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FESTIVAL: HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
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Shock in trade
The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival annually offers a collection of dramatic documentaries and passionate features about some of the world's most desperate human-rights conditions.
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is the opposite of a luxury cruise around the world. Its ports of call are in some of the worst, most degrading places on earth — making us tourists of world's greatest inhumanities, and occasionally its most deeply suppressed hopes. We are called on not to simply take these sights casually, buy a souvenir and move on to the next stop.
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The festival, sponsored by the organization Human Rights Watch, brings together 38 films from 15 countries — many of them guaranteed to be among the most unsparingly dramatic films of the year. Some of the excellent films will go on to theatrical release or television — in recent years, these have included "Regret to Inform," "La Ciudad," "Port of Last Resort" and "Earth."
This year's festival is heavy on the issues of the Middle East, with the documentary "Promises" about Jewish and Palestinian children growing up in the Jerusalem area; "Around the Pink House," about two displaced families in Lebanon being forced out of the house they've occupied for 20 years; "Trembling Before G-d" (pictured above) about gay Jews emerging from strict Orthodox communities; and at least three more.
Opening the festival is "Life and Debt," a must-see indictment of the economic effects of trade agreements and IMF debt on the people of Jamaica. It will open at the Cinema Village theater immediately after its festival premiere, and will also be seen on public television's "P.O.V." later this summer.
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Festival articles
Reviews:
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Life and Debt
An unforgettable look at the real human consequences of economic globalization, focusing on farmers and workers in Jamaica.
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JUNE 14, 2001
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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