8TH Annual EPFC HUMAN RIGHT FILM FESTIVAL
October 24 – 26, 2008
You are cordially invited to the 8th Annual Human Rights Film Festival, curated by the Echo Park Film Center. The goal of the festival is to highlight social justice issues too often ignored by the mainstream media. Basic human rights, including the right to peacefully assemble, the right to religious freedom, the right of political sovereignty and the right to life and liberty, are often taken for granted in Western industrialized nations.
Share your ideas and experience! We urge you to participate and take ownership of the festival, deconstructing the traditional barriers between filmmaker and audience. For the first time ever, we will be screening films in three different venues across Los Angeles and are truly thankful to our new partners SGI-USA and the Metabolic Studio for welcoming us.
The films presented here are vehicles to promote thought, discussion, debate and action. The Human Rights Film Festival is a free event, open to the general public. Seating is limited and available on a first-come basis.
For any questions or additional material contact the Echo Park Film Center:
(213) 484-8846 – echoparkfilmcenter@hotmail.com - www.echoparkfilmcenter.org
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Friday, October 24 at SGI-USA
606 Wilshire Blvd Santa Monica 90401 - www.sgi-usa.org
7:00 - 7:30 - Welcome/Opening remarks
7:30 - 9:00 – Love Lived on Death Row
9:00 - 10:00 - Reception
Saturday, October 25 at the ECHO PARK FILM CENTER
1200 N Alvarado Street, Los Angeles 90026 - www.echoparkfilmcenter.org
2:00 – 4:00 – Community Symposium: Affordable Housing –
Screening of Chocolate City & Youth Works
4:00 - 6:00 – Community Workshop: Street Photography
6:00 - 7:00 – Welcome & Reception
7:00 - 8:00 - Investigation of a Flame
8:30 - 10:00 - Hidden In Plain Sight
Sunday, October 26 at the METABOLIC STUDIO/FARMLAB
1745 North Spring Street Los Angeles 90012 - www.farmlab.org
2:00 – 3:00 - Joyful Life
3:00 – 4:30 - Faubourg Tremé
4:30 – 5:00 – Light Reception – Food & Drinks
5:00 – 7:00 – Intimidad
7:00 – 9:00 - Gashole
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Love Lived on Death Row
Linda Booker
2008, 84 minutes
Love Lived on Death Row tells the story of the four Syriani siblings whose father was sentenced to die for the murder of their mother in 1990 and Meg Eggleston, who became their father’s friend and spiritual advisor through letters to him in prison. Orphaned and estranged, the Syriani children lived with hate, anger and confusion as the man they could only refer to as ‘Him Him’ lived on North Carolina’s death row. But in 2004 they collectively decided to visit him in prison, seeking answers so they could move on with their adult lives. What transpired that day was a miracle of forgiveness followed by a journey of healing, restoring family memories and then a battle for his clemency. Love Lived on Death Row’s portrait of a family torn apart by tragedy and reunited by another impending tragedy is a powerful examination of not only the healing process, but also of the role capital punishment plays in serving justice.
Chocolate City
Ellie Watson
2007, 45 minutes
In 2003, over 400 families from the Arthur Capper’s Housing Project in South East Washington DC were forced from their homes as part of a massive nation-wide redevelopment program. Years later they remain dispersed and are still struggling to retune to their original homes.
Preceded by two youth shorts:
LA Gentrified - Stephanie Cisneros - 2004, 8 minutes
- A young woman captures her community in transition when wealth and affluence change the fabric she had known since childhood.
Dodger Blues - Gabriel Perez - 2004, 6 minutes
- A young man wrestles with his love of the LA Dodgers and their dark past that troubles him.
Hidden In Plain Sight
Mark Street
2008, 62 minutes
Filmmaker Mark Street examines the similarities and differences of five different cultures as he searches for signs of social change in this experimental documentary. In Hidden In Plain Sight, Street and his camera travel to five major cities in different nations– the United States (New York City), Vietnam (Hanoi), France (Marseilles), Senegal (Dakar) and Chile (Santiago). At each stop, Street observes the people, the traffic patterns and the scenery while looking for evidence of revolutionary political thought as the principles of Ho Chi Minh and Salvador Allende pop up in unexpected places. Featuring a score by noted cellist Jane Scarpantoni, Hidden In Plain Sight was an official selection at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, was it was screened as part of the ‘Progressive Landscapes’ series.
Investigation of a Flame: A Documentary Film Portrait of the Catonsville Nine
Lynne Sachs
2001, 45 minutes
On May 17, 1968, three Catholic priests, a nurse, an artist and four others walked into a Catonsville, Maryland draft board office, grabbed hundreds of selective service records and burned them with homemade napalm. Their poetic act of civil disobedience helped galvanize an increasingly disillusioned American public against the Vietnam War. Investigation of a Flame is an intimate look at this Sixties protest within our current times, when foes of Middle East peace, abortion, and technology resort to violence to access the public imagination. Lynne Sachs combines volatile, long-unseen, archival footage with interviews with Daniel and Philip Berrigan and other members of the Catonsville Nine, encouraging viewers to ponder the relevance of civil disobedience and the implications of personal sacrifice today.
Joyful Life
Anita Chang
2007; 54 minutes
Joyful Life is a feature documentary in collaboration with Hansen’s disease (Leprosy) patients residing at Taiwan’s Lo-Sheng (“Joyful Life”), one of the few remaining sanatoriums in the world, on the verge of disappearing. Conceived as a collaboration among the residents of Lo-Sheng, a Taiwanese-American filmmaker, documentary students, and cultural workers, Joyful Life presents diverse perspectives of Lo-Sheng residents in the midst of their activism to preserve Lo-Sheng and not be moved to a nearby hospital. Filmmaker-lead workshops prepare residents for their own storytelling and filming - creating an intimate portrait of a historically marginalized community and their inspiring determination to protect what they call their home.
Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
A film by Dawn Logsdon & Lolis Eric Elie
2008, 68 minutes
Lolis Eric Elie, a New Orleans newspaperman, takes us on a tour of the city – his city – in what becomes a reflection on the relevance of history folded into a love letter to the storied New Orleans neighborhood, Faubourg Tremé. Arguably the oldest black neighborhood in America and the birthplace of jazz, Faubourg Tremé was home to the largest community of free black people in the Deep South during slavery and a hotbed of political ferment. Here black and white, free and enslaved, rich and poor cohabitated, collaborated, and clashed to create America’s first Civil Rights movement and a unique American culture. Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans is a riveting tale of heartbreak, hope, resiliency and haunting historic parallels.
Intimidad: A Home Movie
David Redmon, Ashley Sabin
2008, 71 minutes
INTIMIDAD: A HOME MOVIE - an original Mexican love story about family relationships and the meaning of ‘home.’ Cecy and Camilo – ages 21 – recently moved to the border, Reynosa, Mexico, from Santa Maria, Puebla with a dream to save money, buy land, and build a home. A year later they return to their rural hometown to reunite with their two year-old daughter Loida. What seems like a satisfying reunion turns into a confusing dilemma that transforms the course of their marriage. Both the family in the film - and the directors - documented INTIMIDAD over the course of 5 years, lending the story to an incredibly intimate, dream-like impression
