Human Rights Watch Film Festival returns to London

This year's festival lasts until 22 March and revolves around four parallel themes: traditional values and human rights - incorporating women’s rights, disability rights, and LGBT rights; crises and migration; Asia/South Asia; and occupation and the rule of law. The opening film is Kim Longinotto’s Salma, a story of courage and resilience, depicting a young Muslim girl in India, forced into seclusion once she reached puberty. The closing film will be Wajda, from Saudi director Haifaa Al Mansour. Wajda is a film about a 10-year-old girl, living in a suburb of the capital, Riyadh, "who is also testing the boundaries of a woman's place in a highly conservative society where her love for Western music and fashions land her in trouble," according to AFP news. The festival's official press release states: "The programme includes 14 documentaries and five dramas, set in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordon, Morocco, North Korea, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia and Tanzania. Many of the films will be followed by question and answer sessions, and discussions with filmmakers, experts, and film subjects." The first section will consist of several films including the UK premiere of Karima Zoubir’s Camera/Woman, a film about Khadija, a divorcee from Casablanca; Iranian filmmaker Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami’s Going Up the Stairs, in which the director takes us into the realities of traditional Iranian marriage and The Patience of Love, directed by Atiq Rahimi and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, which looks into the relationship between a wife and husband in Afghanistan. The section themed "Disability Rights" comprises six movies where topics of marginalized or often socially rejected communities such as albinism in Tanzania (In the Shadow of the Sun), homosexuality in Belgrade (The Parade), and three films highlighting the issues of humanitarian aid, conflict and migration: Fatal Assistance, My Afghanistan: Life in the Forbidden Zone and Nowhere Home. The third focus of the festival 'Asia/South Asia' will include several films from India, North Korea and Indonesia. In this section, among other movies, the viewers are invited to The Act of Killing, in which the director "explores a chapter of Indonesia’s history by enlisting a group of former killers, including the Indonesian paramilitary leader Anwar Congo," according to the press release. The forth and final section of the Human Rights Watch London Film Festival is themed "Occupation and the Rule of Law." It hosts a series of interviews from "six former heads of the Shin Bet – Israel's intelligence and security agency – speaking about their role in Israel's decades-long counterterrorism campaign," along with inside glimpses into the Israel-Palestine conflict. Films included in the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will be screened in several London cinemas. Some of the movies will be attended by the filmmakers and preceded or followed by a discussion. Source: Ahram Online For complete details and programme, please visit the Human Rights Watch Film festival website here