Documentaries from around the world to be screened during Fifth Annual Human Rights Film Festival Oct. 4-6 at Syracuse University

Documentaries from around the world to be screened during Fifth Annual Human Rights Film Festival Oct. 4-6 at Syracuse UniversitySeptember 26, 2007Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Award-winning film documentaries from around the globe will be shown at Syracuse University Oct. 4-6 as part of the Fifth Annual Human Rights Film Festival. The festival is part of the 2007 Syracuse Symposium focusing on justice, presented by The College of Arts and Sciences, and is co-sponsored by the South Asia Center at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Institute for Global Affairs and the South Asian Students Association, in collaboration with Breakthrough, and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications as part of its yearlong celebration of the First Amendment.

All films will be shown in Shemin Auditorium in the Shaffer Art Building and are free and open to the public. Parking is available in the Booth Garage on Thursday at 7 p.m. for $3.50. On Friday at 7 p.m., parking is available in all non-gated parking lots. On Saturday afternoon, parking is available for $7 in the Booth Garage (garage closes two hours after the completion of the football game). Saturday evening parking is available in all non-gated parking lots.The screening schedule is as follows:

Queering the Frame, Thursday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m.

“Say Amen! Tagid Amen!” (65 minutes, 2005, Israel). David Deri, the 26-year-old gay son of orthodox Jewish parents, is the central character in this documentary that reveals the best and worst of the Deri clan as they join David in his journey toward selfhood.

“Between the Lines — India’s Third Gender” (94 minutes, 2005, Germany). Following three hijras, biological men who dress as women but reject identification with either gender, photographer Anita Khemka provides deep insights into a social group that is a growing leader in the struggle for gender and sexuality rights in India.

Inheritance of Our Pasts, Friday, Oct. 5, at 6 p.m.

“Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire” (90 minutes, 2004, Canada. Tasked by the United Nations to maintain peace in Rwanda, Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire and a handful of soldiers were unable to stop the genocide of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. After 10 years, Dallaire returns to Rwanda and recounts the 100 days when Rwandans suffered not only genocide but betrayal, racism and abandonment by the global community.

“Leila Khaled Hijacker” (58 minutes, 2005, Sweden). In August 1969, Leila Khaled became the first woman to hijack an airliner. This narrative tells the story of why she became a “freedom fighter” for the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine and was celebrated by some and reviled by others. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director, Lina Makboul.

Subaltern Stories, Saturday, Oct. 6, at noon

“Inclusion: Makes Everyone Happy” (1 minute, 2005, India). This short, animated film looks at the serious subject of accessibility and equal rights for people with disabilities by showing how a ramp may be used by different people in different ways.

“Mitumba — The Second Hand Road” (53 minutes, 2005, Italy). A simple story of a T-shirt’s journey from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere as told by people involved in the second-hand clothing trade.

“Bushman’s Secret” (64 minutes, 2006, South Africa). Hoodia, a cactus used by Bushmen for centuries, has caught the attention of a giant pharmaceutical company. Through the eyes of Jan, a traditional Bushman healer, the documentary shows a world where modernity collides with ancient ways at a time when each has come to rely on the other.

Ideologies of the City, Saturday, Oct. 6, at 3 p.m.

“Froth” (10 minutes, 2006, India). This short documentary examines the stereotypes that inform contemporary Islamophobia.

“Q2P” (54 minutes, 2006, India). As this film observes who has to “queue to pee,” the imagination of gender that underlies shifting boundaries between public and private space in futuristic Mumbai is understood.

“John and Jane” (83 minutes, 2005, India). A blend of observational documentary and tropical science fiction, the story follows six call agents who answer U.S. 1-800 numbers in a Mumbai call center.

Children and Inheritance of Our Pasts, Saturday, Oct. 6 at 6 p.m.

“First Lesson in Peace” (56 minutes, 2005, Israel). The movie chronicles 6-year-old Michal and her start of schooling at the only bilingual Hebrew and Arabic school in Israel for Israeli and Palestinian children, Neveh Shalom/Wahaht-al-Salam. Her parents’ decision to send her to the school was not an easy one — Michal’s grandfather is a Zionist and her uncle overtly right wing. As Michal has her first encounters at the school, her extended family faces their own conflicts and challenges.

“Our America” (84 minutes, 2005, Switzerland and Nicaragua). In 1979, Nicaragua had just freed itself from a 45-year dictatorship and was attempting the impossible, hoping to triumph over poverty and discrimination within a system of political plurality and a mixed economic system. Twenty-five years after a revolution that no one believed was possible, director Kristina Conrad returns to the neo-liberal Nicaragua battered by war and corruption and sketches a narrative of memories and observations of the current state of affairs. The film features women who took up arms against the U.S.-funded Contras and now struggle to survive.

The Syracuse Symposium is a semester-long intellectual and artistic festival, hosted by SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, that celebrates interdisciplinary thinking, imagination and creation. The theme for the 2007 series is “Justice.”