Human Rights Watch Film Festival: Enemies of Happiness / Sari's Mother November 16, 2007

ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS

Eva Mulvad, Director; Anja Al-Erhayem, Co-Director, Denmark, 2006, 58m, video, doc

In English, Farsi and Pashto with English subtitles

Enemies of Happiness is a film about personal courage and conviction. It centers on Malalai Joya, who became one of Afghanistan’s most famous and infamous women in 2003 when she challenged the power of warlords in the country’s new government. Two years later, the 28-year-old ran in her country’s first democratic parliamentary election in over 30 years. A survivor of repeated assassination attempts, she campaigned surrounded by armed guards. How do you introduce democracy in a country where a majority of the people are illiterate, votes are for sale, and warlords use threats and bribes to control the ballots, and many women cannot leave their children to vote? As the film eloquently illustrates, it takes more than Western soldiers and diplomats. Joya is a controversial voice for a nation ruined by war, still ruled by fear, but desperate for a change for the better. * Winner of the 2007 HRWIFF Nestor Almendros Prize and the Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Prize: Documentary

Distributor's website: http://www.wmm.com

SARI'S MOTHER

In Sari's Mother, filmed in Iraq over the period of one year, filmmaker James Longley (Gaza Strip; Iraq in Fragments) follows a courageous mother as she struggles to get medical help for her 10-year-old son, Sari, who is dying of AIDS.

Tickets:
$6 per film / $4 for students, seniors and SPACE members
Festival passes: $20 / $15 for students, seniors and SPACE members.

Buy tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com
Or call 1-800-838-3006 to order over the telephone

Official Website: http://www.space538.org/pages/2007hrwff.php