Tickets and Locations

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft Way @ Bowditch Street
(on the southern edge of the
UC Berkeley campus)
Berkeley, CA
510- 642-1412
For daily PFA program,
upcoming programs and updates
(24-hour) 510-642-1124
www.bampfa.berkeley.edu
General admission is $7;
BAM/PFA members $5;
UC Berkeley students $4;
non-UC Berkeley students $5;
senior citizens (65 and over),
disabled persons and children
(12 and under) $4.50;
Additional feature - all patrons $1.50
PFA Charge-by-Phone 510-642-5249
Advance ticket sales start January 2, 2001.

Rafael Film Center
1118 Fourth Street
(between A & B Streets)
San Rafael, CA
415-454-1222
www.rafaelfilmcenter.org
General admission is $7.50;
seniors, children under 12
and matinees before 4 pm $4.75;
Film Institute members $4.50.
Advance tickets available at the box office.
The Rafael Film Center is owned and operated by the Film Institute of Northern California, the non-profit arts organization that also produces the annual Mill Valley Film Festival. Video projection at the Rafael Film Center is provided by Digital Projection, Inc.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA
415-978-2700
www.yerbabuenaarts.org
General admission is $6;
Center members, students and seniors $3.
To purchase tickets call 415-978-ARTS.

Saturday January 27, 2001

7:00 p.m. (film info)
Rafael Film Center

The Widow of St. Pierre
Patrice Leconte - France - 2000 - 107 minutes

Thursday January 25, 2001

Opening Night

6:30 p.m. (film info)
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Bread and Roses
Ken Loach, US, 2000; 112 minutes

Reception to follow

Public Enemy
Jens Meurer, France/Germany, 1999, 88m (video, doc)

"We're going to organize ourselves, we're going to stand up, we're going to arm ourselves and we're going to walk on this racist, pig-ass power structure and we're going to say, 'stick-'em-up, motherfucker, we've come for what's ours'", says Bobby Seale, public speaker, activist, author and the only surviving founder of the Black Panthers. With this opening tour-de-force speech, the tone is set for an electrifying, visceral, in-depth look at the Black Panther movement. Utilizing fascinating archival footage of rallies, confrontations with authority and behind-the-scenes moments in the movement, the film focuses on the members who have survived. Along with Bobby Seale, we meet law professor Kathleen Cleaver, the highest ranking female Panther and one of the most outspoken members; Jamal Joseph, who spent nine years in prison for Panther activities and is currently active as a poet and playwright; and in perhaps the most surprising twist, Nile Rodgers, former Panther who went on to found the 80's rock group Chic and create a successful songwriting/performing career. Four incredibly vibrant, talented, passionate people whose political force has carried on into their lives, and who still feel the power and exhilaration of the early days of a unique socio-political revolution that changed both the societal image and the self-image of all African-Americans.

9:30 am, Friday, January 26th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
* Special guest Bobby Seale, co-founder - Black Panther Party
This is a special screening for high school students in the Bay Area sponsored by the
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival high school program. For further information about this screening and the program, please contact Joanne Parsont at 415-665-3444

9:15 pm, Saturday, January 27th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
* Special guest Bobby Seale, co-founder - Black Panther Party

Special Screening

The Widow of St. Pierre
Patrice Leconte - France - 2000 - 107m - 35mm - drama
In French with English subtitles

Following Patrice Leconte's wondrous 1996 Ridicule, his latest masterwork, THE WIDOW OF ST.PIERRE, exposes what it means to be human – asking what is honor, courage and compassion. The talented Daniel Auteuil plays the eccentric but honest and morally upright Captain on Saint-Pierre, a small French Island just off the southern coast of Newfoundland. The island has just gained custody of a convicted murderer, Neel Auguste (played with unabashed zeal by acclaimed Yugoslavian director Emir Kusturica in his screen debut) who, according to French law, must be executed promptly by guillotine. A guillotine is expected to arrive from France within the year. The Captain's headstrong and compassionate wife, Madame 'La' (Juliette Binoche) believes that everyone has goodness at their core and that anyone can be redeemed. Thus, she makes it her duty to rehabilitate Auguste within the year. On a small French Island at the turn of the century not everyone is like Madame 'La,' content in her willingness to forgive and redeem others.

