Sunday, November 12th, 6:30pm @ Portland High School Auditorium
Monday November 13th, 3pm @ SPACE, 538 Congress St.
BLACK GOLD
Nick Francis and Marc Francis | UK, 2006 | 78m | Documentary
Sponsored by "FRONTIER CAFÉ, CINEMA & GALLERY
In Amharic, Oromiffa and English with English subtitles

As an industry worth over $80 billion, coffee is the most valuable trading commodity in the world second to oil. But while we buy our lattes in their millions, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is on a one-man mission to save his coffee cooperative's 75,000 struggling farmers from bankruptcy. As they strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans available to the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price. Against the backdrop of his journey to London and Seattle, highlighting New York coffee traders, auction houses and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organization we see the enormity of Tadesse's task to find a long-term solution for his farmers.

*Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006.

Followed by discussion with Oscar Mokeme from The Museum of African Culture

Monday, November 13th, 7pm | Tuesday, November 14th, 3pm
BLOOD OF MY BROTHER
Sponsored by MICHAEL ALDERSON RESTORATIONS
Andrew Berends | USA/Iraq | 84m | Documentary
In English and Arabic with English subtitles

After years of hard work, Ra'ad, an Iraqi portrait photographer, has saved enough money to open his own shop. On the night of the opening, while volunteering to guard the ancient mosque in Kadhimiya, Ra'ad is shot and killed by an American patrol. Longing for revenge, Ra'ad's brother Ibrahim dreams of joining the Shia uprising against the American occupation. But as the only male left in the family, Ibrahim must take on the role of breadwinner. The Blood of My Brother takes the viewer behind the scenes of the growing Shia insurgency with scenes of fighting and death on the streets of Sadr City and Najaf. The Blood of My Brother brings war-torn Iraq to life with intimate detail . . . kneeling in prayer amidst a thousand Muslim worshippers, riding atop a sixty-ton tank, driving with masked resistance fighters to attack American positions, fleeing the threat of an overwhelming response and the cold, distant stare of a dead Iraqi fighter.

*Official Selection, Tribeca Int'l Film Festival 2006

Tuesday, November 14th, 7pm | Wednesday, November 15th, 3pm
S21: THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE
Sponsored by THE WAYNFLETE HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
Rithy Pahn | Cambodia/France | 2003 | 101m | Documentary
In Khmer with English subtitles

In 1975-79, almost two million Cambodians lost their lives to murder and famine when the Khmer Rouge forced the urban population into the countryside to fulfill their ideal of an agrarian utopia. The notorious detention center code-named 'S21' was the schoolhouse-turned prison where 17,000 men, women and children were tortured and killed, their 'crimes' meticulously documented to justify their execution. In this documentary and astonishing historical document, S21 survivor Vann Nath confronts his captors, some of whom were as young as 12 years old when they committed their atrocities.

*Winner - Best Documentary, Chicago Int'l Film Festival

Followed by discussion with members of the Portland Cambodian community

Wednesday, November 15th, 7pm | Thursday, November 16th, 3pm
SISTERS IN LAW
Sponsored by KATE & JESS KNOX
Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi | U.K./Cameroon | 2005 | 106m | Documentary
In Pidgin English with English subtitles and English

"I'm afraid [the accused] has missed a century. This is the century where women's rights are respected," observes Judge Hortense Bam in her courthouse in Kumba, Cameroon. Sisters In Law is a fascinating, often hilarious look at the work of one small courthouse in Cameroon. The tough-minded state prosecutor Vera Ngassa and court president Beatrice Ntuba are helping women in their Muslim village find the courage to fight often-difficult cases of abuse, despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent. With fierce compassion, they dispense wisdom, wisecracks, and justice in equal measure-handing down stiff sentences to those convicted. Both insightful and uplifting, Sisters In Law presents a rare strong and positive view of African women, and captures the emerging spirit of courage, hope and possibility for change.

*Winner - Prix Art Et Essai, Cannes Film Festival

Thursday, November 16th, 7pm | Friday, November 17th, 3pm
KZ
Sponsored by STUDIO MNEMOSYNE
Rex Bloomstein | UK | 2005 | 88m | Documentary
In English and German with English subtitles

On the banks of the river Danube, surrounded by the beautiful landscape of Upper Austria, lies the picturesque town of Mauthausen. Two kilometers from its town centre is a place that attracts bikers, busloads of tourists, parties of schoolchildren and people from all over the world. Tour guides come to work here every day, while nearby the locals go about their daily lives. This is a place where thousands upon thousands of people from over thirty nations were tortured and murdered. This site is the former KZ - in German short for concentration camp. Stripped of the usual dramatic devices - survivor testimonies and archive footage - this is a radical, groundbreaking film about us facing our ultimate demons, confronting the horrors that the human race is capable of inflicting on one another.

*Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006.

Thursday screening followed by discussion with the Waynflete Human Rights Organization

Friday, November 17th, 7pm | Saturday, November 18th, 3pm
TOTAL DENIAL
Sponsored by ASIA WEST
Presented with The Telling Room
Milena Kaneva | Bulgaria/Italy | 2006 | 65m | Documentary
In English, Karen and Burmese with English subtitles

A member of Burma's Karen ethnic minority, Ka Hsaw Wa was one of the leaders of the student movement for democracy. For more than a decade, he has gathered testimonies and other evidence on numerous cases of human rights and environmental abuse. Wanted by police in both Burma and Thailand, he is now based in the U.S., traveling back to both countries periodically, at considerable personal risk, to document further abuses. In 1995, along with the co-founder of Earth Rights International, Katie Redford, and fifteen villagers from the jungles of Burma, Ka Hsaw Wa brought a landmark lawsuit against oil giants UNOCAL and TOTAL that drew international attention to the pervasive abuses associated with construction of the Yadana pipeline in Burma. Kerry Kennedy in her book "Speak Truth to Power" describes Ka Hsaw Wa as "A man of incredible courage and commitment, with the firm belief that one man can make a difference."

*Winner - Vaclav Havel Special Award For Human Rights 2006

Followed by Q&A with Ka Hsaw Wa and Katie Redford of Earth Rights International

Saturday, November 18th, 7pm | Sunday, November 19th, 3pm
Third screening added, Sunday, November 19th, 7pm
SIERRA LEONE'S REFUGEE ALL STARS
Sponsored by VIDEOPORT
Zach Niles and Banker White | Guinea/Sierra Leone/USA | 2005 | 80m | Documentary
In English and Krio with English subtitles

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars tells the remarkable and ultimately life-affirming story of a group of six Sierra Leonean musicians who come together to form a band while living as refugees in the Republic of Guinea. Forced from their homes in Sierra Leone, the members of the band represent the thousands of stories that exist amongst the survivors of the Sierra Leonean civil war. Following the group over the course of three years, we see the band travel amongst Guinean refugee camps and back to war-ravaged Freetown as part of the UNHCR's 'go-and-see' program. Through the uplifting music and emotional stories of these six characters, we begin to understand the brutal realities of a war so often dismissed by the mass media and are witness to the ability of individuals to sustain hope and create art in a landscape dominated by rage and loss.

*Winner - Best of the Fest, Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2006

Followed by Q&A with director Zach Niles