Amnesty International Film Festival

Amnesty International Nelson 10^th Annual Film Festival    

Saturday, January 21, 2010,  Capitol Theatre, Nelson

Afternoon Showing    Doors open at 1:00

1:30 pm   Blood in the Mobile  (Denmark, Germany, 82 minutes)

Did you know your mobile phone contributes to violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Danish director Frank Piasecki Poulsen takes on the Congolese military and warlords to gain access to Bisie, a militia-controlled mine that produces cassiterite, a tin oxide used in cell phones. This compelling documentary reveals a mineral trade plagued with violence and human exploitation. Poulsen takes his findings back to mobile phone giant Nokia, a company that nets up to $1.6 billion in profits annually. His hope is that Nokia will stand behind its claim that “Sustainability is in everything we do.” Winner of the Cinema for Peace award in Berlin, Blood in the Mobile brings to light important issues to consider in our race for connectivity. "Recommended" - The Toronto Star.

3:25 pm   Children of War  (Uganda, USA, 75 minutes)

Filmed in northern Uganda over a period of three years, Children of War is a unique and incandescent documentary which follows a group of former child soldiers as they escape the battlefield, enter the sanctuary of a rehabilitation center, and undergo a remarkable process of trauma therapy and emotional healing with the help of a heroic team of trauma counselors.        

Best Feature: Artivist International Film Festival (Los Angeles) 
Justice Award: Cinema for Peace (Berlin)

Evening Showing   Doors open at 6:30

7: 00 pm   When China Met Africa (UK-France, 75 minutes)

A historic gathering of over 50 African heads of state in Beijing reverberates in Zambia where the lives of three characters unfold. Mr Liu is one of thousands of Chinese entrepreneurs who have settled across the continent in search of new opportunities. He has just bought his fourth farm and business is booming. In northern Zambia, Mr Li, a project manager for a multinational Chinese company is upgrading Zambia's longest road. Pressure to complete the road on time intensifies when funds from the Zambian government start running out. Meanwhile Zambia's Trade Minister is on route to China to secure millions of dollars of investment. Through the intimate portrayal of these characters, the expanding footprint of a rising global power is laid bare - pointing to a radically different future, not just for Africa, but also for the world. Canadian premiere


Winner, Best Filmmaker: Margaret Mead Film Festival (New York)

8:45 pm   Cultures of Resistance  (USA, 73 minutes)

Can music and dance be weapons of peace? On the eve of the Iraq war director Iara Lee embarked on a journey to better understand a world increasingly embroiled in conflict. She found graffiti and rap artists fighting government repression in Iran, monks protesting in Burma, musicians reaching out to slum kids in Brazil, women’s leaders in Rwanda, and hip-hop artists from Palestine, and more, all using art and creativity in the name of peace and justice.                

Best Documentary on Human Rights Award: Steps International Film Festival (Ukraine)

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Tickets at the Capitol Theatre box office or online at www.capitoltheatre.bc.ca

 $8 for each showing  /  $6 for students, seniors, fixed income

For more information, please contact Toshio Rahman at trahman@amnesty.ca

The 16th Annual Amnesty International Film Festival ran in Vancouver in mid-November and organizers are pleased to announce the winners of the audience awards as follows:

Gold Audience Award: Aung San Suu Kyi: Lady of No Fear

Silver Audience Award: Children of War

Bronze Audience Award: The Price of Sex

Congratulations to these filmmakers, and thanks to everyone who contributed to 2011 AI Film Festivals across the country!

Every day the news brings us stories about the violation of human rights in places near and far. So why do so many governments suppress protest, deny democratic reform, and commit violence against women, men and children? For an inside look, plan now to attend the Amnesty International Film Festival, November 17-20 at SFU Harbour Centre Theatre, 515 West Hastings Street. This year the festival is a co-presentation of Amnesty International and the SFU School for International Studies. We are very pleased to be working together to present award-winning films that tell compelling stories about the most important issues of our time. The full program is posted at www.amnestyfilmfest.ca.

