Tasveer Partners with Seattle Human Rights Film Festival

Amnesty International will present the 17th Annual Seattle Human Rights Film Festival. The Seattle Human Rights Film Festival (SHRFF) celebrates the invaluable contribution filmmakers offer to raising public awareness and understanding of often overlooked human rights issues. Since 1992, SHRFF has brought some of the world’s most thought-provoking films to our community, covering critical issues that face us as global citizens. Through scenes of despair, death and destruction, themes of survival, compassion and hope emerge. Complete schedule at http://shrff.org.

Tasveer is proud to be a SHRFF partner sponsoring four programs with South Asain themes.

Sponsored by:
Amnesty International PS

Global Health Symposium with Film One Water

Wednesday February 4th, 2009, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

University of Washington, Foege Auditorium 1705 NE Pacific St, Seattle, WA, 98195

cost: $8 General/ $6 Students

One Water
Sanjeev Chatterjee, USA, 2007, 68 min

We look around us and see water everywhere. The earth is a planet lined with vast arterial networks of streams, rivers and oceans; a sky that opens up and unleashes rain and snow; pipes and taps that have long serviced washing machines, icemakers, swimming pools and spas. So how can we suddenly be facing a threatening global water crisis?

Now, at a time when more than half of the world is imperiled by imminent water shortages, One Water celebrates the poignant emotional life of water and the myriad ways it washes through the global human experience – in moments of joy, struggle, labor, conflict and hope. A voyage through five years, 14 countries and a multitude of uncounted miles, the film portrays a direct and personal experience of water’s beauty, utility and wonder – and also raises the provocative and important question: What are we doing now to ensure the world’s children will have access to all that this universal source of life has to offer?

*A panel of experts from the University of Washington and One Water will speak following the screening.

Sponsored by:
UW Global Health Resource Center

Fire Under The Snow
Makoto Sasa – USA/Japan – 2008 – 75 min

Saturday February 7th, 2009, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM Northwest Film Forum cost: $8/$6

Arrested by the Chinese Communist Army in 1959, Palden Gyatso spent 33 years in prisons and labor camps for the “crime” of peaceful demonstration. Tortured, starved and sentenced to hard labor, he watched his nation and culture destroyed, his teachers, friends and family displaced, jailed or killed. The film covers Palden’s birth in 1933, and follows him through the Orwellian nightmare that began with the Chinese invasion. It explores the escalating cycle of interrogation and physical violation that ended decades later with Palden’s escape from Tibet, and a cathartic meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India.

Fire Under the Snow reveals the contours of an inspirational story: It is the survival of a mind and soul under unthinkable duress.

 

The Sari Soldiers

Saturday February 7th, 2009, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Northwest Film Forum

1515 12th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98122

cost: $8/$6

Julie Bridgham – USA/Nepal – 2008 – 90 min

Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties. When Devi, mother of a 15-year-old girl, witnesses her niece being tortured and murdered by the Royal Nepal Army, she speaks publicly about the atrocity. The army abducts her daughter in retaliation, and Devi embarks on a three-year struggle to uncover her daughter’s fate and see justice done.

The Sari Soldiers follows her and five other brave women, including Maoist Commander Kranti; Royal Nepal Army Officer Rajani; Krishna, a monarchist from a rural community who leads a rebellion against the Maoists; Mandira, a human rights lawyer; and Ram Kumari, a young student activist shaping the protests to reclaim democracy. The Sari Soldiers intimately delves into the extraordinary journey of these women on opposing sides of the conflict, through the democratic revolution that reshapes the country’s future.

*Director Julie Bridgham will speak following the screening.

Sponsored by:
Bo M Karlsson Foundation

Shame

Saturday February 7th, 2009, 9:00 PM – 11:00 PM

Northwest Film Forum

1515 12th Ave, Seattle, WA, 98122

cost: $8/$6

Mohammed Naqvi – Pakistan/USA – 2006 – 110 min

Shame is the story of a poor and illiterate woman, Mukhtaran Mai, who was raised in a remote village in Pakistan. Her tragedy begins in 2002, when the tribal council sanctions a punishment against her for a crime of which her brother was accused of interest in a girl from a higher social class. She is judged guilty only because of her membership in the same family. Mukhtaran is paraded naked in public after she is gang-raped in retribution. Her family and other villagers expect her to commit suicide soon after. Instead of following the tragic path of other women, Mukhtaran decides to seek justice without the help of her family or the villagers.

Shame is a critically important and powerful film that challenges its viewers with the harsh realities that face poor, rural women in Pakistan and other parts of the world.

*Asst. Producer Sabina Ansari will speak following the screening.

Sponsored by:
Chaya Seattle