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Grantees 2008

A TALE OF THREE SISTERS (India)
Dir: Bishnu Dev Halder
Two sisters from a remote Indian village leave tradition behind and migrate to the city, New Delhi, for a new life while the third sister awaits her turn in this contemporary, coming-of-age story.

ALL THAT GLITTERS (Kyrgyzstan/Czech Republic)
Dir: Tomáš Kudrna
In a remote village in Kyrgyzstan, the discovery of gold by an international mining company offers life changing benefits –and threats– to the community and the environment.

BURMA SOLDIER (Burma/Thailand/US)
Dir: Nic Dunlop
Myo Myint’s dramatic transformation from a soldier of Burma’s junta to a pro-democracy activist; from a tortured political prisoner to a refugee making a new life in America, tells the story of modern Burma today.

CAMP VICTORY: AFGHANISTAN (US)
Dir: Carol Dysinger
The U.S. National Guard has been deployed to Afghanistan to train the Afghan National Army. CAMP VICTORY, AFGHANISTAN follows several soldiers—Afghan and American—who across the divide of language, culture and religion must accomplish a near impossible task: crafting a modern army to serve a struggling nation.

¿DÓNDE ESTÁN? THE DISAPPEARED CHILDREN OF EL SALVADOR (US/El Salvador)
Dir: Maria Teresa Rodriguez
Margarita Zamora, an investigator and a survivor of the civil war in El Salvador, tracks down disappeared children and reunites them with their families.  Miguel Morales and Jenny Wolf- two disappeared children now residing in the US-  represent the war’s legacy of unemployment, violence and migration, a legacy that civil society  — both here and there – is struggling to address.

FAMILY: THE FIRST CIRCLE (US/Native American)
Dir: Heather Rae
FAMILY: THE FIRST CIRCLE looks at the Foster Care system and the challenges now faced due to methamphetamines. The film follows families struggling to heal, administrators working for change, and the isolation of a western landscape responsible for both the manufacturing of and liberation from addiction.

GIVE UP TOMORROW (US/Philippines)
Dir: Michael Collins
A high-profile miscarriage of justice landed a young man on death row in the Philippines.  Tireless grass-roots campaigning sets off a chain of events that resulted in historic outcome and the abolition of the death penalty.

GOUNDO’S DAUGHTER (US)
Dirs: Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater
If Goundo is deported to Mali from Philadelphia, her two year-old daughter will almost certainly be forced to endure female genital mutilation—performed on 92% of the female population in Mali. GOUNDO’S DAUGHTER is the story of Goundo’s fight for political asylum in the U.S. and her desperation to protect her daughter and stop the cycle of FGM.

IMAGE: DEMOCRACY (India)
Dir: Amlan Datta
India’s 350 million citizens must each receive a photo identity card prior to the 2009 elections in the world’s largest democracy. Many have never been photographed in their entire life, and the process is creating a new image for modern India.

LAST TRAIN HOME (China)
Dir: Lixin Fan
China experiences the largest  internal migration in the world as rural workers travel to cities for jobs. The Zhang family has been torn apart by years of separation in the era of “labor export” and urban migration. They save all year to travel home each Chinese New Year, along with over 100 million other migrant workers, hoping to salvage their relationship with their teenaged daughter.

NEW MUSLIM COOL (US )
Dir: Jennifer Maytorena Taylor
Jason “Hamza” Perez is a Puerto Rican American and ex-gang member who has converted to Islam. Over the course of three years he struggles to maintain his family, faith and artistic pursuits in contemporary, post 9/11 America.

POSITION OF THE STARS (Indonesia/Netherlands)
Dir: Leonard Retel Helmrich
From the director of EYE OF THE DAY and SHAPE OF THE MOON comes a third film in a trilogy following the life of the Sjamsudin family in Indonesia since the fall of President Suharto.

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Grantees 2007

ADOPT ME, MICHAEL JORDAN (US)
Dirs: Susan Motamed and Melanie Judd
This child’s eye view of international adoption follows five orphaned  Ethiopian friends  from their orphanage in Addis Ababa to wildly different American families.

AGUA (Mexico)
Dir: Tin Dirdamal
In Cochabamba, Bolivia, four people connected to the first “water war” of the 21st century shed light on–and perhaps foreshadow–wars to come.

