This touring program of films drawn from the New York and London versions of the Human Rights Film Festival runs Friday through Thursday, May 7 through 13. All screenings will be projected from Beta SP video at Facets Cinematheque. Tickets are $9, $5 for members; for more information call 773-281-4114. Films marked with an asterisk (*) are highly recommended.
*Rana’s Wedding
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A soulful Palestinian beauty (Clara Khoury) in occupied East Jerusalem receives an ultimatum from her father: if she hasn’t married by the following afternoon, she’ll have to accompany him to Egypt. This lively 2002 feature by Hany Abu-Assad follows the determined young woman as she races around the city trying to locate her lover and a registrar so they can tie the knot, a project endlessly complicated by the rioting, roadblocks, and heavy security that are part of everyday life in the occupied territories. At one point the heroine, frustrated by a dying cell phone, makes a motion to dash it to the ground and finds herself staring down the rifle barrels of a half-dozen frightened Israeli soldiers. Given the tension dogging her every step, I wondered if this would end in bloodshed, but Abu-Assad opts for a more hopeful conclusion, making his film–strange as it may seem–a comedy. In Arabic with subtitles. 90 min. (JJ) (9:00)
*The Damned and the Sacred
Elaine Epstein’s 2002 documentary about South Africa’s AIDS crisis centers on a tragic irony: the country’s current president, Thabo Mbeki, will–despite his good intentions–likely be responsible for more deaths among his people than any of his apartheid-era predecessors. Stubbornly insisting there’s no proof that HIV causes AIDS, Mbeki has refused to address the escalating epidemic, denying millions of HIV-positive South Africans drugs available in the United States and most European countries. Epstein focuses on six individuals, showing how each copes with the knowledge that, unless they make it into a sponsored program, they will not be able to acquire the life-saving medications they need. 86 min. (Joshua Katzman) (9:00)
Two works: Ramon Gieling’s Welcome to Hadassah Hospital (2002), in Dutch with subtitles, is about a Jerusalem hospital. Norman Cowie’s 2002 Scenes From an Endless War (2001-2002) surveys the U.S. war on terror. 82 min. (4:00)
MONDAY, MAY 10