The films in this festival will take you to coltan mines deep in the earth below the DRC, onto the streets with the monks of Burma, and into the slums of South Africa. You will meet women’s rights activists in the Nicaraguan jungle and survivors of the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. And you will get a peek behind the scenes in North Korea, Russia, China, and several corporate boardrooms. Like Amnesty International itself, the filmmakers behind these films are dedicated to shining a light on repression and injustice and making sure the world takes notice.

This festival also aims to inspire, and this year we are pleased to present a number of films that celebrate individuals and groups working for positive social change despite great challenges in places like Liberia, Guatemala, Burma, and the Middle East. We are especially pleased to bring back last year’s audience favourite, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, whose main subject, Leymah Gbowee, was one of three courageous women presented with the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

Most screenings will feature guest speakers, including some directors who will be joining us via Skype, and we will post updates to the website. Be sure to join us on Sunday when numerous non-government organizations will join us for a social action fair.

DOXA Documentary Film Festival (Vancouver)

Special presentation of Amnesty! When They Are All Free
Friday, May 13 at 4 pm (Pacific Cinematheque)

Amnesty International is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this month. This independent and critical documentary brings together an extraordinary cast of interviewees, from Sting to Rowan Atkinson, from Sir Louis Blom Cooper, one of the founders, to Jack Straw, the British Home Secretary who released General Pinochet. They shed light on how Amnesty International has changed the world, and how the world has changed Amnesty International. Amnesty! When They Are All Free mixes contemporary events and Amnesty's history to reveal how a 'letter-writing organisation' has developed into one of the world's most influential NGOs. It portrays Amnesty's successes and failures over the decades, and the challenges it now faces as a multinational movement that is trying to hold its ground in a shifting human rights landscape.

Made with unprecedented access to Amnesty, the camera follows the new Secretary General Salil Shetty as he battles with the problems of prisoners in China and homophobia in Uganda. It also journeys with Amnesty's researchers into the devastation of Haiti and the tumult of Egypt's elections and subsequent revolution.

Amnesty! When They Are All Free poses the fundamental question: has the human rights movement been able to hold back mankind's capacity for atrocity? North American premiere. Admission by donation for this film only; discussion to follow. http://www.doxafestival.ca/festival/films/amnesty_when_they_are_all_free.html

Blood in the Mobile (Victoria)

Amnesty International Victoria and Congo Rising present Blood in the Mobile, a documentary on the connection between our phones and the civil war in the Congo from director Frank Piasecki Poulsen. Thursday May 5 at 7pm at the UVic Engineering and Computer Science Building Room 108.

Afghan Star (Vernon)

Amnesty International Vernon presents the award-winning Afghan Star on Monday, May 9 at the Vernon & District Performing Arts Centre. Film begins at 7 pm and admission is by donation.

After 30 years of war and Taliban rule, pop culture has returned to Afghanistan. Afghan Star - a Pop Idol-style TV series – is searching the country for the next generation of music stars. Over 2000 people are auditioning and even 3 women have come forward to try their luck. But in a troubled country like Afghanistan, even music is controversial.  Considered sacrilegious by the Mujahiddeen and outright banned by the Taliban (1996-2001), music has come to symbolize freedom for the youth. While the conflict still rages, many of those taking part are literally risking their lives.

This event is hosted by Amnesty International’s Vernon group, and also includes representatives from Grannies a Gogo, the Palestinian Study Group, as well as a display by Kal Secondary’s international students. For more information, visit www.amnestyvernon.ca.

VANCOUVER: For the first time in human history, most of the world’s population lives in cities, yet access to fresh water is an everyday struggle for more than one billion people. To mark World Water Day, Tuesday March 22, Amnesty International and Oxfam Canada are screening the award-winning film “A World Without Water” and presenting a panel discussion on the right to water.

