The human rights stuff

05 February 2008

THE ENVIRONMENT HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
12 21ST MARCH 2008
The Ritzy, Clapham Picture House, Gate Cinema, Greenwich Picturehouse,
Renoir, ICA
www.hrw.org/iff

From 12-21st March, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (HRWIFF)
returns to six cinemas across London with a programme of 23 eye-opening and
inspiring documentary and feature films that dig beneath the surface of stories from 19 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Chad, Chile, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Lebanon, Liberia, Nepal, Palestine, Sudan, Uganda and USA. Most screenings are followed by lively debate and discussion between filmmakers, audiences and human rights experts.

Four titles in this year's festival focus on the environment.

EVERYTHING'S COOL directed by Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand
Saturday, 16 March 18.15 at ICA - Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand present
Monday, 17 March 18.30 at Gate Cinema - Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand
present

In Everything's Cool, filmmakers Daniel Gold and Judith Helfand bring their comedic, insightful style to explore one of the most intriguing and troubling questions among international environmentalists: why have Americans lagged so far behind the rest of the world in accepting global warming? In 2004, when US polls showed that global warming ranked last as a voting issue, Gold and Helfand rented a bio-diesel truck to tour cross-country to find out if the polls were right, and Americans really didn't care. In this new self-described "toxic comedy," the filmmakers chronicle the struggle between two groups of global warming messengers: the "good guys"which include a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who repeatedly tries to retire but can't; the Weather Channel's first climatologist to focus solely on global warming but gets 30-seconds to do it, and the "bad guys," mostly industry-sponsored hacks who derailed media and public attention and paralysed the nation with their manufactured doubt. As much about messaging as it is about the messengers, as much about human nature as it is about humans' impact on nature, Everything's Cool explores what it will take to move the US from laggard nation to world leader on global
warming.
*Official selection, Sundance Film Festival 2007
US 2007 / 94m / doc
In English

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES directed by Jennifer Baichwal
Friday, 14 March 19.00 at Clapham Picturehouse
Saturday, 15 March 18.30 at ICA

Manufactured Landscapes is both a stunning portrait of Edward Burtynsky,
internationally celebrated photographer who specialises in large-scale studies of industrial vistas, and an exploration of the aesthetics and social and spiritual dimensions of globalisation around the world today. Acclaimed filmmaker, Jennifer Baichwal (Let it Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles; The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia) follows Burtynsky to China and to Bangladesh, where he captures the effects of the massive industrial revolution those countries currently are undergoing.
Baichwal focuses on the human cogs in the machine, contrasting Burtynsky's
epic photographs with the tedium the workers endure and the sometimes toxic
and alienating impact of globalisation on the very people the transformations are supposed to benefit most. Beautifully shot and edited, and conceived with a startling awareness of the repercussions of our mania to control and repackage our environment, Manufactured Landscapes is a truly unsettling look at contemporary existence.
*Official selection, Toronto International Film Festival 2006
Canada 2005 / 87m / doc
In English

WHITE LIGHT / BLACK RAIN directed by Steven Okazaki
Tuesday, 18 March 18.30 at Renoir - Steven Okazaki present (tbc)
Wednesday, 19 March 21.00 at ICA - Steven Okazaki present (tbc)

Academy award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki delivers some breathtaking figures in his latest documentary White Light / Black Rain: 75% of Japan's population was born after 1945; the atomic explosion on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 killed 140,000 people and on 9 August 1945 in Nagasaki the second attack killed 70,000; a further 170,000 people subsequently died as a result of illness and injuries caused by these nuclear attacks. Yet if the young people who Okazaki interviewed on the bustling streets of modern Hiroshima are anything to go by, many young Japanese today can't recall the significance of these dates. But more compelling than the figures are the unforgettable interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, which reveal both unimaginable suffering and extraordinary human resilience. These indelible accounts are illustrated with survivor paintings and drawings, and historical footage and photographs, including newly uncovered material. As one survivor said, "I'm here to make sure it doesn't happen again". White Light/Black Rain stands as a powerful warning to today's world, which harbours nuclear weapons with the firepower of 400,000 Hiroshimasthat we cannot afford to forget what happened on those two days in 1945.
US 2007 / 86m / doc
In English, Japanese, Korean with English subtitles

UP THE YANGTZE directed by Yung Chang
Sunday, 16 March 18.30, Renoir - Yung Chang present (tbc)
Tuesday, 18 March 20.45, Ritzy - Yung Chang present (tbc)
A symbol of China's economic prowess, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze
River is the world's largest, and China's biggest engineering feat since the
Great Wall. It also represents the end to a way of life and livelihood for two million people along the Yangtze. Among those being forced to relocate are the Yu family. Poor, illiterate farmers with few options available to them, they decide to send their oldest daughter Yu Shui to work on a cruise ship. Working for the same cruise line is Chen Bo Yu, the only son from a middle class family. Good looking and proficient in English, Jerry (as he is renamed by the cruise line), sees this as an opportunity, a stepping stone to bigger and better things, while Yu Shui (renamed Cindy) would prefer to continue her education. Both struggle with the demands of their jobs, especially the expectation to understand Western social cues and to operate comfortably in a Western social environment. Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang crafts a beautifully photographed and moving metaphor for life in contemporary China, as well as a disquieting glimpse into a future that awaits us all.
Canada 2007 93m video doc
In Mandarin with English Subtitles

Box Office information:

Ritzy Cinema: 0871 704 2065 / www.picturehouses.co.uk
ICA: 0207 930 3647 / www.ica.org.uk
Clapham Picture House: 0871 704 2055 / www.picturehouses.co.uk
Renoir: 0871 704 2055 / www.picturehouses.co.uk
Gate Cinema: 0871 704 2058 / www.picturehouses.co.uk