Human Rights Watch Film Festival Lineup Announced Broadway World
go to original May 10, 2016

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Trailer 2016 (HumanRightsWatch)

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival will be presented June 10-19 with 18 topical and provocative feature films and three special interactive programs that grapple with the challenges of defending human rights around the world today. Now in its 27th edition, the festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center. Most screenings will be followed by in-depth Q&A discussions with filmmakers and Human Rights Watch experts.

"This year's Human Rights Watch Film Festival presents an array of women's rights issues through inspirational and personal stories of remarkable women," said John Biaggi, the festival's creative director. "From a tenacious women's rights activist in China to a teenage Afghan rapper fighting child marriage to a courageous director of a women's health clinic in Mississippi - the festival is spotlighting women and amplifying their voices in society through film. It's especially noteworthy that over half of the films in the 2016 program are directed or co-directed by women."

The festival also features three timely films on LGBT rights as well as a broad range of hot-button human rights issues including police militarization, environmental human rights, rape as a war crime, Syrian refugees, and impunity/lawlessness in Mexico.

The Opening Night selection is Nanfu Wang's Hooligan Sparrow, which documents Chinese activist Ye Haiyan (aka "Hooligan Sparrow") as she protests against a school headmaster's sexual abuse of young girls, leading both the director and Sparrow to become targets of government intimidation. In recognition of her work, Nanfu Wang will receive the festival's 2016 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking.

Closing the festival is the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Sonita, in which filmmaker Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami follows a determined Afghan teenager who overcomes living as a refugee in Iran (where female singers are banned from singing solo) and her family's plans to sell her into marriage to follow her dreams of becoming a rapper.

Read the rest at Broadway World

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