AN AMERICAN SOLIDER (US)
Dirs: Edet Belzberg and Alan Oxman
A top recruiter for the U.S. Army shepherds a group of young people through enlistment, boot camp and combat.

AN ISLAND CALLING (New Zealand)
Dir: Annie Goldson
A double murder of a gay couple in Fiji in 2001 reveals the social and political fractures in the postcolonial landscape of the Pacific.

A PROMISE TO THE DEAD: THE EXILE JOURNEY OF ARIEL DORFMAN (Canada)
Dir: Peter Raymont
An exploration of exile, memory, longing, and democracy as seen through the experiences of renowned writer and playwright Ariel Dorfman.

AS NATAYUNEAN-WE STILL LIVE HERE (US)
Dir: Anne Makepeace
Jessie Little Doe, of the Wampanoag nation, revives a silenced indigenous language previously out of  use for more than 150 years.

BANANAS (Sweden)
Dir: Fredrik Gertten
Nicaraguan banana farmers take multi-national banana industrialists to court over the use of banned pesticides in an historic case.

BEIJING TAXI (China/US)
Dir: Miao Wang
Three Beijing taxi drivers connect a morphing cityscape and citizen tales in the midst of dizzying change accelerated by the 2008 Olympic Games.

BOXING GYM (US)
Dir: Frederick Wiseman
In a community boxing gym in Austin, TX, the controlled use of violence is taught to men, women, and children of all social classes, races, ages, and ethnicities.

BRANDON AND THE CLIFFORD TWINS (US)
Dirs: Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt
Three young Lakotas on the Pine Ridge reservation are swept into a high-stakes tribal election that hangs on sovereignty, representation, and abortion politics.

CASINO NATION (US)
Dirs: Terry Jones, Laure Sullivan and Paul Wilson
After a long and bloody struggle, the Seneca Nation of Indians is now in the casino business, and the tribe is changing forever.  Casino Nation follows the people and the conflicts they face as big money flows into this small sovereign nation.

CHINESE SAFARI (UK)
Dirs: Marc Francis and Nick Francis
Lusaka, Zambia is home to one of Africa’s largest Chinatowns and is at the crossroads of China’s strategic expansion into Africa.

DEREK JARMAN (UK)
Dir: Isaac Julien
A creative portrait of influential English filmmaker and fine artist, Derek Jarman.

DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT (Pakistan)
Dir: Sabiha Sumar
General Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 coup in Pakistan and the filmmaker’s identity as a Pakistani woman drives her search for democracy in Pakistan and her exploration of the role of women in society and in politics.

EGYPT: WE SEE YOU (US)
Dir: Jehane Noujaim
Three women journalists offer a behind-the-scenes look at the pro-democracy movement in Egypt today.

EL GENERAL (US/MEXICO)
Dir: Natalia Almada
The great-granddaughter of one of Mexico’s most controversial presidents, General Plutarco Elias Calles, inherited a conflicting history that illuminates injustices prevailing since the Revolution of 1910.

EVENTUAL SALVATION (US)
Dir: Dee Rees
Having barely escaped with her life over a decade ago, the filmmaker’s  80-year old grandmother returns to Monrovia, Liberia to rebuild her life and community.

FINAL IMAGE (Argentina)
Dir: Andres Habegger
June 1973 in Chile. Leonardo Henrichsen, an Argentinean cameraman, films his own murder during an attempted military coup. The history of a continent unfolds through the images made by one single man.

GOOD FORTUNE (US)
Dir: Landon Van Souest
Intimate portraits of individual Africans illuminate the massive, international efforts to alleviate poverty, which may in fact undermine the very communities they aim to benefit.

GRANITO (US)
Pamela Yates
Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu accuses ex-dictator of Guatemala General Rios Montt of genocide and brings a case against him using the 1982 classic documentary film, When the Mountains Tremble, as forensic evidence.

HANDHELD AND FROM THE HEART (US)
Albert Maysles
Albert Maysles returns to his Boston roots and reconnects with old friends, resulting in an autobiographical film reflecting on a 50-year love affair with documentary.

HOPE DIES LAST IN WAR (India)
Dir: Supriyo Sen
Fifty-four Indian P.O.W.s languish in Pakistani jails since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war.  This saga follows three generations of their families, struggling to get the soldiers back.

