It’s been called “the cinematic conscience of the world” (by The New York Times) for good reason: the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival shows works that tackle the most important human rights and political stories of our times.
The King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University, located at 53 Washington Square South, will collaborate for the first time with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival to present a series of nine human rights films and videos from Latin America. The complexities of “the war on terror,” the fight for basic social and economic rights, and the role and responsibility of the media to its subjects are some of the themes in a program of classic and new Latin American cinema. This series complements the stay of Honorable Judge Baltasar Garzón as the current King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization at NYU. It is cosponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Cinema Tropical.
The series will open on Thursday, September 22 at 7:15 p.m. with Patricio Guzmán’s seminal documentary, The Battle of Chile. Arguably one of the best political documentaries ever made, the film chronicles the nine months leading up to September 11, 1973— when President Salvador Allende’s democratically elected Chilean government was overthrown in a bloody coup by General Augusto Pinochet’s army.
The struggle against brutal dictatorship and glimpses into contemporary Chilean society are revealed in Paula Rodriguez’s compelling documentary, Pinochet’s Children. In Justice (Justica), Brazilian filmmaker Maria Ramos takes her camera inside Rio’s overburdened judicial system where she captures the social theater and reveals the often invisible structures of power. Argentine filmmaker Alejo Hernán Taube uses his country’s 2002 economic crisis as the backdrop for his gritty drama One of Two (Una de Dos), a story of love between two people living on the fringes of society. The series closes with acclaimed filmmaker Francisco J. Lombardi’s most ambitious project to date, What the Eye Doesn’t See (Ojos que No Ven). This psychological drama, set in the final days of Alberto Fujimori’s presidency in Perú, explores the corruption plaguing many Latin American governments as seen through the eyes of everyday people.
All screenings take place at the NYU King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center and begin at 7:15 p.m. They are free and open to the public. For further information, call 212.998.3650 or log on to www.nyu.edu/kjc.
A complete schedule of films follows:
- Sept. 22: The Battle of Chile (Patricio Guzmán, 1976, 184 min.) In Spanish, English subtitles.
- Sept. 29: Pinochet’s Children (Paula Rodriquez, 2002, 83 min.) In Spanish, English subtitles.
- Oct. 6: Devils Don’t Dream (Andreas Hoessli, 1995, 90 min.) In Spanish, English subtitles.
- Oct. 13: War Takes (Patricia Castano and Adelaida Trujillo, 2002, 78 min.)
- Oct. 27: The World Stopped Watching (Peter Raymont and Harold Crooks, 2003, 82 min.) In Spanish and English, English subtitles.
- Nov. 3: Compadre (Mikael Wiström, 2004, 90 min.) In Spanish, English subtitles.
- Nov. 10: Justice (Justica). (Maria Ramos, 2004, 100 min.) In Portuguese, English subtitles.
- Nov. 17: One of Two (Una de Dos). (Alejo Hernan Taube, 2004, 88 min.) In Spanish, English subtitles.
- Dec. 8: What the Eye Doesn’t See (Ojos Que No Ven) (Francisco J. Lombardi, 2003, 149 min.) In Spanish, English subtitles.