A MINORITY REPORT

KOSOVO MINORITIES EIGHT YEARS AFTER

Italy 2007 • Director: Stefano Giantin • 52 minutes • English/Serbian with English Subtitles

Festivals: UNAFF 2007, Mittelfest (Italy), Doc 5 (Scotland)

Kosovo is a region of roughly 11,000 square kilometres located in the south of the Balkan Peninsula. It is inhabited by around 2.2 million people, 90 percent of them Albanians. Although technically part of Serbia, Belgrade has had no de-facto authority on the province since 1999. In that year, NATO launched an air campaign against Yugoslavia in order to stop the violence perpetrated against the local Albanian population by the Milosevic regime.

In June 1999, following the three-month NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was established. UNMIK was the first peace-building operation ever based on the idea of an UN administration fully governing a post-conflict territory.

During the first year of the establishment of UNMIK, over 240,000 members of minorities – mostly Serbs, Roma and Gorani – fled Kosovo. Hundreds of those who stayed were killed, kidnapped or otherwise brutally persecuted for not belonging to the majority community.

A Minority Report is the result of more than two years of research and filming in the UN administered province of Kosovo. The film analyses the human rights situation of Kosovo minorities after eight years of international administration, through interviews with IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), refugees and returnees, as well as with the international civil servants that have ruled the province for the last seven years. Those who returned have found their properties destroyed or occupied. They live in ghettoes dispersed throughout Kosovo, often without access to basic services. Threats, harassments and isolation are part of the daily life of returnees.

Screenings

Wellington	Saturday 10 May, 6.00pm	Tuesday 13 May, 8.15pm
Auckland	Saturday 17 May, 6.00pm	Tuesday 20 May, 8.15pm
Christchurch	Saturday 24 May, 6.00pm	Tuesday 27 May, 8.15pm
Dunedin	Saturday 31 May, 6.00pm	Tuesday 3 June, 8.15pm

Uncategorized

MAQUILAPOLIS

CITY OF FACTORIES

USA/Mexico 2006 • Director: Vicky Funari & Sergio De La Torre • 70 minutes • Spanish with English Subtitles

Festivals: Rotterdam, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Seattle, Karlovy Vary 2006

Carmen works the graveyard shift in one of Tijuana’s 800 maquiladoras, the multinationally-owned factories that came to Mexico for its cheap labour. After making television components all night, Carmen comes home to a shack she built out of recycled garage doors, in a neighbourhood with no sewage lines or electricity. She suffers from kidney damage and lead poisoning from her years of exposure to toxic chemicals. She earns six dollars a day. But Carmen is not a victim. She is a dynamic young woman, busy making a life for herself and her children.

As Carmen and a million other maquiladora workers produce televisions, electrical cables, toys, clothes, computer keyboards, batteries, and IV tubes, they weave the very fabric of life for consumer nations. They also confront labour violations, environmental devastation, and urban chaos — life on the frontier of the global economy.

In Maquilapolis, Carmen and her friend Lourdes reach beyond the daily struggle for survival to organise for change: Carmen takes a major television manufacturer to task for violating her labour rights. Lourdes pressures the government to clean up a toxic waste dump left behind by a departing factory. The women also use video cameras to document their lives, their city, and their hopes for the future.

As they work for change, the world changes too: a global economic crisis and the availability of cheaper labour in China begin to pull the factories away from Tijuana, leaving Carmen, Lourdes and their colleagues with an uncertain future.

Screenings

Wellington	Friday 9 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 10 May, 8.15pm
Auckland	Friday 16 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 17 May, 8.15pm
Christchurch	Friday 23 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 24 May, 8.15pm
Dunedin	Friday 30 May, 6.15pm	Saturday 31 May, 8.15pm

Uncategorized

FIGHTING THE SILENCE

SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN CONGO

The Netherlands 2007 • Director: Ilse & Femke van Velzen • 53 minutes • French/Swahili with English Subtitles

Festivals: IDFA 2007, Netherlands AIFF, Jerusalem IFF, London IDF 2008

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s seven-year war was the deadliest ever recorded in Africa. During that time, more than 80,000 women and girls were raped. Only now that the country is formally at peace are the consequences of the brutality becoming truly visible. Rape is slowly seeping into everyday life.