7 pm, Saturday, January 27th at the Rafael Film Center

Good Kurds, Bad Kurds:
No Friends but the Mountains
Kevin McKiernan, US, 2000, 79m (video, doc)

A war of national liberation or a war against terrorism? Filmmaker and acclaimed freelance journalist Kevin McKiernan poses this question at the outset of this stirring, provocative film lensed by legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler. "It's all in how you define 'good' and 'bad': 'Good Kurds' are those in Iraq; they're Saddam Hussein's victims whom we want to help. 'Bad Kurds' are those waging an armed insurrection against US ally Turkey; they're at the receiving end of US weapons." McKiernan went to northern Iraq to cover the uprising against Saddam. Just a few miles away, no one was covering the hidden war in Turkey, so he decided to bring out the story. Good Kurds, Bad Kurds brings sharp clarity to a complicated history while providing disturbing insight into both US immigration and foreign policy.

7 pm, January 27th at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - filmmaker present
Co-presented by Amnesty International

Crazy
Heddy Honigmann - The Netherlands - 1999 97m - 35mm - doc
In Dutch with English subtitles

There may not be a word for the kind of emotion evoked by Heddy Honigmann's latest film. But Crazy is the word used most frequently by the Dutch UN soldiers who tell their stories of emotional devastation during peacekeeping missions in 'security zones,' such as Cambodia, Lebanon, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Korea. These 'peacekeepers' speak of being witnesses to brutally chaotic conditions, of murder and child prostitution, of being improperly equipped, of feelings of powerlessness amidst incredible suffering. Each soldier recalls a song intimately connected to these memories, one that helped get him through his plight. Watching this very personal and direct film, there is a sense these stories are being told for the first time. A curious but careful interviewer, Honigmann's use of home video and snapshots provides an emotional link the soldiers often deny or struggle to conceal. But it's the lingering close-ups of these soldiers listening to their songs that are the most revealing. The remarkable and mysterious power of these segments, a complex marriage of music and memory, will be immediately recognized by anyone with a song they've called their own.

7:15 pm, January 27th at the Pacific Film Archive
Co-presented by the San Francisco Film Society

The Diplomat
Tom Zubrycki - Australia - 2000 - 81m - video - documentary
In English, Portuguese and Tetun with English subtitles

An intimate and engaging portrait of East Timorese Independence leader and Nobel Prize recipient, José Ramos Horta. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Tom Zubrycki offers a close look at Horta, the diplomat, unwilling politician and freedom fighter. Far from perfect and quick to swear, Horta emerges as a charismatic, intelligent and witty guerrilla. The film spans two crucial years in Horta's struggle for his country, beginning in 1998 at the first Timorese National Convention in Lisbon and culminating with the amazing events of 1999. In 1975 when the Portuguese withdrew from Timor, Horta was named foreign minister of his government. Horta was on a plane to New York to seek support for the new fledgling nation of Timor when Indonesia invaded the country. Forced into exile, Horta spent the next quarter of a century lobbying the United Nations and potentially sympathetic democracies to recognize the rights of the Timorese people – a story which the western press had very little to say about and even less interest in..

6:30 pm, January 26th at the Rafael Film Center - filmmaker present
Co-presented by the National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA)
Community Sponsor - East Timor Action Network (ETAN)

Pripyat
Nikolaus Geyrhalter - Austria - 1999 - 100m - 35mm - B&W - documentary
In Russian and Ukrainian with English subtitles

Ominously abandoned apartment complexes, a soccer field suffocated by gnarled weeds and references to 'strontium levels' and 'gamma-spectrometric primary analysis' all point to science fiction. But this lost world, a 'Zone of Alienation' to one local official, does indeed exist: a poisoned province extending from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in eastern Ukraine and deep into Belarus. Prior to 1986, the settlement of Pripyat, five kilometers from Chernobyl, had a population of 50,000. Thirteen years after the Chernobyl disaster, only some 15,000 people live or work there. Focusing on the lives of those who have returned to their hometown, filmmaker Nikolaus Geyrhalter provides a compassionate, human perspective on the current debate about nuclear energy.


