Ten Films Showcase Challenges Faced by Activists and Survivors Around the World

(Toronto, January 18, 2010) – Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan’s award-winning documentary Last Train Home (2009) opens the seventh annual Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, co-presented with TIFF Cinematheque, on February 24.

Last Train Home draws us into the fractured lives of a family caught up in one of the world’s largest annual migrations. Over 130 million Chinese work in the booming factories on the coast. Each year countless millions of them attempt to return home to their villages for Chinese New Year which falls on February 14 this year. Fan will be in attendance at the screening, also co-presented with the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, and will talk about his film.

This year’s festival, running until March 6, features 10 documentary and feature films that focus on survivors and activists from around the world who are fighting to restore freedom, justice and a sense of community in their home countries.

“The collapse of social and economic systems around the world has led to serious human rights abuses in the first decade of this century,” said Helga Stephenson, chairperson of the festival. “These films about people fighting for their freedom and dignity, along with appearances by the filmmakers and guest speakers and thoughtful conversation send a message that personal commitment can make a very real difference.”

Three of the films focus on the desperate plight of women in Africa. Gabriela and Sally Gutiérrez Dewar’s Tapologo (2008) shows how HIV-infected women in South Africa are transforming their own experience into a source of help for others, while Anne Aghion’s My Neighbor, My Killer (2009), about the genocide in Rwanda, and Lisa F. Jackson’s The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo (2007) present honest, graphic and powerful testimonies about the killing and rape in those countries.

Three feature films are included in this year’s lineup: Triage (2009), by the Academy Award®- winning director Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land), stars Colin Farrell as an Irish war photographer in the late 1980’s dealing with post traumatic stress after covering the conflict in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Welcome (2009,) winner of the LUX 2009 film prize, by the French director Philippe Lioret, is set in Calais and focuses on a swimming instructor trying to help an illegal Kurdish immigrant from Iraq swim across the English Channel from France to England and a new life. Carlos Carrera’s Backyard (2009), is a gritty drama about the ongoing murders of young Mexican women in the US-Mexican border town of Juárez.

Tanaz Eshaghian’s Be Like Others (2008) is an intimate and unflinching documentary about life in Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death and some gay young people are choosing legal sex change operations in the hope of escaping persecution; while the Italian directors Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Paolo Santolini’s Back Home Tomorrow (2008) examines the silent aftermath of war as it follows two wounded children in hospitals: one in Sudan, the other in Afghanistan.

Geoffrey Smith and Roberto Hernandez’s Presumed Guilty (2009), will close the festival on March 6. The film follows the story of a young Mexican man wrongfully convicted of murder and the efforts of two lawyers to set him free.

An Opening Reception at McKinsey & Co., 110 Charles Street West, will follow the screening of Last Train Home on February 24. Tickets are $100. Artist Charlie Pachter will be the host of a Closing Reception at 6 pm on March 6 at the Moose Factory Gallery, 22 Grange Avenue. Tickets are $30. To purchase tickets for either reception, please call the Human Rights Watch office, 416- 322-8448.

The opening night screening will be at 6:30 pm at the Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles Street West, Toronto. All other films will be presented at TIFF Cinematheque (located at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, McCaul Street entrance).

Advance tickets for the festival can be purchased online at tiff.net/cinematheque, by phone at 416-968-FILM or toll-free 1-877-968-FILM or in person at the TIFF Box Office, 2 Carlton Street, West Mezzanine level (College subway station), from 10 am to 7 pm, Monday through Friday. Tickets cost $10.14 for adults and $5.90 for TIFF Cinematheque members, students and seniors, plus handling charges.

                                                                                                     -30-

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, Human Rights Watch gives voice to the oppressed and holds oppressors accountable for their crimes. Rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For thirty years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.

Human Rights Watch Canada Committee
The Human Rights Watch Canada Committee was formed in 2002 and is part of a network of committees across 13 cities in Europe, Canada and the United States. The committees include more than 450 people from a variety of backgrounds. The committees are an informed and engaged constituency that is a key part of Human Rights Watch’s defense of human rights.

Committees seek to increase awareness of local and global human rights issues and to enlist the public and governments to support basic freedoms for all. Committee members meet regularly to learn about human rights abuses, sponsor policy debates and generate support for Human Rights Watch and its mission through fundraising, outreach and advocacy. Human Rights Watch Canada thanks its supporters McKinsey & Co., Sonia and Arthur Labatt, Deluxe, Atom Egoyan and Arsinee Khanjian.

The HRW Canada Office is led by Jasmine Herlt (herltj@hrw.org), the director, and Samantha Ash (ashs@hrw.org), coordinator.

TIFF Cinematheque
This year represents a milestone year for TIFF Cinematheque, as 2010 marks its 20th anniversary of presenting the best of classic and contemporary world cinema year-round through carefully curated programming, lectures, filmmaker monographs and international touring exhibitions. In its 20-year history, TIFF Cinematheque has risen to be one of the preeminent programming institutions of its kind. Film professionals in the international arena recognize its programming as among the best in the world, highlighting its inspired approach, the quality of presentation and the serious consideration it gives all genres and periods of cinema. For more information on TIFF Cinematheque, visit tiff.net/cinematheque.

For more information and/or press interviews, please contact Human Rights Watch via their website at http://humanrightsfilmfestival.ca.

Human Rights Watch Canada Committee: Anne Wright-Howard at 416-922-2665 or anne_wright_howard@yahoo.ca

TIFF Cinematheque Publicist: Lina Rodriguez at 416-934-3207 or lrodriguez@tiff.net