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Boston Schedule 27th–31st January 2005
Download full HRWIFF Boston program and schedule (pdf file - 2 pages, 792 Kb)
For all ticket information, please visit the Coolidge Corner Movie Theatre website www.coolidge.org or call 617 734 2500 or visit the Museum of Fine Arts website www.mfa.org/film or call 617 369 3306
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Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, USA 2003; 85m. 35mm. Documentary.
The most stigmatized people in Calcutta's red light district, are not the prostitutes, but their children. In the face of abject poverty, abuse and despair, these kids have little possibility of escaping their mother's fate or creating another type of life. In Born into Brothels, directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman chronicle the amazing transformation of the children they come to know in the red light district. Briski, a professional photographer, gives them lessons and cameras, igniting the latent spark of artistic creativity within them. Devoid of sentimentality, the film defies the typical tear-stained, tourist snapshot of the global underbelly. Briski spends years with the children and becomes part of their lives. The children's photographs are prisms into their souls, not anthropological curiosities or primitive imagery. This film is a true testimony to the power of the indelible creative spirit. Winner of the 2004 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize, and the Documentary Audience Award, Sundance Film Festival 2004.
7:45pm Thu 27th Jan at the Museum of Fine Arts
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Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson, USA 2003; 90m. Video. Documentary.
On the eve of his departure from office, George Ryan - longtime conservative Republican, supporter of the death penalty, and governor of Illinois-surprised the nation by commuting the sentences of all 167 prisoners on Death Row. Directors Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson bring us directly into the debate and the legal process that is set into motion when a group of Northwestern University journalism students uncover evidence that many people on Illinois' Death Row are innocent, undermining the credibility of the state's entire capital justice system. In the wake of this evidence, Ryan orders special clemency hearings for every prisoner awaiting execution. Within these courtrooms is human drama in its most distilled form. Using unique access to the hearings, prisoners on Death Row, and Governor Ryan, Deadline delivers a measured sense of justice for all its subjects and contributes reason and passion to the ongoing debate about whether nations should employ the ultimate punishment and how justly it is administered.
12:30pm and 6:00pm Sunday 30th Jan at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
Copresented by Amnesty International, Mass Coalition Against the Death Penalty, and the Northeastern University School of Journalism
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Jon Nealon, USA/Hungary 2003; 56m. Video. Documentary.
Both political tale and love story, Goodbye Hungaria begins in a refugee camp in Hungary, home to hundreds of men, women and children fleeing war and oppression from every corner of the globe. To the refugees, Eastern Hungary is a cold and unwelcoming place; Asylum is rarely granted, and there are few opportunities for work. For most, the only way out of this legal limbo is through a thriving underground smuggling ring. Jon Nealon's cinema verite documentary chronicles the lives of Abed Al-Sahli a Palestinian refugee who acts as advocate and de facto translator for the camp's Arab population, and Charu Newhouse, an American volunteer. As both Abed and Charu struggle to make life better for the refugees caught in red tape and subject to the vagaries of international politics, their fates become connected. The film traces their unlikely love story from the hopelessness of the camp, to a dramatic arrival in New York City, where they come to start a new life, together.
1:00pm and 3:00pm Sat 29th Jan at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room - Filmmaker present
and 7:30pm Tues and Wed the 1st and 2nd Feb at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
Copresented by the International Institute of Boston and the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)
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Leslie Neale, USA 2004; 66m. Video. Documentary.
Four years ago, high school student Duc Ta was arrested for driving a car from which a gun was shot. Although no one was injured, and Duc was not a member of a gang, had no priors, and was 16 years old, he received a sentence of 35 years to life. From award-winning documentary filmmaker Leslie Neale (Road to Return) comes a riveting look at a world most of us will never see: the world of juvenile offenders who are serving incomprehensibly long prison sentences for crimes they either did not commit or were only marginally involved in. For two years, Neale taught a video production class at Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall to 12 juveniles who were being tried as adults. Juvies is the product of that class. The film builds a powerful argument, questioning what in our American culture has caused us to demonize our youth and allow the collapse of the juvenile justice system, which has turned its back on its initial mission to protect young people and now sends over 200,000 kids through the adult system each year.
