Rights on

>>The Montreal Human Rights Film Festival
puts a spotlight on the Kurdish nation,
Abu Ghraib, the Congolese civil war
and other universal struggles

by MALCOLM FRASER

The third annual edition of the Montreal Human Rights Film Festival takes place as part of the city’s Action Week Against Racism. A quick glance at any news source will show human rights being flagrantly violated all around the globe, under all manner of political and religious justifications; some of these are hot topics, while others remain tragically under-reported.

Anyone interested in these issues would do well to drop by the fest and investigate them in further depth. The programming is organized thematically, and includes not only a host of documentaries but a good selection of fiction and animation offerings.

The festival opens with the North American premiere of L’Étoile du soldat, Christophe de Ponfilly’s drama about a Russian soldier who’s captured by the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and comes to a deeper understanding of their struggle. De Ponfilly was a journalist who made several documentaries about Afghanistan. L’Étoile du soldat was his first and only feature film; he committed suicide in 2006. Actor Sacha Bourdo will be in town to present the screening.

With independence movements in the news a lot these days (Kosovo, Tibet), one that’s slowly coming into international recognition is that of the Kurdish nation—located primarily in Iraq and Turkey, fighting for an independent state much to those nations’ discontent, and also spread out in an international diaspora. Yüksel Yavuz’s Close Up Kurdistan, showing here in its North American premiere, is an overview of the Kurdish people’s struggles as well as a personal journey from his adopted Germany to a Kurdish refugee camp in Iraq. Dol, from Kurdish director Hiner Saleem, is a fictional take on his people’s situation.

Whether because of media misogyny or just the gruesome unpleasantness of the subject, the mass rape of women in recent conflicts has got short shrift in mainstream media coverage. Lisa F. Jackson’s documentary The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, a multiple prize-winner on the festival circuit, tells the stories of the victims—and the perpetrators—of this heinous war crime in the context of the decade-long Congolese civil war. Also on the same program is Berrin Balay Tuncer’s Requiem for Women, a Turkish doc which focuses on the equally shameful practice of family-approved “honour killings.”

Other highlights include Philippe Aractingi’s Under the Bombs, a doc on the 2006 Israeli bombing of Lebanon; Rory Kennedy’s Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which explores the notorious Iraqi torture centre; Annika Gustafson’s Killing Time, about the plight of Bhutanese refugees, and We Want Our Land, Lorena Riposati’s account of the struggles of indigenous peoples in Argentina.

Wapikoni Mobile, the NFB-funded program for aboriginal Canadians to create their own multimedia projects, is screening a selection of notable recent work, and there are also programs on gay rights, immigrants’ rights, freedom of expression and other pertinent topics. Many local films will be represented, including Karina Goma’s thoughtful Un coin du ciel, about a Park Extension CLSC and its diverse clientele.

Finally, the fest closes off with Invisibles, a feature composed of short works from directors Wim Wenders, Isabel Coixet, Fernando León de Aranoa, Mariano Barroso, and Javier Corcuera, each telling stories of the marginal people who remain “invisible” to their societies. If you’re one of the regrettably few interested in working against this invisibility, this festival is a good place to get informed.

The 3rd Montreal Human Rights Film
Festival runs from March 27–April 3;
for more info, see www.ffdpm.com

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