UNC Asheville’s Amnesty International chapter will hold its third annual Human Rights Film Festival January 26-28. As the largest film festival of its kind in the Southeast, 11 films will be screened at UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium and at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company. Most intermissions will feature short films by local documentarian Rebecca MacNeice. All films are open to the public; screenings at UNC Asheville are free while showings at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company are $2 general admission at the door.

“Punam,” “Rosita,” “Winter in Baghdad” and “Homefront” will be shown Friday, Jan. 26, at UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium from 7 p.m. to midnight.

• “Punam” will begin at 7 p.m. The 28-minute film follows Punam Tamang, a nine-year-old girl who lives in Nepal. Serving as her family’s caretaker since her mother’s death, Tamang sees little of her father, who works long hours in a rice factory to provide enough money for his children to attend school.
   

• “Rosita” will be screened at 8 p.m. Award-winning directors Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater tell the true story of Rosa, a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who became pregnant as the result of a rape. Fearing for their daughter’s life and mental health, Rosa’s parents battle two governments and the Catholic Church in their quest to obtain an abortion for their daughter.
   

• “Winter in Baghdad” will be screened at 9:30 p.m. Filmmaker Javier Corcuera spent several months in Baghdad in 2004, becoming particularly close with a group of teenage boys who, despite constant obstacles, managed to attend school and hold down part-time jobs.
   

• A screening of “Homefront” will wrap up the evening at 11 p.m. Over 19,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in Iraq. Director Richard Hankin follows one of them, former army ranger Jeremy Feldbusch, who struggles to navigate through life as a blind and partially brain-damaged veteran.

The film festival continues Saturday, Jan. 27, with "Sierra-Leone's Refugee All Stars," "Rain in a Dry Land" and "KZ" from 7:30 to 11:15 p.m. at UNC Asheville's Lipinsky Auditorium.

• “Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars” will begin at 7:30 p.m. The 80-minute film tells the story of a group of six Sierra Leonean musicians who form a band while living as refugees in the Republic of Guinea.
   

• “Rain in A Dry Land” will be screened at 9:30 p.m. This film chronicles the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave behind a 200-year legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges as immigrants in the United States.
   

• An 11:15 p.m. screening of “KZ” will conclude the evening. “KZ” explores Mauthausen, a touristy Austrian town that was once home to a former concentration camp. Director Rex Bloomstein captures the feelings of tour guides, travelers and residents living and working in the town.

The series will wrap up on Sunday, Jan. 28, with “Switch Off,” “Source,” “Black Gold” and “Darwin’s Nightmare” from noon to 8 p.m. at UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium.

• “Switch Off” begins at noon. The 2005 film chronicles the Pehuenche-Mapuche people living in Chile as they are forced to move to higher ground because the construction of a large dam flooded the valley they lived in for over four centuries. Despite constitutional protections for indigenous people, the current government has done little to enforce their rights against the wealthy multinational who took their home.
   

• “Source” will be screened at 2 p.m. Azerbaijan, a country noted for its corrupt government, is chronicled as it becomes the site of a major oil, gas and pipeline project led by BP. The filmmakers interview a cross-section of people affected by the oil boom, including politicians, oil company employees, businessmen and factory workers.
   

• “Black Gold” will be screened at 3:45 p.m. The 78-minute film follows Tadesse Meskela, the leader of an African coffee cooperative, as he travels the world in an attempt to save 75,000 struggling farmers from bankruptcy.
   

• The final film of the day, “Darwin’s Nightmare,” will be shown at 8 p.m. The documentary follows the booming multinational industries of fish and weaponry and the alliances it creates along Lake Victoria in Tanzania.

In conjunction with the screenings at UNC Asheville, two special showings will take place at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company.

• “Black Gold” will be screened at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26.
   
• “Mardis Gras: Made in China” will debut at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 27. The documentary follows the path of Mardi Gras beads from the factories of Fuzhou, China to the streets of New Orleans.

For more information, call Mark Gibney, UNC Asheville Belk Professor of Humanities, at
828/250-3870.