International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
ECHOES Heard Around the Globe
Embracing Human Rights Issues Through Film
On May 14–17, 2008, People in Need in collaboration with the Embassy of the Czech Republic presents “Echoes” of One World in Washington, DC. The human rights film festival features 6 films focused on the atrocities and human rights violations affecting Burma, Belarus, and Cuba. Debates with experts or filmmakers on the given theme of each film follows the screenings.
Ambassador of the Czech Republic Petr Kolář and Igor Balževic, founder and director of the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, open the series with the DC premiere of Citizen Havel (Občan Havel) at the Avalon Theatre on May 14, 2008, 7:30 pm. The film reveals the remarkable journey of Václav Havel and never-before-seen footage of his time spent in office, including meetings with such celebrities as the Rolling Stones and political figureheads President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
The festival then moves to the Goethe-Institut, May 15−17, 2008, for the following screenings:
Thursday, May 15, 6 pm Burma’s Secret War, Burma 2008, and Burmese Student Films
Thursday, May 15, 8:30 pm Crime and Punishment (Ziu yu Fa)
Friday, May 16, 6 pm Belarusian Waltz
Friday, May 16, 8:30 pm Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)
Saturday, May 17, 6 pm To See If I’m Smiling
Saturday, May 17, 8:30 pm The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
In connection to the festival, People in Need will present at the Embassy of the Czech Republic the exhibition Spark of Bravery, a series of photographs of Belarusian dissidents and activists revealing their stories of repression under the authoritarian rule of President Lukashenka.
One World International Human Rights Festival
The 10th Annual One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival took place in Prague in March 2008. Organized by the Czech non-governmental organization People in Need, the festival is traditionally held under the auspices of former president Václav Havel. The 10th annual festival was dedicated to the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma. In its 10 years of existence, One World has developed a unique and successful model combining activities of a human rights film festival with a year-long institution, supporting the formation of a new human rights film festival in a post-Soviet space, promoting film as an education tool, and establishing regular documentary film programs in cinemas and TV stations.
One World is now the largest human rights film festival in Europe attracting close to 40,000 viewers each year. The festival is symbolically held in Prague, the site of the Velvet Revolution which served as a turning point in overthrowing communism. The additional “echoes”
of the festival in the world’s political centers and areas still struggling for democracy give the whole tour another important dimension in creating awareness for human rights issues throughout the world.
“Echoes” of One World in Washington, DC
On the occasion of its 10th anniversary, People in Need is organizing “Echoes” of One World in 10 to 15 major cities around the globe. Through these strategic festivals, People in Need aims to make human rights issues more visible. “Echoes” of One World in Washington, DC, is organized in conjunction with a human rights conference focusing on issues affecting Cuba, Belarus, and Burma.
Democratization and human rights agendas are important to the identity of modern Czech foreign policy. Through the festival, People in Need and the Embassy of the Czech Republic hope to emphasize the Czech Republic as a country keenly devoted to addressing democratization of totalitarian regimes and as a country prepared to share its experience from its our successful transformation.
PRESS RELEASE Washington, DC, April 16, 2008
Opening Night: “Echoes” of One World DC Film Festival
Wednesday, May 14, 7:30 pm
Avalon Theatre
Admission: Adult $9.75 / Senior, Student, or Military $7
Citizen Havel (Občan Havel)
Directed by: Pavel Koutecky and Miroslav Janek
2008, 120 min., CZECH REPUBLIC, in Czech with English subtitles
Washington, DC, Premiere!
Plot summary:
Ambassador of the Czech Republic Petr Kolář and Igor Blaževic, founder and director of the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, will present opening remarks at the event. After the split of Czechoslovakia in 1992, former political dissident, leader of the Velvet Revolution, playwright, and essayist Vacláv Havel became the first president of a new country, the Czech Republic. Thus it came to pass that a former enemy of the state was given the popular mandate to transform that state and its institutions. Such events are not commonplace. Therefore, from day one, Havel permitted his friend, filmmaker Pavel Koutecky, to be with him, and to capture as much of his presidency as possible, whether at Prague Castle or around the world. The result is Citizen Havel, a featurelength documentary of never-before-seen footage that provides an intimate look at a man thrust into the spotlight of international politics and celebrity, trying to maintain a balance between public and personal life while bringing his nation out of its communist past and into a free, democratic future. The film includes Václav Havel meeting with President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Rolling Stones, and many others.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS:
Pavel Koutecky was born in Prague in 1956. After graduating from the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague, and studying at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, he developed multimedia projects with the Kolotec and Divadlo Hudby theaters in the Czech Republic. He has been a lecturer at FAMU since 1991. Also, he has directed many movies throughout his career, several of which have won awards. Miroslav Janek was born in Nachod, Czechosolvakia, in 1954. Before immigrating to the United States in 1979, he wrote, directed, and produced nearly 40 short films and was an editor for Czechoslovak Television. Then, he lived in Minneapolis for 6 years, where he was a freelance editor and cameraman, taught at Film in the Cities in St. Paul, and produced and directed several independent films. Furthermore, he has worked in New York City and Treviso, Italy. In 1993, he returned to the Czech Republic to work for Czech Television. Currently, he teaches at FAMU. He has worked on many films, of which his biggest success was The Unseen, which has won numerous awards.
