights and those of others.

From Peru to Iran, Kenya to Belgium, these documentary and fiction films—many centred around the theme of family—reach beyond the headlines to reveal the core issues underlying many of the human rights abuses occurring worldwide.These powerful depictions of the struggles necessary to preserve one’s basic freedoms speaks eloquently to the universality of human rights in an evermore interdependent world, inspiring people to raise their voices in defense of those whocannot. —Alex Rogalski

Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, Human Rights Watch gives voice to the oppressed and holds oppressors accountable for their crimes. Rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For thirty years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.

The Human Rights Watch Canada Committee was formed in 2002 and is part of a network of committees across eighteen cities in Europe, Asia and North America. The committees include more than 550 people from a variety of backgrounds. The committees are an informed and engaged constituency that is a key part of Human Rights Watch’s defense of human rights. Committees seek to increase awareness of local and global human rights issues and enlist the public and governments to support basic freedoms for all. Committee members meet regularly to learn about human rights abuses, sponsor policy debates, and generate support for Human Rights Watch and its mission through fundraising, outreach, and advocacy.

The Canadian premiere of Ali Samadi’s documentary, The Green Wave, about the tumultuous Iranian presidential elections in 2009, will open the 8th annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival, co-presented with TIFF, on February 22, 2011 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. The festival will run until March 4.
The Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival is a project of the Human Rights Watch Canada Committee. The festival brings to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges individuals to empathize and demand justice for all people.

Tickets to the Opening Night Reception, which includes the premiere screening of The Green Wave, are now on sale from the Human Rights Watch office. Please call 416-322-8448 to purchase your tickets.

Four films are reviewed below.  Please note that full reviews are only allowed ifnthe film has already had a release.  If not, only capsule reviews are provided.

THE GREEN WAVE (Germany 2010) ***
Directed by Ali Samada Ahadi

Appropriately chosen as the gala opening for this year’s Human Rights Watch Festival for its sheer riveting subject matter, THE GREEN WAVE is a mixed live action documentary animation that depicts the horrors of human injustice.  At one point in the middle of the film, one is bound to wonder how one human being could do so much harm to another.  And to the same race (Iranian and Muslim) and religion too!  It all starts with the fixed so-called democratic elections in Tehran that led to countless protestors in the streets the day after.  This leads to the police and militia beatings of the people.  The connection becomes increasingly blurry as more and more innocent people get kidnapped and beaten, now often for no apparent reason.  The green wave of the film’s title refers to symbol that reflects the hope and change of a country that led to chaos.  The film is constructed mainly from internet blogs followed by interviews and news footage.  The missing gaps are provided by animation which also serves to depict the horrors of the current situation.  The Iranians talking heads complain that other developed countries should also aid them fight their cause on human rights.  This makes total sense and perhaps this film will initiate that action.

FIRST GRADER (UK 2010) ***
Directed by Justin Chadwick

When the government of Kenya announces it will offer free primary education for the first time, an eighty-four-year-old man, Kimani N’gan’ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo), shows up on the doorstep of a rural school, ready for class.  After a few rejections, the teacher makes an executive decision to let him study.  It turns out that Maruge’s family were slaughtered by the British.  When he incites the children to cry freedom and hits a bully and it is revealed on radio that an old man is studying in a promary school, the authorities give him the boot.  The teacher takes it upon herself to fight for Maruge to stay in school.  Chadwick’s film is not overdramatic and the story unfolds as a tale of oppression and a fight for doing what is right.  Appropriate counter arguments are offered both wys on why and why not Maruge should stay in school.  Most of the violence is miniized and showed in flashbacks in this effective tale of human rights.

WHEN WE LEAVE (Turkey/German 2010) **
Directed by Feo Adalag

Based on a highly publicized honour killing in Berlin in 2005, WHEN WE LEAVE stars Sibel Kekilli as Umay, a young Turkish Muslim woman who courageously decides to leave her abusive husband in Istanbul and join her family in Germany with her young son. Her reunion with her parents and siblings soon reveals that cultural ties are strong and her family’s love is not unconditional. Umay’s struggle for independence in a patriarchal society bound by tradition and pride makes for a passionately dramatic film that provocatively explores issues of family, community values and personal freedom.  But director Adalag shows only the husband pushing Umay and locking the son up in a room and being nice to her (though wanting) sex after, not depicting strong enough reason to the audience for Umay’s move.  Also the killing at the end seems contrived and hardly follows the logic of the segments before when the father asks Umay for forgiveness.  Rather uneven, which is a disappointment given the film’s important theme!

YOU DON’T LIKE THE TRUTH: 4 DAYS INSIDE GUANTANAMO
(Canada 2009) ****
Directed by Luc Cote and Patricio Henrique

The truth is often awful!  This one that is revealed 4 days inside Guantanamo is so awful, it would not only infuriate one to disbelief but also move one to tears at the horrors of what human beings are capable of doing, under the curtain of redemption.

The documentary is divided into 4 parts or a documentation of the 4 days at detention centre when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) interrogated Omar Khadr, suspect of killing a U.S. soldier.  Omar has been detained with no human rights and tortured both physically and mentally.
What transpires on film is the cat-and-mouse dialogue occurring between CSIS interrogator and Omar.  The dialogue is interpreted by experts that include Omar’s lawyer, Omar’s military counsel, a Toronto Star reporter and a psychiatrist.  Though no torture is depicted on screen in this film, what is imagined by the audience and the mental anguish of Omar portrayed onscreen are much more disturbing.

To add fuel fire, there is one scene where Omar cries for a full 10 minute after breaking down, with his cries translating to … “My mother”.  Omar’s mother is brought in to say her two cents worth in how helpless she is to aid her son.

Besides the personnel already described above, director Cote and Henrique have assembled a terrific cast of interviewees that also include Omar’s sister and a monster torturer at Guantanamo Bay by the name of Damien Corsetti.  In Wikipedia, Corsetti is described as a soldier in the U.S. army.  As part of the Army’s investigation into prisoner abuse at Bagram, (where Omar was first detained) Corsetti was charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, assault and performing an indecent act with another person. PFC Corsetti was later found not guilty of all charge though he is well known as the Monster or King of Torture.

The most fascinating thing about this film is Corsetti’s admission that he thought Omar had undergone more than he could handle.  This King of Torture pitied Omar.  And with reason, as he says that Omar was only 16 and still a boy!
Luc Cote and Patricio Henrique have made one of the most harrowing documentaries about Guantanamo Bat without showing a drop of blood!