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CREATED:20040208T035300Z
DESCRIPTION:HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, the largest U.S.-based international human rights 
 monitoring and advocacy organization continues their outreach with the 
 fourth Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (HRWIFF) in the Bay 
 Area.  Taking place at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley from February 
 26-28 and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on 4 
 consecutive Fridays in March (5, 12, 19 and 26) this year offers twelve 
 provocative films which help put a human face on threats to individual 
 freedom and dignity, and celebrate the power of the human spirit and 
 intellect to prevail.    Human Rights Watch\'s International Film Festival 
 has become a leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and 
 animated films and videos with a distinctive human rights theme. Through 
 the eyes of committed and courageous filmmakers, we showcase the heroic 
 stories of activists and survivors from all over the world.  We seek to 
 empower everyone with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a 
 very real difference.    The festival schedule is as follows:  PACIFIC FILM 
 ARCHIVE  Thursday, Feb 26 - 7:00pm  POWER TRIP Directed by Paul Devlin  
 Produced in US/Republic of Georgia, 2003/ Running Time: 83m  The 
 privatization of electricity is a complex but common issue in many parts of 
 the world. For societies coming out of the communist system of the former 
 Soviet Union, the cultural clash with private Western companies illustrates 
 a set of human rights values that are in conflict. In the past, rights such 
 as the rights to housing, education, and labor were valued in the Republic 
 of Georgia. Whereas in the West, things such as the right to freedom of 
 association, freedom of speech and freedom of religion took priority. 
 Therefore, when the economic values shift in a country like Georgia, it 
 means that values are obliged to shift in both the social and the political 
 system. It is this tension between systems that gives rise to individual 
 struggles, both to succeed and to survive.   In POWER TRIP, AES, an 
 American global power company, has purchased Telasi, the ailing electricity 
 distribution company in Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet Republic of 
 Georgia, from the current government. Under Soviet communism, the 
 government paid for electricity or the cost was negligible. Local AES 
 manager Piers Lewis must now train the entire population that in the new 
 market economy, customers have to pay for their electricity. This means the 
 people of Tbilisi must face the painful reality that a significant portion 
 of their already meager income will have to go to paying their power bills. 
 Most Georgian citizens, large companies and even the Energy Minister choose 
 not to comply and devise ever more clever ways to obtain electricity for 
 free. Led by Lewis, AES now decides it must teach its clients a harsh 
 lesson by disconnecting nonpaying customers from their electricity. In an 
 environment of confrontation, hot tempers, street rioting, pervasive 
 corruption, and even assassination, POWER TRIP takes viewers on a roller 
 coaster ride as AES struggles to help build a modern nation from the rubble 
 of the Soviet collapse.  8:50pm  LIFE ON THE TRACKS Directed by Ditsi 
 Carolino  Produced in UK/Philippines, 2002/ Running Time:70m  Filmmaker 
 Ditsi Carolino achieves an amazing intimacy in her cinema verite portrait 
 of a young Filipino couple, Eddie and Pen Renomeron, their three adopted 
 children and two kids of their own. The family lives in a neighborhood 
 teaming with makeshift houses crowded dangerously close to the railway 
 tracks in the Philippine capital Manila. Between the rails, children play, 
 handmade carts are transported, men gamble and women socialize. When a 
 train approaches, everyone steps aside for a moment and, once the cars have 
 rumbled past, life resumes its normal course. Eddie and Pen have serious 
 worries, because the landlord has announced that their \"house\" is to be 
 demolished. They owe a great deal in back rent. Eddie earns almost nothing 
 selling duck eggs and the pittance that Pen receives as a maid does not 
 help enough. They each cope with their anxieties in different ways: Eddie 
 converts his hard-earned cash into booze whenever he gets a chance and when 
 Pen finds her husband drunk, she flies into a rage. Filmmaker Carolino 
 exhibits remarkable skill in capturing the seminal moments of emotion and 
 humor in one family\'s life journey.  \n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/02/07/30453.php
SUMMARY:Human Rights Watch Film Festival
LOCATION:Pacific Film Archives
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2004/02/07/30453.php
DTSTART:20040227T030000Z
DTEND:20040227T060000Z
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