Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival returns to London for the ninth year and this year the festival is screening three films featuring disability. Many of the filmmakers will attend the screenings and are available for interview during their stay here.

Midwinter's Night Dream (London Premiere) plus filmmaker talk

• Serbia & Montenegro
• Sunday 20 March, Gate Cinema, 18.45 & Tuesday 22 March, Ritzy Cinema 21.00
• Set in the winter of 2004, Lazar, a Serbian Army deserter sent to prison for many years, returns to his former home in hopes of returning to his former, normal life. There he finds squatters -Jasna, a single mother who is raising her autistic 12-year-old daughter Jovana (stunningly played by Jovana Mitic who is severely autistic). Refugees from Bosnia, they have been squatting in Lazar's apartment for some time now. Like Lazar, Jasna, whose husband never accepted their daughter's autism and abandoned them, also wishes to turn the page on a difficult past. Lazar doesn't have the heart to make them leave. Little by little, among these three beings marginalized by society, a special kinship develops.
• Dir Goran Paskaljevic (Serbia and Montenegro 2004, 95 mins, drama)
• Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles

Living Rights: Yoshi, Toti And Lena

• Japan/Kenya/Belarus
• Sunday 20 March, Ritzy Cinema, 14.00 & Tuesday 22 March, Ritzy Cinema, 18.45
• A powerful, striking film exploring dilemmas facing three young people on three different continents, including the 16 year old Yoshinori who has Asperger's Syndrome - a form of autism exposed in Mark Haddon's extraordinary novel The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-Time. Yoshi's dream is to attend a regular Japanese high school. With humour, wit and creativity Yoshi makes a strong case for us all to believe he should.
• Dir Duco Tellegen (Japan/Kenya/Belarus 2004, 83 min, documentary)
• Japanese, Maasai & Russian with English subtitles

Pulled from the Rubble (Closing Film) plus filmmaker talk

• Wednesday 23 March, ICA Cinema, 20.45 & Thursday 24 March, Ritzy Cinema, 21.00
• In August 2003, Gil Loescher went to Baghdad on a humanitarian research trip. He and his colleagues were in a meeting with the head of the United Nations in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, when a truck full of explosives was driven into the side of the building. Gil was the only survivor from the most devastated section of the building, needing his legs to be amputated to escape from the rubble. All the other people in the meeting died. Through poignantly honest narration, and observational scenes of high emotion, his daughter records the family's recovery during the months after the bombing. Using the camera becomes her way of dealing with the suddenness of the family's changed reality, and a way of re-visiting the haunting images of the bomb site - a place of both horror and hope.
• Dir Margaret Loescher (UK 2001, 63min, documentary) In English

For further press information or images contact: Sarah Harvey or Angie Davis, SarahHarveyPublicity on 020 7703 2253 / 07958 597426 / press@sarahharvey.info

THE RITZY GATE CINEMA ICA Box office 0870 7550 062 0870 7550 063 0207 930 3647 www.picturehouses.co.uk www.ica.org.uk

Supported by the National Lottery through the UK Film Council and Film London Regional Investment Fund for England

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