Exhibition | Fiscal Sponsorship | Resources

2009 SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Highlighted film titles link to SFIFF pages that contain film synopses, credits, print sources, running times, countries of origin and ticket purchase links.

Autumn
In this striking debut feature from a young Turkish director, Yusuf struggles to find purpose after serving ten years as a political prisoner, striking a bleak connection with a prostitute who reads Russian literature.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 443
Website: http://www.sonbaharfilm.com/

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
This harrowing, breathless documentary revisits the 2007 protests by hundreds of silent monks and thousands of chanting citizens against Burma’s military dictatorship, using the stunning concealed-camcorder footage smuggled abroad by a cadre of courageous young reporters.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 625
Website: http://www.burmavj.com/

My Neighbor, My Killer
Anne Aghion has spent over a decade documenting a small village in Rwanda where, since 1999, government trials called the Gacaca have attempted to move toward reconciliation and healing in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where Hutus killed Tutsis on a mass scale using machetes and makeshift weapons.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 393
Website: http://www.gacacafilms.com/mnmk/

Reckoning
The International Criminal Court’s attempts to prosecute powerful killers who formerly acted with impunity is examined, through accounts of victims, prosecutors, and human rights activists, in this fascinating, often encouraging, account of the pursuit of justice.
SFFS Exhibition: 2009 SFIFF
Attendance: 546
Website: http://skylightpictures.com/site/film_detail/the_reckoning/


PAST EXHIBITIONS

Highlighted film titles link to SFIFF pages that contain film synopses, credits, print sources, running times and countries of origin.

Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony
Interviews, archival footage, and filmed performances highlight the role of music in the South African struggle against apartheid.
SFFS Exhibition: 2006 Youth Ed
Attendance: 180
 
Blind Mountain
The second film from director Li Yang is the harrowing story of a naïve young college student who accompanies a classmate of hers to a remote northern village in the pursuit of a promised job.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFFS Screen
Attendance: 213

China Blue
Do you know the real cost of your jeans?
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 Youth Ed
Attendance: 241
Website: www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/
 
The Devil Came on Horseback
Another African crisis has unfolded, and callous officials and concerned bystanders again stand paralyzed.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 531
Website: www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com/
 
Ezra
Nigerian-born filmmaker Newton I. Aduaka, whose family suffered through the Biafran War of the late 1960s, brings a special sensitivity to this drama about the life of a child soldier.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 448
Co-presenter: San Francisco Black Film Festival

 
Flow: For Love of Water
Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. 'Flow' confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 746
Youth Ed Attendance: 22
Website: www.flowthefilm.com/
 
The Judge and the General
A Chilean judge chosen to investigate criminal charges against former dictator General Augusto Pinochet undergoes a transformation…
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 910
Website: www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/judgeandthegeneral/index.html
Co-presenter: World Affairs Council of Northern California

Operation Turquoise
This unsentimental, sometimes brutal docudrama assesses the ostensibly humanitarian role of French troops after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 by viewing it through the eyes of both naïve and seasoned soldiers.
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance: 275
Youth Ed Attendance: 72
 
Pilgrimage
Few films have captured the heady mix of religion and devotion in Iran and Iraq as well as Bahman Kiarostami’s Pilgrimage.
SFFS Exhibition: 2005 SFIFF
Attendance: 806
 
Sounds of Sand
Harrowing in its implications yet deeply humane in its testimony to the endurance of hope under impossible circumstances, Marion Hänsel’s beautifully observed family saga takes place beneath the unforgiving sun of East Africa, where the increasing scarcity of free-flowing water is devastating entire communities and causing civil unrest.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 538
Youth Ed Attendance: 403

Standard Operating Procedure
Oscar-winning documentary The Fog of War, Errol Morris focused on the tragedies of conflicts past; in his new film, he turns his attention to the most recent, Iraq, using one moment—the Abu Ghraib prison scandal...
SFFS Exhibition: 2008 SFIFF
Attendance:  576
Youth Ed Attendance:
Website: http://www.sonyclassics.com/standardoperatingprocedure/
 
A Walk to Beautiful
The journey Ayehu and many young women make on foot and by bus from their remote villages in Ethiopia to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital to have corrective surgery.The film follows five women from the despair of their conditions to hope and confidence as they undergo treatment and take control of their lives.
SFFS Exhibition: 2007 SFIFF
Attendance: 594
Website: www.walktobeautiful.com/
Co-presenter: United Nations Association Film Festival


FISCAL SPONSORSHIP

HIghlighted film titles link to sffs.org "Current Projects" pages, alphabetically listing SFFS fiscally sponsored films, containing synopses and website links where available. Below each title is the filmmaker's name.

Angel of Mercy
George Paul Csicsery

The Elly Glass Project
Leslie Streit

Freedom Fighters
Monica  Wayie Ly

Rabbi
Facundo Lujan, Tania Waisberg

Kaddish In Shanghai
Chad Grochowski

An Ordinary Couple
James M Gianukos

Primal Cries
Dee  Smith

Raging Grannies
Pam Walton

Truth Has Fallen
Sheila M. Sofian


RESOURCES

The following list of resources offers interested audience members more information and ways to become involved in Human Rights.

Amazon Watch

Amigos de los Americas

Cross-Cultural Solutions

Defense Forum Foundation

Earth Rights International

Global Exchange

Human Rights Center (UC Berkeley)

Human Rights Project

Museum of Tolerance

NAACP

Network to Freedom

North Korea Freedom Fund

Rainforest Foundation Fund

San Francisco Human Rights Commission

Urban Habitat