Winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize this year, ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE follows the project of Thet Sambath, whose parents were among the approximately two million people who perished under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. With unprecedented access and groundbreaking confessions from the notorious “Brother Number Two,” Nuon Chea, and from numerous grassroots killers, he uncovers terrifying personal explanations for the genocide by allowing the perpetrators to speak for themselves.

In English and Khmer.

A selection from the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival.

Join us for a post-film discussion with author and Khmer Rouge genocide survivor Kilong Ung.

Sponsored by Cambodian-American Community of Oregon with support from the World Affairs Council of Oregon.

Read the Los Angeles Times review.

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Named for the Massachusetts governor who conveniently redrew a few erratic lines in 1812, gerrymandering is the redistricting of electoral boundaries to affect voting outcome in favor of a particular candidate, political party, or issue. As voices from all sides tell us, the reestablishment of voting district lines takes away the voice of individual communities, reduces voter turnout, and lessens competition among candidates. Whether it’s a community, race, party, or issue, everyone says they want to fix the ongoing outrages of dirty tricks—at least until they’re in power and have the opportunity to tweak boundaries to their advantage. Reichert’s smart, often witty, and entertaining exposé—well-rounded and nonpartisan—encourages an active engagement in inspecting the invisible lines that draw our notions of democracy and justice into question.

Former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury will introduce the film.

With support from the League of Women Voters of Portland.

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TIBET IN SONG is both a celebration of traditional Tibetan folk music and a harrowing journey into the past fifty years of cultural repression inside Chinese-controlled Tibet. A Tibetan political prisoner for five years, Ngawang Choephel weaves a story of beauty, pain, brutality, and resilience, introducing Tibet to the world in a way never before seen on film. The beauty of traditional Tibetan folk music is showcased through a variety of working songs, songs about family and the beauty of the land. These rarely seen performances are deftly juxtaposed against startling footage of the early days of the Chinese invasion and a concise explanation of the factors leading to the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in 1959. “The very existence of the film is something of a miracle... Despite the personal hardship he suffered, Choephel puts the local musicians and their endangered traditions first. But his own experience strongly amplifies the film’s political subtext, revealing a form of cultural Darwinism in which Chinese control threatens to extinguish centuries of cultural heritage.”—Variety.

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VISITING ARTIST—Sergio Vieira de Mello has been described by director Greg Barker as ”the most important guy you’ve never heard of.” A Brazilian diplomat, he had a 33-year career at the UN, mostly working for the High Commissioner for Refugees office in Geneva, serving time in Bangladesh, Sudan, Cyprus, Mozambique, Peru, and Yugoslavia. As Kofi Annan’s right-hand man, Vieira de Mello was given the often controversial job of head of the UN’s Human Rights Commission in 2002, then the key role of senior special representative in Iran. He was shockingly killed, along with at least 20 others, in a 2003 terrorist bombing that directly targeted the UN for the first time. Drawing on Samantha Power’s biography “Chasing the Flame,” Barker presents Vieira de Mello as “a cross between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy,” a man able to confront and frequently charm heads of state and war criminals alike, who gambled with his own life to restore dignity to the lives of others.

Sponsored by the United Nations Association of Oregon.

Recipient of the US Documentary Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival for SERGIO, Portland-born (Lincoln High School, 1988) film editor Karen Schmeer was tragically killed in a traffic accident in New York last January. The long-time editor for Errol Morris (THE FOG OF WAR; FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL; among others), Schmeer’s love of film started in high school working at the Guild Theatre. Tonight’s screening, introduced by the film's producer John Battsek, is in memory of Karen Schmeer.

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VISITING ARTIST—Though there is conflicting opinion as to cause, there is widespread agreement that global climate change is in process, and that in its wake is a new category of displaced persons. A climate refugee is a person displaced by climatically-induced environmental disasters. Increasing droughts and desertification, sea level rise, and the more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events—hurricanes, cyclones, fires, and massive flooding—are causing mass global migration, border conflicts, economic deprivation, and health-related issues of a new scale. Nash’s spectacular, globe-trotting film uncovers the unbelievable plight of people around the world displaced by climatically-induced environmental disasters, surfacing an issue that literally transcends the concepts of nationhood and ethnicity, revealing that in this situation we truly are all one people.

Michael Nash will introduce the film.

Sponsored by Mercy Corps.

Read Variety Magazine's review.