5:00 and 7:00pm Sat 29th Jan and 8:00pm Sun the 30th Jan at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
and 9:00pm Thurs the 3rd February at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
Copresented by the Youth Advocacy Project
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Randa Chahal-Sabbag, France/Lebanon 2003; 80m. 35mm. drama
From acclaimed filmmaker Randa Chahal Sabbag (Civilized People/Civilisees, winner of the HRWIFF 2001 Nestor Almendros Award) comes this beautifully rendered drama set in her native Lebanon. Lebanon's official selection for this year's foreign Oscar® nomination, The Kite tells the story of 16-year-old Lamia, who, on her wedding day must cross over the barbed wire barrier that separates her Lebanese village from that of her cousin and fiancé Samy, whose village has been annexed by Israel. Between the villages, the border is heavily patrolled. The checkpoint, controlled by both sides, permits newlyweds and corpses to return to their home villages. Lamia reaches the family of her fiancé, abandoning her younger brother, her school, her kite, her mother, her past. But she refuses to consummate her marriage; instead she gradually falls in love with a soldier who has been watching her since the day she crossed the border for the first time.
8:00pm Fri 28th Jan at the Museum of Fine Arts
Copresented by Women in Film and Video/New England
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Alison Maclean and Tobias Perse, USA 2003; 63m. Video. Documentary.
After the September 11th terrorist attacks, more than 5000 people, mainly non-U.S. nationals of South Asian or Middle Eastern origin, were taken into custody by the U.S. Justice Department and held indefinitely on grounds of national security. Muslim immigrants were subject to arbitrary arrest, secret detention, solitary confinement, and deportation. Many were denied access to legal representation and communication with their families. During a period when the State Department has made every effort to depersonalize these detentions, refusing to reveal the names or even the number of immigrants detained, the voices of those affected — their testimonials and experiences — become our only window into the human costs of post September 11th immigration policies. Following an unconventional format, Persons of Interest presents a series of encounters between former detainees and directors Maclean and Perse in an empty room which serves both visually and symbolically as an interrogation room, home, and prison cell. Through interviews, family photographs, and letters from prison, the directors have fashioned a compelling and poignant film, allowing those affected a chance to tell their own stories.
6:00pm Fri 28th Jan and 9:00pm Sat the 29th Jan at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
Copresented by ACLU of Massachusetts
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Dong-won Kim, South Korea 2003; 149m. Video. Documentary.
In the spring of 1992, documentary filmmaker Dong-won Kim met Cho Chang-son and Kim Seak-hyoung, two North Koreans arrested by South Korean authorities years before. Convicted of spying for the North, they were incarcerated and spent thirty years as political prisoners. These men, and many others like them, underwent conversion schemes in prison that involved torture: those who renounced their communist beliefs were released from prison early. The others, known as "the unconverted," served their full terms. None could return home to the North, however, until the turn of this century, when tensions between North and South eased significantly. Director Dong-won Kim followed these men for ten years, documenting how they survived — both physically and psychologically — the dehumanizing time spent in prison, and their quest, once released, to finally go home. Winner of the Freedom of Expression Award, Sundance Film Festival 2004
2:30pm Sun 30th Jan at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
Copresented by The Fletcher Club of Boston
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Abigail Honor and Yan Vizinberg, USA 2004; 71m. Video. Documentary.
