The lineup for the 2016 Human Rights Watch Film Festival has been revealed, and 10 of the 18 features being screened are directed or co-directed by women, amounting to 56 percent of the slate. Female-helmed films have also been selected for the coveted Opening Night Film and Closing Night Film slots.
“Hooligan Sparrow,” Nanfu Wang’s portrait of Chinese activist Ye Haiyan, will kick off the fest. Wang is also set to receive this year’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking, named in honor of the late cinematographer. “I hope that people around the world will see the film and appreciate how desperate China’s human rights situation is,” Wang told Women and Hollywood. She explained, “The narrative about China now seems to be that it’s this powerhouse of economic development and that it’s rising on the world stage. But the life situation of the average Chinese person is hidden from the world’s view.” She wants the film to make audiences “appreciate how hard the Chinese government is trying to suppress voices of dissent, as well as people who try to show the world what’s really going on there.”
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami’s Sundance winner “Sonita” will bookend the 27th edition of the fest. The doc centers on an Afghan teen who challenges gender norms and aspires to be a rapper. Ghaemmaghami described the experience of making the film as “a journey into the depths of society to understand poverty, immigration, war, identity, sexism, tradition, and human values versus filmmaking conventions.” Sonita’s “ambitious dreams and … self-confidence in spite of the horrible situation she was living in” inspired Ghaemmaghami to tell her story.
Other noteworthy titles in the lineup include Joanna Sokolowski and Kate Trumbull-LaValle’s “Ovarian Psycos,” which follows an Eastside Los Angeles-based female of color bicycle group fighting to reclaim the streets, and “Solitary,” Kristi Jacobson’s sobering look at supermax prisons and the U.S. justice system.
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival runs from June 10 to 19 in NYC. Check out all of the women-directed and co-directed films featured in the program below. Plot summaries courtesy of the fest.
Opening Night Film & Reception
Friday, June 10, 6:30 pm — Film Society of Lincoln Center
HOOLIGAN SPARROW (New York premiere screening + panel discussion)
Nanfu Wang — 2016–83m — doc — In English and Mandarin
A group of activists protesting the alleged rape of six girls by a school headmaster and a government official quickly become fugitives. Filmmaker Nanfu Wang and super-activist Ye Haiyan (“Hooligan Sparrow”) must avoid government thugs and arrest. Sparrow becomes an enemy of the state, but detentions, interrogations, and evictions can’t stop her protest from going viral. A thriller set across southern China featuring friends who will go to any lengths to expose the truth.
Screening followed by discussion: Featuring Nanfu Wang, filmmaker; Sophie Richardson, China Director, Asia Division, Human Rights Watch; Liesl Gerntholtz, Women’s Rights Director, Human Rights Watch; moderator Minky Worden, Director of Global Initiatives, Human Rights Watch.
The Festival is pleased to present filmmaker Nanfu Wang with its 2016 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking.
Closing Night Film
Sunday, June 19, 7:00 pm — IFC Center
SONITA (New York premiere screening + Q&A with filmmaker)
Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami — 2015–90m — doc — In English and Farsi
Winner of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary, Sonita is about a determined and animated Afghan teen living in Tehran, who dreams of being a famous rapper. But in Iran, the government doesn’t let girls sing solo. And in her Afghan home she is expected to become a teenage bride. With her family keen to marry her off to receive her dowry, tradition bears down on Sonita. Armed with nothing but passion and persistence, she must turn obstacle into opportunity.
INSIDE THE CHINESE CLOSET (New York premiere screening + Q&A with filmmaker)
Sophia Luvara — 2015–70m — doc — In English and Mandarin
In a nondescript lounge somewhere in Shanghai, men and women giggle, eyeing prospective partners, visibly nervous about making the first move. This isn’t your average matchmaking event — it’s a “fake-marriage fair” where gay men and lesbian women meet in an attempt to make matrimonial deals with members of the opposite sex to satisfy social and familial expectations of a heterosexual marriage. And pretend marriages are just the start. Touching and troubling in equal measure, Inside the Chinese Closet exposes the difficult decisions young LGBT individuals must make when forced to balance their quest for love with parental and cultural expectations.