AWARDS:
Citizen Havel was released in January 2008. It is the winner of the Plzensky Prazdroj Audience Award, having the best reception from visitors to the One World Festival in Prague. It also was awarded a Special Mention by the main jury in the main competition at One World and was featured as a special screening at the Berlinale 2008 Festival.
TICKET INFORMATION FOR OPENING NIGHT ONLY!
For ticket information, please call (202) 966–3464 or visit www.theavalon.org. Tickets also can be purchased at the box office during box office hours. Admission: Adult $9.75 / Senior, Student, or Military $7
LOCATION
Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20015 The nearest metro station is at the Friendship Heights, approximately, a 15–20 minute walk to the theater.
Thursday, May 15, 6 pm
Goethe-Institut, Admission: Free
Reservations required, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
Burma´s Secret War, Burma 2008, Burmese student films
Burma’s Secret War
Directed by: Sarah MacDonald/ 2006/ 49 min./ UK/ in English
The film exposes the new surge in violence inflicted on the Burmese people by their own regime. Enslaved by a brutal military dictatorship which wields absolute power, Burma is a secretive state where suppression reigns and dissent is not tolerated. Journalist Evan Williams, who is banned from entering the country after reporting on Burma for more than 10 years, goes undercover to investigate the mass ethnic cleansing, forced labor, and vicious crackdown of political opposition which characterize the dictatorship.
Thursday, May 15, 8:30 pm
Goethe-Institut, Admission: Free
Reservations required, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
Crime and Punishment (Zui yu Fa)
Directed by: Zhao Liang/ 2007/ 123 min./ China, France/ in Chinese with English subtitles
There is more to today’s China than the hypermodern urban complexes and dazzling sports center which we see in the media. The film Crime and Punishment offers an unexpectedly authentic everyday portrait of the microcosm that is a police station in the border regions, where the impact of China’s economic boom has not been felt. Reinforced units fight crime, though the results are often confused and grotesque despite the diligence of the inexperienced young officers. A mentally ill man calls them out over a corpse he has found in his bed which turns out to be a crumpled duvet. Another man suspected of robbery cannot be made to answer questions, even using violence, because he is most likely dumb. The long and penetrating shots of director Zhao Liang gradually uncover the real human stories and key themes from a China that is both regimented and rapacious. This witty picture, whose comedy often has a chilly edge, provides us with insight into how the social structure
is influenced by omnipresent police repression.
Friday, May 16, 6 pm
Goethe-Institut, Admission: Free
Reservations required, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
Belarusian Waltz
Directed by: Andrzej Fidyk/ 2007/ 74 min./ Poland/ in Belarusian with English subtitles
Alexander Pushkin is an artist with an unusual specialty: “performances” in which he fights against the Lukashenko dictatorship, which he describes as neo-Stalinist. With humor and wit, he allows himself to be arrested for waving a flag on the main street of Minsk, organizes an exhibition of portraits of forgotten heroes on the steps of the National Gallery, and provocatively hoists a banned flag in his village. He loves everything Belarusian and hates everything Russian, believing that Russification and Sovietization have destroyed his nation’s traditions and threaten its very existence. The situation in Belarus, where Alexander Lukashenko has won three manipulated presidential elections in succession, has led to resignation on the part of the greater part of society. People do not have access to independent media and often—despite the evidence of their own misery—believe government propaganda that their state is prospering. This documentary by renowned Polish director Andrzej Fidyk is also an interesting probe into the life of a remote Belarusian village, and demonstrates that people who are not afraid to stand up to the regime still exist.
Friday, May 16, 8:30 pm
Goethe-Institut, Admission: Free
Reservations required, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)
Directed by: Ivana Milošević, 2008, 58 min./ Czech Republic/ in Spanish with English subtitles
Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) is an organization of mothers, widows, and sisters who are fighting for the release of 75 political prisoners given extremely stiff sentences by the Cuban regime in spring 2003. The women meet every Sunday and hold silent protest marches as an expression of their demand for the immediate freeing of these men, their husbands, sons, and family members. They do not regard themselves as a political movement as they have not overthrown a government or brought about any reform. The European parliament gave the Damas de Blanco the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in acknowledgment of their peaceful but determined campaign, which will not end until all of the men have been released from prison. In this film, women tell their own personal stories openly. They discuss what it means to be a woman in Cuba and the impact of having someone close to them labeled as an enemy of the state. However, mainly they speak about their burning desire to see their men freed.
