AMNESTY International Week of Justice Festival

Aditya Monday December 29, 2008

For this year's International Week of Justice Festival 2008 (5-10 Dec), Amnesty International India asked NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) to curate films from Asia in its programme.

NETPAC selected 15 features which touch on issues of border conflicts, dictatorships, war on terror, displacement and evictions, prison diaries and the criminal justice system. Among them are Prasanna Vithanage's August Sun and Death on A Full Moon Day, Garin Nugroho's The Poet and Bird Man Tale, Abdullatif Abdulhamid's Out of Coverage, Pimpaka Towira's The Truth Be Told, Nicole Ballivian's Driving to Zigzigland, Mai Masri's 33 Days, and others.

These films reflect the political tumult that Asia has struggled with, and the conscience of its filmmakers. Prasanna Vithanage's films were some of the first, of the Sri Lankan new generation directors, daring to tackle the taboo subject of the suffering wrought by the civil war. Indonesia's Garin Nugroho was the most insistent voice in the last years of the despotic Suharto regime. Lest we forget, the filmmakers of West Asia (what the West terms as the Middle East) - Mai Masri, Abdullatif Abdulhamid and Nicole Ballivian - have been making their issues heard through their careful cinematic images.

If information and journalism have always been the mighty sword, then The Truth Be Told, Pimpaka Towira's film, is a celebration of one lone Thai journalist - Supinya Klangnarong - who stood up against the corrupt Thaksin government in Thailand and had to battle the legal system that the dictator used against her.

by Netpac Bureu


Permalink: https://netpacasia.org/blogpost131-AMNESTY-International-Week-of-Justice-Festival
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