Fighting the Silence tells the story of ordinary Congolese women and men that are struggling to change their society: one that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists. Rape survivors and their families speak out openly about the suffering they endured because their culture considers women second-class citizens and rape a taboo. They give voice to thousands of other survivors and their families who have chosen to hide their grief and remain silent, for fear of being rejected by their families and community.

Girls and women survivors tell of the brutality they experienced. Married couples openly talk about the pain they endure. Husbands talk of the pressures that led them to abandon their wives and why they agreed to take them back. A father explains why he has given up on his daughter’s future and how he wishes he could afford to take her rapist to court. Soldiers and policemen share their (shocking) views about why rape continues to flourish despite the war having offi cially ended four years ago.

Screenings

Wellington	Friday 9 May, 8.15pm	Sunday 11 May, 5.45pm
Auckland	Friday 16 May, 8.15pm	Sunday 18 May, 5.45pm
Christchurch	Friday 23 May, 8.15pm	Sunday 25 May, 5.45pm
Dunedin	Friday 30 May, 8.15pm	Sunday 1 June, 5.45pm

Uncategorized

THE DICTATOR HUNTER

The Netherlands 2007 • Director: Klaartje Quirijns • 54 minutes • English/French/Arabic with English Subtitles

Festivals: DOCNOIR Award - Best Documentary Courmayeur Noir In Festival Italy 2007, IDFA, Toronto IFF 2007

“If you kill one person, you go to jail. If you kill 40 people, they put you in an insane asylum. But if you kill 40,000 people, you get a comfortable exile with a bank account in another country, and that’s what we want to change here.” Reed Brody, Human Rights Watch

He hunts dictators for a living, as a lawyer for Human Rights Watch. For seven years, Brody has been chasing one former dictator in particular: Hissène Habré, the former leader of Chad, who is charged with killing thousands of his own countrymen in the 1980s. Now Habré lives in Senegal where Brody is attempting to have him brought to trial or extradited.

Director Klaartje Quirijns has a keen instinct for exploring international politics through the eyes of memorable characters. Her previous film, The Brooklyn Connection, tells one man’s story of building a guerrilla army. He did it by buying high-powered sniper rifles; weapons that can be legally purchased in the US.

In The Dictator Hunter we follow Brody over the course of two suspenseful years as he travels through Africa, Europe and the United States. He conducts diplomacy like the chess games he plays with his son. But in his work, the chess pieces are politicians, journalists, and judges that Brody positions against his opponent. The Dictator Hunter shows what it takes for one man to break the cycle of impunity.

Screenings

Wellington	Tuesday 13 May, 6.00pm	Thursday 15 May, 8.15pm
Auckland	Tuesday 20 May, 6.00pm	Thursday 22 May, 8.15pm
Christchurch	Tuesday 27 May, 6.00pm	Thursday 29 May, 8.15pm
Dunedin	Tuesday 3 June, 6.00pm	Thursday 5 June, 8.15pm

Uncategorized

CHILDREN OF A NATION

New Zealand/Timor Leste 2007 • Director: Peter Marra • 52 minutes • English/Tedum with English Subtitles

Set amongst the chaos of youth gang fighting in 2006 that has turned tens of thousands of East Timorese families into IDPs (Internally Displaced People), an inspired East Timorese teacher develops a vision for the children in her school. Sister Aurora Pires, along with New Zealand teacher Anne Fisher, trains teachers to nurture their young students so they can heal wounds and break the cycle of trauma to build a humanistic and truly democratic society.

New Zealand documentary maker Peter Marra, with the collaboration of the East Timorese filmmakers of the Centro Audio Visual Max Stahl Archive Timor Leste, uncovers this remarkable story while documenting the home and school life of a five-year-old child. Soon after filming her first days at school, and having returned to New Zealand, Marra learns that the girl and her family have been forced to abandon their home and flee, as violence escalates in their neighbourhood of Comoro in the capital city Dili. Marra returns to East Timor with the intention of finding her. Through interviews with school teachers and other local leaders, Marra uncovers a personal story that creates a portrait of the reality and needs of the Children of a Nation. This is also the universal story of the needs of all children in every culture.

