Fourth Annual South Asia Human Rights Film Festival to be held Oct. 26-28

Fourth Annual South Asia Human Rights Film Festival to be held Oct. 26-28October 26, 2006Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

The Fourth Annual South Asia Human Rights Film Festival will be held Thursday, Oct. 26, through Saturday, Oct. 28, co-sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, the South Asia Center at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Institute for Global Affairs and in collaboration with the Asia Society and Breakthrough. It is a related event of the Syracuse Symposium 2006: Imagination, presented by The College of Arts and Sciences. (Above: A scene from “Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi,” to be shown Oct. 28.)

All films will be shown in Shemin Auditorium in the Shaffer Art Building and include:

Feature Films“15 Park Avenue” (2005), directed by Aparna Sen (India), to be shown Thursday at 7 p.m. The narrative pivots around the relationship of two sisters — one a successful professor with a powerful personality and the other whose progression into schizophrenia has been exacerbated by traumatic experiences.

“Sancharram, The Journey” (2004), directed by Ligy J. Pullapally (India). Friday at 7 p.m. The film is a sensitively drawn story that begins with a childhood friendship that leads to a mutual attraction between the beautiful, outgoing Delilah and the idealistic, inwardly focused Kiran.

“Iqbal: The Rampur Express” (2005), directed by Nagesh Kukunoor (India), Saturday at 7 p.m. The film is a passionate journey that follows a deaf and mute village boy’s dream to join the prestigious Indian Cricket Team.

Documentaries — “Communities in Conflict,” Saturday at 1 p.m. “Lanka — The Other Side of War and Peace” (2005), directed by Iffat Fatima (Sri Lanka). Structured like a travelogue, the film traverses the northern and southern landscape of Sri Lanka and spans the history of the last three decades of brutal violence in the country, juxtaposing the multiple realities of war and peace and loss and survival that simultaneously exist there.

“Karnaphulir Kanna (Teardrops of Karnaphulir)” (2005), directed by Tanvir Mokammel (Bangladesh). The film explores the agonies of the inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southwest of Bangladesh, bordering Myanmar and India, as an example of what happens to a region and its people when they are poor and disenfranchised.

Documentaries — “Defining Human Rights,” Saturday at 4 p.m. “A Human Question” (2005), directed by T. Jayshree (India, Italy, United States). This documentary forces its viewers to rethink the relationship between intellectual property and human rights as it traces the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available.

“Delhi — Mumbai — Delhi” (2005), directed by Saba Dewan (India). The documentary follows a woman, Riya, from her home in Delhi to Mumbai, where she dances in beer bars to make a living and where hundreds of working-class girls come in search of work and a future. The film is an intimate portrait of the everyday life of the girls, their agents and their neighborhoods, which interweaves stories of gender, labor, sexuality and popular culture within an increasingly globalizing economy.