Unaff

Witness the Bush Administration’s abstinence-only approach to HIV prevention on a global scale? Witness Saudi Arabian women living modern lives in a fundamentalist Islamic society? Witness environmental heroes safeguarding the Earth’s natural resources from shortsighted exploitation and pollution? Witness the American government prosecute a pro-Palestinian civil rights activist for his beliefs in a post-9/11 culture of fear?Witness the tragedy taking place in Darfur, Iraq and Afghanistan?

Robert Capa

Witness the 10th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival proudly presenting 32 films, offering unique stories and viewpoints from more than 34 diverse communities around the world. An abridged version of this festival will screen prior to its official run at Stanford. Screenings will be held October 17 at the Delancey screening room, October 18 at the Roxie in San Francisco, October 19 at the Eastside Theater in East Palo Alto and also October 21 at the Camera 12 Cinemas in San Jose.

The Festival officially opens on Wednesday, October 24 at Stanford University with filmmaker Thomas Johnson’s eye-opening and gripping film, The Battle of Chernobyl, which dramatically chronicles the series of harrowing efforts to stop the nuclear chain reaction and prevent a second explosion. 

Robert Redford narrates Global Focus IV – The New Environmentalists, the stories of six passionate environmental activists who put themselves between corrupt governments, greedy corporations and intimidating adversaries. 

Robert Redford

In Tsepong: A Clinic Called Hope, Canadian health care workers set up the first HIV/AIDS clinic in Lesotho, Africa. And in Soldiers of Conscience, Peter Coyote narrates the powerful story – what does it take to enable a soldier to kill, and what does it take for some soldiers to refuse to kill.

Peter Coyote

On Thursday, October 25 The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-Use and Abuse to Africa exposes the ugly underbelly of an escalating global trade in toxic high-tech equipment.  Followed by Toxic Bust: Chemicals and Breast Cancer, a thought-provoking documentary which uncovers the growing evidence linking breast cancer to chemical exposure. In Abstaining from Reality, this documentary short provides a snapshot of the Bush administration’s abstinence-only approach to HIV prevention as part of its global HIV/AIDS assistance. Each year more than 8,000 women travel in secret from Ireland, where abortion is illegal and punishable by life imprisonment, to England where the surgery is performed legally, Like A Ship In the Night follows several women’s secret journey across the Irish Sea. 

Fighting Cholitas is a short film about a group of bold and fierce female Bolivian wrestlers. No Place for You at This Workplace deals with social prejudice against people with physical disabilities, women, the Roma, homosexuals in modern day Croatia. And in Saudi Solutions, filmmaker Bregtje van der Haak is the first Western filmmaker ever granted permission to film the lives of Saudi women living modern career lives in a fundamentalist Islamic society.

UNAFF Stanford auditorium

Friday, October 26 presents four films pertaining to controversial government regimes. Special Circumstances follows Chilean exile Hector Salgado as he returns to Chile from the USA to seek and confront the men who imprisoned him and tortured and killed his friends in the coup of 1973. The Devil Came on Horseback exposes the tragedy taking place in Darfur as seen through the eyes of an American witness, former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle. An intimate and poetic documentary tells the dramatic story of landmine survivor in The Journey of the Piano Tuner. The powerful documentary, Hidden Wounds, explores the painful reality of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as told by three veterans who struggle to overcome the trauma of their experiences in Iraq.

Hot House, Shimon Dotan

And in Hot House, filmmaker Shimon Dotan was granted rare permission to film inside the Israeli government’s highest security facilities, which houses more than ten thousand Palestinians, designated by the Israeli government as Security Prisoners?

A Minority Report

Saturday, October 27, opens with the film A Minority Report. Italian filmmaker Stefano Giantin exposes the human rights violations of Kosovo minorities, refugees and returnees. On a Tightrope is the story of four Muslim children studying tightrope walking while living in an orphanage in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. 

The documentary The Lost Children of Cite Soleil, describes the situation of child soldiers and the living conditions of children affected by armed conflict in Cite Soleil in Haiti. War/Dance tells the story of Uganda’s brutal civil war seen through the eyes of three children soldiers healed by music and dance. Afghan teen Yassin travels to Paris in hopes of obtaining papers regularizing his refugee status in My Dreams Never Lie. After an earthquake measuring 6.6 magnitudes rocks the city of Bam, Iran, a Jewish-American woman finds comfort when the Muslim citizens reach out to her and geopolitical differences are transcended with the simple message of love and hope amidst tragedy in Bam 6.6: Humanity has No Borders. A timely examination of human values and the health issues that affect us all, Salud! looks at the curious case of Cuba, a cash strapped country with one of the world’s best health care systems. And in Damage Done: The Drug War Odyssey, veterans of the drug war urge viewers to consider ending the drug prohibition.

Unaff logo

The festival roundtable Camera as Witness – the lasting impact of documentary films takes place on Saturday afternoon, invited to the roundtable are UNAFF alumni filmmakers and representatives of FAF, IDA, BAVC, ITVS, POV.

The festival closes on Sunday, October 28. Holy Warriors is a film about five former Russian soldiers who fought in wars from Afghanistan to Chechnya and found spirituality as a result. Orange Revolution captures the spirit of the Ukraine’s Orange Revolution – telling the story of a people united, not by one leader or one party, but by one idea: to defend their vote.

Danny Glover

In Willie Francis Must Die Again, Danny Glover narrates the unique story of Willie France, a man who survived execution in the Louisiana electric chair in 1946. The USA vs. Al-Arian is the story of pro-Palestinian civil rights activist Sami Al-Arian arrested in Tampa, Florida for allegedly providing material support to a terror organization, and the Bush Administration’s self-declared landmark case in its campaign against international terrorism. Mr. Dial has Something to Say highlights Afro-American improvisational visual art in the mainstream art world, causing the artistic intelligentsia to reexamine its own prejudices. 

Albert Maysles

And lastly, legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles’s Gypsy Caravan, a dynamic musical documentary which follows five Gypsy bands from four countries will close the 10th United Nations Association Film Festival.

UNAFF, which is now completing its first decade, was originally conceived to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was created with the help of members of the Stanford Film Society and United Nations Association Midpeninsula Chapter, a grassroots, community-based, nonprofit organization. 

UNAFF

Information about the festival is available on our website at www.unaff.org or by phone at (650) 724-5544.  For press materials, interviews with filmmakers and Festival Founder and Director Jasmina Bojic, please contact Sean McGinn by email at sean.mcginn@gmail.com or by phone at (415) 305-2994.

(source: http://www.epa.net/launch/news/localnws/item?item_id=637633)