Screenings

Wellington	Sunday 11 May, 3.45pm	Monday 12 May, 8.30pm
Auckland	Sunday 18 May, 3.45pm	Monday 19 May, 6.00pm
Christchurch	Sunday 25 May, 3.45pm	Monday 26 May, 6.00pm
Dunedin	Sunday 1 June, 3.45pm	Monday 2 June, 6.00pm

Uncategorized

AFGHAN CHRONICLES

Canada 2007 • Director: Dominic Morissette • 54 minutes • English/French/Pashto/Dahi with English Subtitles

Festivals: Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, Montréal 2007

Since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan has been rebuilding itself and reviving democracy, and there is now some freedom of expression. With its radio station and two magazines, one of them aimed at women, the press agency Killid Media is a real media phenomenon. This new press, dedicated to fighting ignorance and illiteracy, is promoting a message freed from the constraints of tradition and setting the foundations of modernity. As it follows the distribution of these popular magazines across Kabul, Afghan Chronicles shows the struggles within this changing society and paints a touching picture of a land that is a work in progress, dreaming of a better future. Yet achievements are still fragile.

What will become of the dream of renewal cherished by this nation trying to rebuild itself?

Screenings

Wellington	Sunday 11 May, 1.30pm	Friday 16 May, 6.15pm
Auckland	Sunday 18 May, 1.30pm	Friday 23 May, 6.15pm
Christchurch	Sunday 25 May, 1.30pm	Friday 30 May, 6.15pm
Dunedin	Sunday 1 June, 1.30pm	Friday 6 June, 6.15pm

Uncategorized

A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL

USA 2007 • Director: Mary Olive Smith • 85 minutes • English/Amharic/Oromiffa with English Subtitles

Festivals: WINNER Audience Award Best Documentary IDA 2007, San Francisco IFF, HRAFF, Silverdocs AFI 2007

A Walk to Beautiful tells the stories of five Ethiopian women who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries and make the journey to reclaim their lost dignity. Rejected by their husbands and ostracised by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. The trials they endure — and their attempts to rebuild their lives — tell a universal story of hope, courage, and transformation.

Ayehu, Almaz, Zewdie, Yenenesh, and Wubete suffered through prolonged, unrelieved obstructed labour in a country with few hospitals and even fewer roads to get to them. Although they survived the often-fatal childbirth experience, they were left with a stillborn baby and feeling, as Ayehu tells us, that “even death would be better than this.” The obstructed labour has left each of them incontinent.

In most of their cases, this is as a result of an obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal. We discover Ayehu, 25, living in a makeshift shack behind her mother’s house where she’s hidden for four years, shunned by siblings and neighbours alike because of her smell.

She hesitantly begins her journey on foot, and once she gets to the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, she realises for the first time that she isn’t the only person in the world suffering from this problem. At the hospital we meet Almaz, a woman also in her 20s who was abducted by her now-husband in a village market and has suffered from double fistula for three years.

Zewdie, 38, has five children longing for their mother to be well. Though abandoned by her husband, Zewdie is supported by the strong extended family that surrounds her. As for Wubete and Yenenesh, both 17, early marriage and their small physical stature (the result of undernourishment and heavy labour) determined the tragic outcome of their first pregnancies. For these two girls a cure is not simple. We’re with them as they struggle with disappointing news and later as their youthful determination triumphs.
We follow each of these women on their journey to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where they find solace for the first time in years, and we stay with them as their lives begin to change.

Through the intimate experiences all five share, we are no longer in the heart of Africa – we are in the hearts of these women. And through their eyes we also reveal a larger story, that of the seemingly intractable problems facing women in the developing world, including malnutrition, child marriage, and lack of obstetric care.

Screenings

Wellington	Thursday 8 May, 7.15pm	Saturday 10 May, 1.30pm
Auckland	Thursday 15 May, 8.00pm	Saturday 17 May, 1.30pm
Christchurch	Thursday 22 May, 7.15pm	Saturday 24 May, 1.30pm
Dunedin	Thursday 29 May, 6.30pm	Saturday 31 May, 1.30pm