9 pm, January 26th at the Rafael Film Center.
Invited guest Nikolaus Geyrhalter
5 pm, January 27th at the Pacific Film Archive.
Invited guest Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Co-presented by The Exploratorium

Bread and Roses
Ken Loach - US - 2000 - 112 m - 35mm - drama
In English and Spanish with English subtitles

British filmmaker Ken Loach offers an inspired exposŽ of oppression melded with a sincere snapshot of family drama and individual strength. In contemporary Los Angeles, Maya (Pilar Padilla) has just arrived from Mexico to stay with her sister. Maya secures a janitorial job at a downtown high rise and is primed for the American dream. But in this image-making capital, Mayaâs opportunity is someone elseâs opportunism. Then she meets Sam (Adrien Brody) - a young, idealistic lawyer with a passion for workerâs rights who enlightens Maya and her co-workers about their exploitation. Soon, passionate discussions of unions and wages lead to violent demonstrations as Maya, Sam and a disgruntled crew of janitors put up the fight of their lives. Loachâs skillful touch with dramatic realism and political commentary comes alive as the cast deliver breathtaking performances, and BREAD AND ROSES puts a distinctly human face on a profoundly serious problem.

9:15 pm, January 27th at the Pacific Film Archive
Co-presented by Cine Acción’s Festival ¡Cine Latino!

Trade Off
Shaya Mercer - US - 2000 - 90m - video - documentary
In English

A feisty and engrossing documentary of the five days in Seattle in November 1999 that shook the world – when the World Trade Organization's (WTO) first meeting on American soil was shut down by tens of thousands of people who took to the streets to execute their right to fight/protest. During these five days, teamsters marched with Turtles (various environmental protection groups), senior citizens joined in song with teenagers covered in placards, Michael Moore rallied with Spearhead, and U.S. senators Paul Wellstone and Tom Hayden traded in their jacket and ties for radical black turtle neck sweaters. Violent media images of the 'Battle of Seattle' captured international headlines but neglected key questions of what was at stake. The issues raised in TRADE OFF are those faced by contemporary society: the effects of global trade policy on the environment, food and agriculture, labor and human rights, and the future of democracy around the world. Shaya Mercer's inspiring film exposes – often with quiet humor – these now-infamous events that became the focal point for a burgeoning anti-trade movement and a case study in civil disobedience seen around the world.

Preceded by

MADE IN THE YoUth S.A.
EVC's Youth Organizers Television – US – 2000 - 15m - video - documentary

Through interviews with youth activists, children of sweatshop workers and workers' firsthand accounts, the Youth Organizers crew (ages 17 to 20) explores the conditions and economics of the sweatshop system in the United States.


2 pm, Saturday, January 27th at the Rafael Film Center - filmmaker present
Co-presented by Global Exchange

Long Night's Journey Into Day
Deborah Hoffmann & Frances Reid - US - 1999 - 95m - 35mm - documentary
In English, Afrikaans and Xhosa with English subtitles

In our times, when many nations remain haunted by a history of state-sponsored terror and oppression, LONG NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY is a particularly inspiring portrait of a wounded society attempting to humanize itself by taking seriously the importance of conscience and by reaping the redemptive benefits of uncovering the truth. Following four dramatically different cases that came before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) over the course of two-and-a-half years, filmmakers Hoffmann and Reid show South Africa's quest for restorative justice. From the point of view of American exchange student Amy Biehl's parents to the wives of the slain activists known as the Cradock Four, we, too, are asked would we or could we embrace truth and reconciliation?

7:30 pm, January 26th at the Pacific Film Archive - filmmakers present
Co-presented by the Film Arts Foundation (FAF)