The event will take place at Vancouver Community College downtown campus, 250 West Pender Street, in theatre room 112. Doors open at 6.30 pm and the film will begin at 7 pm. Admission is by donation but no one will be turned away.

“A World without Water” is the story of several communities and peoples in India, Bolivia, Africa and the United States. All face the issue of privatization of their water supply or the outright denial of their right to access fresh water and adequate sanitation.

The 76 minute film introduces viewers to Lino in Bolivia, Christina in Tanzania, and Betty in the USA, all of whom face difficult living conditions due to the rising costs of water. The movie also features farmers in India who have to “share” their water with Coca-Cola, while the company steadily drains local aquifers complicating local agriculture production. The film vividly highlights the approaching water crisis and the paradoxical use of natural resources throughout the world.

Following the main feature, there will be the local premiere of a new short film on the right to water produced by youth members of the Lubicon First Nation of northern Alberta. The evening will end with a panel presentation and audience discussion. For more information contact Don Wright at dwright@amnesty.ca.

Amnesty International and Oxfam Canada are pleased to present a very special screening of A Powerful Noise on International Women’s Day, March 8, at Langara College, 100 West 49th Avenue, Vancouver. A Powerful Noise takes you inside the lives of three women – a girls' education crusader from Mali, an HIV-positive widow from Vietnam, and a peacemaking survivor of the war in Bosnia – who each overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to bring lasting solutions to their communities. The evening will also feature  guest speakers and the short film Sisters on the Planet: Sahena’s Story. Doors will open at 6:30 pm, with the program getting under way at 7 pm. Room 122A. Admission is by donation; no one will be turned away.

The 9th annual Nelson Amnesty International Film Festival is Saturday, January 29.

The festival opens with an afternoon double bill that offers contrast and food for thought. At 1:30 Nero’s Guests, filmed in India in 2009 follows a Rural Affairs editor of a Hindu newspaper as he examines the story behind the almost 200,000 farmers who have committed suicide in the last decade.

Cut to The Yes Men Fix the World at 3pm, a two-time festival award winner in which two gonzo political activists infiltrate the world of big business, their outrageous pranks highlighting corporate greed. By posing as top executives of the corporations they hate, Yes Men Mike Bonnano and Andy Bichlbaum don thrift-store suits, lie their way into conferences, and parody their corporate nemeses, from Dow Chemical to Exxon.

Saturday evening’s fare begins at 7pm with H2Oil, an examination of the downstream effects of the billion-dollar Athabasca Tar Sands industry, particularly as it impacts the community of Fort Chipewyan. When alarms are raised about occurrences of rare cancers, industry and government cover-ups are exposed.

At 8:45pm Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles the story of courageous Liberian women and their crusade to end a bloody civil war and mend a shattered country in a film that honours strength, perseverance, and grassroots activism.

Tickets, available at the Capitol Theatre box office or online at www.capitoltheatre.bc.ca, are just $6 for either afternoon or evening presentations.

Amnesty International film festivals in Vancouver, Victoria, and Toronto continue through the weekend with a wide variety of award-winning films that tell compelling stories about some of the most important issues of our time -- head for www.amnestyfilmfest.ca for a link to all three festival websites and a full description of all films and guest speakers.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, The Dammed, scheduled for Friday, November 19 at 4:30 pm, is not available, so we are pleased to offer a special pre-release screening of a brand new film by award-winning filmmaker Hossein Fazeli entitled Legacy of Nonviolent Struggle in Iran.

This film takes a look at the two most recent mass movements in Iran’s history: the 1979 Revolution that brought the clerics to power, and the 2009 mass protests, known as the Green Movement, that threatened the foundation of clerical rule. The film presents interviews with Ivan Marovic, a founder of OTPOR, the Serbian movement that ended the rule of Slobodan Milosevic, and Mohsen Sazgara, a founding member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, among other activists.

Tickets will be available at the door and the director will be in attendance. This is a matinee screening, all seats are $7.

The full program for this festival is posted at van.amnestyfilmfest.ca.