Edition 2015
VIII Human Rights Film Festival of Naples
(9-14 november 2015)
After the Special Mediterranean Edition 2014, hosted by Forum of Cultures of Naples and Campania, the 8th edition Naples Human Rights Film Festival (HRFF) comes back on next November from 9th to 14th. The 2015 Festival with its participatory formula and free access will cross many sites of the city, offering topics and solicitations about the fundamental Human Rights both individual and community. The Festival will keep the original inspiration comparing several critical points of our community with those of other Countries, accordingly with “Naples, Capital of Human Rights” goal, touching some points of the urban center and neighbors, also living the experience of the spread microcinemas (small free entrance screening places) c/o SLASH Art/Music, via Bellini 45, Naples, every day from 4.30 to 7.00 p.m.
Among the international events: cinema of memory by Jorge Denti, with his “Dr. Guevara’s footstep“, will take us back to the years of dictatorship in Argentina and to the passions of a young doctor named Ernesto Guevara. The work will be screened at Naples Accademia di Belle Arti on 12th Thuersday. In the same place, the American film-maker Iara Lee presents his last two feature films “K2, the invisible footmen” upon Pakistan and “Life is waiting” about Saharawi (Friday 13th, 8 p.m.) showing the work of Culture of Resistance network; the voices of two Indian activists, Ulka Mahajan and Roma Malik, at Orientale University (Tuesday 10th) and at San Giovanni a Teduccio NEST theater (Wednsday 11th), bring us through the social struggles against displacement and land grabbing, discovering several contradictions of the oldest Asian democracy,
Festival will try to explain to students of secondary schools that in Srebrenica (ex Yugoslavia), twenty years ago, the whole world was responsible for a massacre; the story will be presented by two (first run) documentaries at Città della Scienza introduced by Riccardo Noury (Amnesty Italy) and Mario Boccia, photographer and witness; finally, a memory of Alex Lange, the ” soft traveler “who was careful observer of that terrible war. Raffaele Crocco, creator of the Atlas of Conflicts, will guide us through this complicate path.
During our six-day trip through the Human Rights Cinema we will not forget Italy and its fighters for rights; starting from the ex-Psychiatric Hospital of Materdei (Monday 9th), we will take into consideration the relation among women, mental health and power; on Tuesday 10th, we will listen the women within the Prison of Pozzuoli (and, at the Palace of Arts (PAN), the loneliness of autism will be examined through Turin Festival CINEMAUTISMO movies with poet Umberto Piersanti as a special guest. Two extraordinary meetings with the Foundation Lelio Basso and the Permanent People Tribunal will be held at the Department of Law at the University Federico II (Monday 9th) and at ex Asilo Filangieri (Saturday 14th) leading us in the right of communities and in the difficult relationship between democracy and territory, highlighting the case TAV (high speed train) and our lands affected by poisoned waste.
One crucial meeting will be dedicated to the right to information in Italy and to the risks faced by journalists revealing the links between crime and political power, an event conducted in conjunction with association Article 21 at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa (Thuersady 12th) with many guests as Sandro Ruotolo, Attilio Bolzoni, Stefano Corradino and Alberto Spampinato who discuss about two documentaries, “Silencio” and “The Italian paradox”.
We speak once again (Friday 13th) about Mediterranean Sea and its civil wars, forced migrations and about European reaction to the invasion of refugees, hoping that the Mediterranean Forum on the Rights of Naples will became, in the coming years, a meeting point for HR Cinema. The whole day will be dedicated to the involvement of schools in Naples at Città della Scienza also hosting in the evening “Terra di tutti Film Festival” from Bologna and some important witnesses as Iara Lee, Domenico Lucano, Isabelle Toelgyes and Annet Henneman.
The film competition, registering in this eighth edition about 1,000 entries, will complete the offer of events that the 2015 Festival will propose to the City becoming the engine of our work in the coming months. Short, long and animated films will compete during five movie nights at the Academy of Belle Arti for the traditional prize of our Festival, that’s the admission to another Festival member of Human Rights Network. A Young Jury and our experts assign a special mention and the “Arrigoni / MerKhamis” award to the most original and courageous film. Finally, in the evening of November 14th Saturday, greet guests with the premiere of “Ni un pibe menos“, a film by Antonio Manco about the life and death of children of villas miserias of Buenos Aires and the incredible challenge of “Garganta Poderosa”, a newspaper written by the children of the most poor barrios. A sign of hope and redemption for those who live the misery and degradation of urban suburbs of our cities, a lesson for everybody compared (by the writer Paolo Miggiano) with the destiny of Annalisa Durante, a girl killed by camorra in the center of Naples whose parents dedicated a meeting point to all young people.
The last act, before the award ceremony, will be the interview with Renzo Rossellini curated by Valentina Ripa and Maurizio Del Bufalo, accompanied by some emblematic images of Roberto Rossellini.
Our Cinema is an attentive witness of the changes of our time, in the service of the people who walk the difficult path of democracy, for a welcoming and supportive Naples, at the center of Europe and of the world.
Association “Cinema e Diritti”