Saturday, May 17, 6 pm
Goethe-Institut, Admission: Free
Reservations required, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
To See If I’m Smiling
Directed by: Tamar Yarom/ 2007/ 60 min./ Israel/ in Hebrew with English subtitles
Israel is the only country in the world where 18-year-old girls receive a call-up to do compulsory military service. In Tamar Yarom’s engaging film, several former recruits describe their own experiences in the army.
All of them experienced postings in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, where the conflict is most intense. Despite the fact that the women themselves were never direct participants in military operations they have been through situations which spelled the end of their carefree adolescence and have become imprinted in their memories. They are very critical of the fact that they had power in their hands despite their absolute lack of experience. The ex-conscripts speak with unusual openness of the absurdity of the never-ending war between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and explain what it meant for them personally to live surrounded by men. With a sense of catharsis, they admit to doubts about how they dealt with Palestinians at checkpoints.
Saturday, May 17, 8:30 pm
Goethe-Institut, Admission: Free
Reservations required, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Directed by: Lisa F. Jackson/ 2007/ 77 min./ USA
in French, English, and Swahili with English subtitles
The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most protracted and forgotten conflicts in the world. Despite the fact that UN peacekeepers are monitoring the observance of a peace deal after years of war, fighting still continues, particularly in the east of the country. The victims of this drawn-out conflict are hundreds of thousands of girls who have suffered extremely brutal mass rapes. Besides frequent health problems, the raped women are often expelled from their own families and shunned by their communities. The conflict also has left behind an entire generation of orphans who were conceived as a result of rape. This provocative film by American documentary-maker Lisa F. Jackson offers disturbing testimony of the lives and suffering of women who have been raped in an impoverished war-torn country. The director looks for the causes of a phenomenon where rape is not only a violent act but also has become a systematic tool for defeating and humiliating one’s enemy. The film contains authentic testimony from the victims of rape but from perpetrators. The director’s sensitive approach to the film’s protagonists is enhanced by the fact that she herself was once brutally raped.
ADMISSION
Admission to the screenings at the Goethe-Institut are free to the public. However, reservations are required. To make reservations, please e-mail czech_events@yahoo.com. Please put “ONE WORLD” in the subject line. If you have further questions, please contact Mary Fetzko at the Embassy of the Czech Republic by calling (202) 274−9105.
LOCATION
Goethe-Institut, 812 Seventh Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001–3718
The nearest metro station to the screenings is Gallery Place/ Chinatown.
EXHIBITION: Spark of Bravery
Embassy of the Czech Republic, Admission: Free
Exhibition can be viewed during Embassy hours.
For additional questions, contact: (202) 274–9105
Photo Exhibition by Alexandr Polo in Cooperation with People in Need
This exhibition consists of 14 portraits of Belarusian dissidents and activists and tells their stories of repression under the authoritarian rule of President Lukashenka, who came to power in 1994 after the reform-minded leader Stanislav Shushkevich was dismissed on false corruption charges. Shushkevich had been in power since September 1991, shortly after Belarus declared independence.
Lukashenka’s rule brought about a return to Soviet-style dictatorship. During his thirteen years in office, Lukashenka has dismissed Western criticism of his leadership, instead focusing on gaining tighter control and influence over all aspects of Belarusian society. His Soviet-era policies and ruthlessness have led the Western media to label him as “the last European dictator.”
Unlike other Eastern and Central European countries, political repression in Belarus is not history, but reality. Belarus was one of the republics of the Soviet Union that suffered the most from Stalinist repression; no Belarusian family was left untouched by the wave of terror. Today’s modern Belarus is known for reviving political imprisonment, incidences of politically-motivated disappearances, and persecution of pro-democracy activists and their families.
The current regime in Belarus violates the constitutional rights of Belarusian citizens in many ways – sometimes similar, sometimes different from the ones that many Czechs remember from the communist era in Czechoslovakia.
Exhibition viewing hours: Monday through Thursday, 10 am–5 pm; Friday, 10 am–3 pm. Please schedule an appointment by calling (202) 274–9105.
On view beginning May 7, 2008 (Ongoing)
PEOPLE IN NEED
People in Need (PIN) is Czech non-profit, non-governmental organization that implements relief and development projects in crisis regions around the world and supports human rights and democracy. PIN has worked in Belarus since 1997, providing financial support for the persecuted, sharing the Czech experience of transformation through study trips and raising awareness of human rights abuses. For more information about Belarus projects see www.peopleinneed.cz or contact bmu@peopleinneed.cz .
ights around the world, the embassy of the Czech Republic adopted two animals, both reptiles, at the Washington National Zoo, in Washington, DC. The Cuban crocodile, an endagered species, and the Burmese python are indigenous to countries where the Czech Republic is actively involved in improving quality of life and returning full human rights to citizens. By adopting and supporting these animals, the Embassy of the Czech Republic strives to raise awareness of the international effort to return free will and self-governance to the people of Burma and Cuba, and to show solidarity for the stewardship of all their inhabitants.