News & Events

UNC Asheville Student Group to Host Sixth Annual Human Rights Film Festival; Five Documentaries to be Screened, Discussed

November 4, 2009

UNC Asheville’s Amnesty International Student Chapter will hold its sixth annual Human Rights Film Festival November 9-13. Five films will be shown at 7 p.m. in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union. Each film will be followed by a discussion led by a UNC Asheville professor, student or community member. The festival, which has become the largest of its kind in the Southeast, is free and open to the public.

“Waltz with Bashir,” an animated documentary about the 1982 Lebanon war, will be shown Monday, Nov. 9, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Grotto. The film follows director Ari Folman’s quest to unveil his own forgotten memories of his experience in Israeli Army during the first Lebanon war.

“Crude,” a cinema-verite feature which explores the law case known as the Amazon Chernobyl, will be shown Tuesday, Nov. 10, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Grotto. The film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking by presenting the controversial case from many viewpoints. The landmark case takes place in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron.

“Burma VJ,” a documentary following the story of young Burmese video journalists, will be shown Wednesday, Nov. 11, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union, room 104. Risking torture and life in jail, young citizens of Burma

 insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

“Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” which chronicles the story of Liberian women who worked to end civil war in their country, will be shown Thursday, Nov. 12, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Grotto. The film documents the efforts of thousands of women who came together to nonviolently force a resolution during the stalled peace talks in Liberia.

“Hunger,” a film exploring the 1981 Irish Republican Army hunger strike, will be shown Friday, Nov. 13, in UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Grotto. The film, starring Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands, dramatizes events in a Northern Ireland prison during the six weeks prior to Sands death.

For more information, call Mark Gibney, UNC Asheville professor of political science and Belk Chair of Humanities, at 828/250-3870.