Eyes on the world,
warts and all

Five years after its inception, the Montreal Human Rights Film Festival hasn’t backed away from the difficult and the uncomfortable

PAYING THE PRICE FOR FIGHTING BEIJING: Uighur advocate Rebiya Kadeer, in The 10 Conditions of Love

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

There are easier festivals to attend than the Montreal Human Rights Film Festival. Without the star power of Toronto, the cachet of Telluride or the market power of Cannes, the MHRFF is an independent, low-budget affair, but far likelier to stir the minds and conscience of audiences than the higher-wattage fests.

Now in its fifth year, the festival will present 63 films from 20 countries. Among them is The 10 Conditions of Love, an hour-long documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, once the wealthiest woman in China, now banished to the U.S. Kadeer’s advocacy on behalf of China’s Muslim Uighurs in the western province of Xinjiang earned her and her family imprisonment and exile. Two of her sons are languishing in Chinese jails on dubious charges, and yet she still continues her work from an office in Washington, D.C. It’s a powerful story, a sad one and yet, says festival spokesperson Charles Binamé, makes us “rethink what our priorities are.”

Binamé, a successful Quebec director (The Rocket, Séraphin: Un homme et son péché), says the festival, while growing only slowly, makes us realize something about both the world around us and about ourselves—as a society and as individuals. “To be aware is not difficult,” he says. “It’s a great gift to be exposed to filmmakers who are trying to decipher, contemplate, weed out, explain what is happening on our planet today.”

Being aware of the world around us, with its warts and all, is a moral imperative for every one of us, says Binamé. We don’t need to know about the plight of the Uighurs, who were targetted by China with American knowledge and approval after 9/11. Nor do we need to know the story of the hundreds of thousands of Central American children who try to get into the U.S. every year, an estimated 20 per cent of whom die in the attempt, as seen in the Oscar-nominated doc Which Way Home. We don’t need to know about the humanitarian crisis in the Congo, exposed in Reporter, about New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof’s efforts to bring the world’s attention there. But Binamé says we are better off for it. “We feel elevated when we see these films,” he says. “They appeal to the better parts of ourselves. We’ll see things that will make us more aware.”

The heaviness of the documentary subjects might keep some away, Binamé believes, but it might draw in those who are thirsty for knowledge for its own sake. Last year’s attendance, at about 3,500 viewers, wasn’t bad, but he is hoping to draw around 8,000 this year. He was, however, surprised by a study of the fest’s attendees’ demographics. “Among last year’s viewers, 28.7 per cent were between the ages of 18 and 25,” he says. “There is great hope in that figure. It shows that young people are attracted to the festival, that they think about the world in different ways.”

As self-centred as our society is, Binamé believes that the Facebook generation may not be as navel-gazing as many would like to believe. “Films like these personalize these things,” he says. “If it’s kids sitting on a train in Mexico, or girls in Iran who are going to get stoned, we become touched by them.”

THE MONTREAL HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL
RUNS FROM MARCH 11–21 AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS.
ALL SCREENINGS COST $7. REBIYA KADEER WILL
TAKE QUESTIONS FOLLOWING THE SCREENING OF
THE 10 CONDITIONS OF LOVE ON SATURDAY, MARCH
13 AT UQÀM’S SALLE MARIE-GÉRIN LAJOIE
(405 STE-CATHERINE E.,) 2 P.M. FOR FESTIVAL
DETAILS, SEE FFDPM.COM.