THE 19TH ANNUAL HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL

Co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center

June 13-26 at the Walter Reade Theater

Program of 32 Films from 20 Countries—including 31 New York Premieres

NEW YORK, May 14, 2008 -- Each year countless talented filmmakers work against long odds, short finances and threatening politics to bring to the screen powerful stories of human struggle, sacrifice and triumph. The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival returns to the Walter Reade Theater this June to bring some of the most compelling of these stories to New Yorkaudiences. Co-presented by Human Rights Watch and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the 19th annual festival will run from June 13 to 26, featuring 19 feature-length films and 13 shorts from 20 countries, including 31 New Yorkpremieres. The festival is especially proud that this year’s program features an unprecedented 20 films by women.

The festival launches on Friday, June 13 with A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, with the film's namesake and renowned author of “Death and the Maiden” present to introduce this extraordinary documentary. In 1973, the coup in Chile sent Dorfman into exile and killed many of his friends. Director Peter Raymont follows him on an emotional journey back to Chile as he recalls that tumultuous period and its consequences. Mr. Dorfman receives a special spotlight later in the festival when two films that he wrote with his son Rodrigo, Prisoners in Time (1995) and Dead Line (1998), will be featured. A Promise to the Dead will be followed opening night by To See If I’m Smiling in which six young Israeli women talk with bracing candor about their experiences during their mandatory military service in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Director and former Israel Defense Forces soldier Tamar Yarom will present the film.

Women are also on the frontlines in festival centerpiece The Sari Soldiers, by New York-based filmmaker Julie Bridgham, this year’s recipient of the festival’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage and commitment in filmmaking. The film follows six Nepali women on opposing sides of Nepal's armed conflict as they bravely fight to transform their country's future.

On Thursday, June 26, two closing night films offer sobering tales of the profound personal cost many pay in the fight for justice. Letter to Anna tells the story of the life and tragic death of crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006 by a gunman who some believe was an operative of the government of which she was openly critical. In USA vs. Al-Arian, our own government is implicated in this intimate portrait of Palestinian-American activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian and his family during his federal trial on terrorism-related charges.

One of the most shameful legacies of America’s past is invoked in Traces of the Trade, in which director Katrina Browne and nine relatives trace their roots as the largest slave-trading family in American history. In this bicentennial year of the U.S.abolition of the slave trade, the film offers powerful new perspectives on the black/white divide.

Four more superb documentaries by American women will be showcased at this year’s festival. Acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kuras’s gorgeously shot The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), co-directed by Thavisouk Phrasavath, movingly chronicles 23 years in the life of a Laotian family who escaped the ravages of the Vietnam War to resettle in New York.

From Senain Kheshgi and Geeta V. Patel comes the world premiere of Project Kashmir, in which the directors, two American friends from opposite sides of the divide, investigate the war in Kashmir and find their friendship tested over deeply rooted religious biases they never had to face in the U.S. Edet Belberg’s The Recruiter takes a compelling look at army recruitment in this country through the story of Louisiana Sergeant Clay Usie, one of the most successful recruiters in the history of the Army. In the Sundance award-winning The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson documents the tragic plight of women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo who are raped in the name of war.

Africa is also the focus of The Dictator Hunter which follows tireless Human Rights Watch lawyer Reed Brody and Chadian political refugee Souleymane Guengueng as they pursue former president Hissène Habré of Chad, under whose regime tens of thousands of citizens were tortured and killed. "If you kill one person, you go to jail. If you kill 40 people, they put you in an insane asylum,” says Brody, who will attend the festival screenings. "But if you kill 40,000 people, you get a comfortable exile with a bank account in another country, and that’s what we want to change here."

Films from Latin America and the Middle East have become perennial features of the program and this year is no exception. Like A Promise to the Dead, the Chilean film Calle Santa Fe returns to the brutal Pinochet regime and post-revolutionary exile through filmmaker Carmen Castillo’s deeply personal journey back to her homeland, which she fled in 1974 after her husband, a leftist leader, was killed.

From Brazil comes Maria Ramos's Behave, which follows the process of minors who have fallen into the hands of Rio de Janeiro’s troubled juvenile court system and detention centers. Middle Eastern offerings include the feature drama Under the Bombs, a poignant tale of a Lebanese woman's search for her young son in the aftermath of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, and This Way Up, where a group of elderly Palestinians learn to live with the everyday changes, restrictions and surprises created when the West Bank Wall is erected just yards from their door. Playing in the same program as This Way Up, Open Heart highlights the plight of the Palestinian healthcare system struggling under occupation, while the short Deadly Playground (preceding the Israeli film To See If I’m Smiling) looks at a young boy’s fascination with cluster bombs dropped by Israeli forces in south Lebanonin 2006.

Other highlights of this year’s program include Roger Weisberg’s Critical Condition, which reveals the impact of being sick and uninsured in this country; American Outrage, a portrait of two elderly Shoshone sisters who’ve been fighting against the U.S. government’s attempts to take over their land in Nevada (showing with the Kenyan land-rights short Rightful Place); and China’s Stolen Children, an investigation into how China’s one-child policy has led to a boom in stolen children, with an estimated 70,000 children kidnapped there every year and traded on the black market. The spotlight is also on China in the annual HRW photography exhibit in the Film Society’s Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery, adjacent to the Walter Reade Theater, in which photographer Kadir van Lohuizen shows the world a side of Beijingthat Olympic organizers would prefer to conceal.

In partnership with the Adobe Foundation, the festival is pleased to announce the inaugural edition of Youth Producing Change, a special program of nine short films directed and produced by youth from across the globe. Armed with digital cameras and their own boundless creativity, these young people bravely expose human rights issues faced by themselves and their communities. Many of the teenage filmmakers will be making the trip to New York to present their work.

Each year, Human Rights Watch endorses select First Run Feature films that fit within the Human Rights Watch mission. This year they have added a new dimension to the partnership by screening five of the HRW Selects Film Series as part of the festival proper – Monday, June 16 to Friday, June 20, daily at 4:00 p.m.

Please check www.filmlinc.com or www.hrw.org/iff for descriptions of the films.

Single screening tickets for the 2008 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival are $11 for adults, $7 for Film Society members and students with a valid photo ID, and $8 for seniors. They are available at both the Walter Reade Theater box office and online at www.filmlinc.com. HRWIFF08 Series Pass ($40 public/$30 Film Society member) admits one person to five titles in the festival. Available only at the Walter Reade Theater box office (cash only). Additional information is available online at www.filmlinc.com and www.hrw.org/iff, or by calling (212) 875-5600.

Please note: Due to construction work taking place around Lincoln Center, access to the Walter Reade Theater is at 165 West 65th Street

close to Amsterdam Avenue. Once there, take the escalator, elevator or stairs to the upper level.