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An intimate family drama set against the backdrop of the 1998 conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, PUSHING THE ELEPHANT tells the story of Rose Mapendo, who was separated during the conflict from her five-year-old daughter, Nangabire. Rose survived the atrocities of those years and eventually resettled in Phoenix, Arizona, with her other children. Now, after 12 years apart, Rose and her daughter Nangabire are reunited in the US. Through the story of their reunion, we come to understand the excruciating decisions Rose made in order to survive and the complex difficulties Nangabire faces as a refugee in the US—torn between her painful past and a hopeful future. PUSHING THE ELEPHANT captures one of the most important stories of our age, in which genocidal violence is challenged by the moral fortitude and grace of one woman’s mission for peace.

A selection from the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival.

With support from the World Affairs Council of Oregon.

Read the Huffington Post review.

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VISITING ARTIST—THE PEASANT AND THE PRIEST tells the story of two Italian men in their eighties whose ways of life have survived from medieval Italy to the present. Sergio, a Tuscan sharecropper, uses ancient farming methods that have become overshadowed by corporate agriculture. Father Oreste fights the tide of sexual slavery, which grows each day as more and more women from Africa and Europe are forced into prostitution in Italy. Each man tries to make his contribution to a globalized world that moves relentlessly and carelessly forward. Podemski’s film offers a re-reading of this much-loved region, a landscape shaped and continually transformed by co-existing extremes of human labor, cultivation, and exploitation. The point of departure for exploring these parallel lives is a 14th-century fresco, “The Allegory of Good and Bad Government,” by Ambriogio Lorenzetti. Commissioned by the government of Siena for the Republic’s town hall, the mural tells a timeless, cautionary tale of the struggles necessary to establish and maintain social justice and reveals history as a living continuum in which care of the land and care for each other are interwoven.

Esther Podemski will introduce her film.

Sponsored by KBOO Community Radio.

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Each year in China, more than 130 million migrant workers travel home for the New Year’s holiday—the one time they’ll reunite with family all year. The mass exodus constitutes the world’s largest human migration. Amid this chaos, the Zhangs embark upon a two-day journey to see their children. The Zhangs left their rural village for factory jobs when their children were just infants. Now a teenager, daughter Qin resents their continual absence. Yearning for her own freedom, she quits school to work in a factory herself. Her parents, who see education as their children’s one hope, are devastated. “Through its intimate and heartbreaking observation of the Zhangs, LAST TRAIN HOME places a human face on China’s ascendance as an economic power. To overwhelming effect, Fan illustrates the cost incurred by fractured families and reveals a country tragically caught between its industrial future and rural past.”—Sundance Film Festival.

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Michael Campbell is one of a handful of white farmers still left in Zimbabwe since President Robert Mugabe began enforcing his controversial land seizure program, an initiative intended to reclaim white-owned land and redistribute it to poor black Zimbabweans. Since 2000, formerly thriving farms that employed thousands now sit derelict while poverty and hunger are rife amongst the majority of the country’s citizens, but 74-year-old Mike refuses to back down. Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous 2008 presidential election, we follow Mike and son-in-law Ben Freeth’s harrowing attempt to take Mugabe to an international court for racism and violation of their human rights. Filmed over 12 months, a gripping courtroom and public drama unfolds that reveals extraordinary courage in the face of injustice and brutality.

Winner, Grand Jury Prize, Silverdocs.

Read the Huffington Post review.

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LAST BEST CHANCE passionately presents a political legend, Senator Edward Kennedy, in his final battle for comprehensive immigration reform in the US. Seeking legislation that he believes would best serve US interests and provide greater security and dignity to many of the 20 million people currently living in the shadows, Kennedy joins forces with talented allies on the outside to marshal fellow Senators Obama, Clinton, Menendez, Kyl, and McCain toward a “Grand Bargain.” But deep at the heart of this fast-moving story, below the level of strategy and protocol, we find a moral tale of modern American politics. Kennedy, one of a handful of people who through his personal efforts truly changed the face of America, is forced to decide how much he wants this deal and what he is willing to trade for his greatest legacy.

A selection from the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival.

With support from the Vancouver Peace & Justice Fair.

Read a review by the Human Rights Watch.

VISITING ARTIST—OUT IN THE SILENCE tracks the conflict that erupts when filmmaker Joe Wilson’s same-sex marriage is announced in his hometown newspaper. The negative responses immediately start pouring in, but amongst the hate mail, there is a cry for help. It is from the mother of a gay teen who is tormented at school in the same town where Wilson was raised and stayed silent about his sexuality. Wilson and Hamer’s moving film brings to life the debate that grips and divides towns throughout America today. In bringing attention to America’s culture war, it also explores what is effective when developing change and building justice. This story is a vital look at the progress coming slowly to rural America.

A selection from the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival.

Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer will introduce the film, kicking off a series of screenings in rural Oregon communities sponsored by the Rural Organizing Project, Basic Rights Oregon, PFLAG, and the Community of Welcoming Congregations.

Co-sponsored by QDoc-Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival.

Read the Outfest review.

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