JACKSON (New York premiere screening + Q&A with filmmaker and film subject Shannon Brewer)
Maisie Crow — 2016–93m — doc — In English
What is life like in a place where the anti-abortion movement has made access to legal abortion almost impossible? Since the ruling in Roe v. Wade over four decades ago, the self-labelled “pro-life” movement has won significant legal, cultural, and political battles. Now, the stigma of abortion is prolific in the American South, leaving women in poverty and women of color particularly vulnerable. Set against the backdrop of the fight over the last abortion clinic in Mississippi,Jackson takes a close look inside the issues surrounding abortion.
OVARIAN PSYCOS (New York premiere screening + Q&A with filmmaker and film subjects)
Joanna Sokolowski and Kate Trumbull-LaValle — 2016–72m — doc — In English and Spanish
Riding at night through the streets of Eastside Los Angeles, the Ovarian Psycos are an unapologetic crew of women of color. Founded by Xela de la X, a single mother and poet, the Ovas cycle for the purpose of healing, reclaiming their neighborhoods, and creating safer streets for women. At first only attracting a few local women, the Ovarian Psycos have since inspired a crowd of locals to challenge the stereotypical expectations of femininity and be a visible force along the barrios and boulevards of Los Angeles. The film intimately explores the impact of the group’s brand of feminism on neighborhood women and communities as they confront the injustice, racism, and violence in their lives.
P.S. JERUSALEM (Screening + Q&A with filmmaker)
Danae Elon — 2015–87m — doc — In English, Arabic and Hebrew
Danae Elon exposes a deep, complex, and painful portrait of Jerusalem today. The filmmaker relocates her young family from New York City to her childhood home of Jerusalem, a decision prompted by the death of her father. Danae’s camera captures her three young boys growing up, asking endless questions and confronting the reality around them. She sends them to the only school in the city that teaches Arab and Jewish children together, a respite from the conflict enveloping her surroundings. But can she keep her family together — and keep a cool head — in the political and cultural heat of Jerusalem?
SOLITARY (Screening + Q&A with filmmaker)
Kristi Jacobson — 2015–80m — doc — In English
Solitary tells the stories of several inmates sent to Red Onion State Prison, one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US, which holds inmates in eight-by-ten foot solitary confinement cells, 23 hours a day. Profoundly intimate, this immersive film weaves through prison corridors and cells, capturing the chilling sounds and haunting atmosphere of the prison. With unprecedented access, award-winning filmmaker Kristi Jacobson investigates an invisible part of the American justice system and tells the stories of people caught in the complex penal system — both inmates and correction officers — raising provocative questions about punishment in America today. HBO Documentary Films.
TEMPESTAD (US premiere screening + Q&A with filmmaker)
Tatiana Huezo — 2016–105m — doc — In Spanish
Two women, their voices echoing over the landscape and highways of Mexico from North to South, tell how official corruption and injustice allowed violence to take control of their lives. The film is a meditation on corruption and on the notion of “impunidad,” the impunity or unaccountability of those in power, whether part of the Mexican government or the country’s drug cartels. An emotional and evocative journey, steeped not only in loss and pain, but also in love, dignity and resistance.
THE UNCONDEMNED (Screening + Q&A with filmmaker and film subject Sara Darehshori)
Michele Mitchell and Nick Louvel — 2015–86m — doc — In English, French and Kinyarwanda
Both a real-life courtroom thriller and a moving human drama, The Uncondemned tells the gripping story of a group of young international lawyers and activists who fought to have rape recognized as a war crime, and the Rwandan women who came forward to testify and win justice for the crimes committed against them. This odyssey takes the crusaders to a crucial trial at an international criminal court, the results of which changed the world of criminal justice forever.
WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE (New York premiere screening + Q&A with filmmaker)
Heidi Brandenburg and Mathew Orzel — 2016–103m — doc — In Spanish
What happens when the thirst for power and riches takes priority over human life? The Amazon Rainforest, one of the planet’s most valuable natural resources, is being auctioned off, and its people condemned. Alberto Pizango, a young indigenous leader fighting to make the voices of indigenous Peruvians heard, stands up to political leaders and is accused of conspiracy and inciting violence. Set against the backdrop of a global recession and climate crisis, When Two Worlds Collide, winner of a World Cinema documentary competition prize for best first feature at Sundance, reveals the human side to the battle of conflicting visions and political wills working to shape the future of the Amazon, and of an already debilitated global ecosystem. Opens at Film Forum on Aug. 17.