Saints and Sinners, a documentary by Abigail Honor and Yan Vizinberg, follows the challenging and emotional journey of a devoutly Catholic gay couple determined to marry in a Catholic church. Caring more about formalizing their seven-year union within the Catholic tradition than with legal recognition by the state, Edward DeBonis and Vincent Maniscalco pursue their dream, despite the expected rejection from the local church hierarchy. Even as previously supportive family members express their reservations about receiving communion from a gay Catholic priest, Edward and Vincent audaciously seek to become the first gay couple to have their wedding announcement published in the New York Times. Saints and Sinners is a highly timely vision of love and commitment, which demonstrates that the struggle for equal rights is not just about legal benefits, but the aspiration to find acceptance and affirmation, rather than rejection, from one's chosen religion.
7:30pm and 10:00pm Fri the 28th Jan at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room - Filmmakers present
and 9:00pm Wed the 2nd February at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room
Copresented by Dignity Boston and the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts
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Subiha Sumar, Pakistan 2003; 95m. Video. drama
Silent Waters is set in 1979 in Pakistan, when General Zia-ul-Haq took control of the country and stoked the fires of Islamic nationalism. Ayesha, a Muslim woman who gets by on her late husband’s pension and by teaching young girls the Koran, invests her hopes in her beloved son Saleem. But when Saleem takes up with a group of Islamic fundamentalists just as a group of Sikh pilgrims come to town, Ayesha’s haunted past turns her present life upside down.
6:00pm Fri 28th Jan at the Museum of Fine Arts
Copresented by Women in Film and Video/New England
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Hassan Yektepaneh, Iran 2003; 80m. 35mm. drama
Hassan Yektapanah's film skirts the line between fact and fiction. Two filmmakers, hoping to make a documentary about smugglers who traffic in people and the immigrants they purport to help, rescue a group of actual smugglers and their "clients" from an idle police officer by saying they are all actors performing in a film. As the group heads for the Iranian border, the immigrants reconsider their plight.
1:15pm Sat 29th Jan at the Museum of Fine Arts
Copresented by the International Institute of Boston
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Francisco J. Lombardi, Peru 2003; 149m. Video. Drama
Acclaimed filmmaker Francisco J. Lombardi (La Boca del Lobo; Tinta Roja; Don't Tell Anyone) delivers his most ambitious project to date with the political psychodrama What the Eye Doesn’t See (OJOS QUE NO VEN.) Set in the final days of Alberto Fujimori's presidency in Peru, the film explores the corruption plaguing many Latin American governments as seen through the eyes of everyday people. What the Eye Doesn’t See focuses on the scandal caused by the release of the infamous "Vladi videos" — hidden camera tapes of presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos blackmailing high-level government officials — which eventually led to the end of Fujimori's presidency. But rather than recreate true stories, Lombardi uses a colorful array of fictional characters to show the ramifications of dishonest government on individual lives. Six interweaving stories give us a picture of Peru's social reality as its citizens attempt to cope during a critical juncture in their history. Francisco Lombardi is the recipient of HRWIFF's 2004 Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement Award.
3:00pm Sat 29th Jan at the Museum of Fine Arts and
7:00pm Tues the 1st February at the Coolidge Corner Video Screening Room Copresented by the Boston Latino International Film Festival
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David O. Russell, USA 1999; 115m. 35mm. drama
A small group of adventurous American soldiers in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War is determined to steal a huge cache of gold reputed to be hidden somewhere near their desert base. Finding a map they will believe will take them to the gold, the soldiers embark on a journey that leads to unexpected discoveries, enabling them to rise to a heroic challenge. As they encounter the kinds of action several of them had anticipated eagerly, they learn that the human face of politics changes everything. Instead of a cache of gold, they discover the empty promises of the American government and the suffering of the Iraqi people. Three Kings offers an insightful and amusing analysis of a situation that speaks to us as clearly now as it did then.
7:00pm Mon 31st Jan at the Coolidge Corner Movie Theatre
Please Note: SOLDIERS PAY will screen directly after THREE KINGS
* Global Copresenters for this year's festival are EPIIC at Tufts University, Facing History and Ourselves, Grassroots International and Physicians for Human Rights
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