HOWL (US)
Dirs: Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
Using animation to explore Howl, the poetic masterpiece by Allen Ginsberg, the film documents the cultural circumstances that gave birth to it and its impact on American culture.

KATANGA, MINING BUSINESS (Belgium)
Thierry Michel
Key players in a new, industrial revolution in Katanga (D.R.C.) struggle against a ruthless war being waged by big multinational corporations.

KIMJONGILIA (France/US)
NC Heikin
Survivors of North Korean concentration camps share wrenching, first-hand testimonies.

LADONNA HARRIS: INDIAN 101 (US)
Julianna Brannum
Comanche activist LaDonna Harris passes on a unique vision of leadership to a new generation of indigenous professionals.

LOSING SACRED GROUND (US)
Dir: Christopher McLeod
Indigenous people around the world fight to save traditional sacred sites from resource extraction, industrial development and tourism.

MY BAGHDAD FAMILY (UK/Iraq)
Dir: Kasim Abid
A family in Baghdad grapples with massive changes in their lives after the end of Saddam’s rule. Will their dreams of a new life gradually turn into a nightmare?

ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL (Turkey)
Özgür Dogan and Orhan Eskiköy
One year in the life of a Turkish teacher teaching Kurdish children in a remote town in Turkey. The children can’t speak Turkish, the teacher can’t speak Kurdish, and both are alien in the same land.

OUR OIL (US)
Dir: Susan Stern
This experimental documentary tells of Nigerians and Americans amidst the poverty, corruption and violence of oil production in Nigeria, one of America’s top oil suppliers.

POISON IN A BANANA REPUBLIC (Sweden)
Dir: Fredrik Gertten
Yes we have some bananas! But plantation workers in Nicaragua have cancer!  Now they march and open an historic lawsuit against companies that spread crops with banned pesticides.

PEACEFUL WARRIORS (Colombia)
Margarita Martinez Escallon and Miguel Salazar
Amidst long-standing guerilla warfare throughout southern Colombia, the indigenous Nasa community  strives to maintain their ideals of non-violent resistance.

PRECIOUS OBJECTS OF DESIRE (US)
Deann Borshay Liem
Swapped with another girl by her South Korean orphanage prior to adoption by an American couple, the filmmaker searches for her namesake and roots.

SCENES FROM A PARISH (US)
Dir: James Rutenbeck
In a hard-pressed city north of Boston, nine Catholics face obstacles that threaten to break apart the fellowship they seek.

SEMPER FI:  ALWAYS FAITHFUL (US)
Rachel Libert
Two retired Marines lead the fight for justice for U.S. Soldiers exposed to dangerous toxic chemicals while stationed at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base in North Carolina.

SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE (US)
Dirs: Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan
Eight US soldiers today face the hardest decision of their lives: to kill or not to kill.  A film about war, peace, and the transformative power of the human conscience.

SWALLOWED BY THE  SEA (US)
Andrew Okpeaha MacLean
In a small Inuit village on the remote barrier island of Shishmaref, Alaska, residents struggle with the devastating effects of erosion due to global climate change.

TEAM LIONESS (US)
Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers
A group of female soldiers who went to Iraq as mechanics, supply clerks, and engineers, return home a year later as part of America’s first generation of female combat veterans.

THE FO AND I (Cameroon/France)
Dir: Jean-Marie Teno
Set in the Bandjoun Kingdom of Cameroon, the filmmaker explores complex power struggles in a society still reeling from 100 years of colonial rule.

THE GLASS CLOSET (US)
Dir: Kirby Dick
THE GLASS CLOSET examines the rise of anti-gay legislation and the forces that benefit politically from promoting public policies that deny rights to gay and lesbian citizens.

THE KITCHEN WARRIORS (US/South Africa)
Jerret Engle
Students in a township-run South African cooking school struggle to reshape their lives and pursue culinary careers.
THE PRIME MINISTER, THE SHAH, THE AYATOLLAH AND I (US)
Dir: Caveh Zahedi
This personal essay film explores growing up Iranian American at a time when the United States and Iran went from being allies to being enemies.

TRACES OF THE TRADE (US)
Dir: Katrina Browne
Filmmaker Katrina Browne and nine family members journey to Rhode Island, Ghana and Cuba, retracing the route of their New England ancestors, the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history.

UMBRA: EMERGING FROM THE SHADOWS (US)
Carvin Eison  and Christine Christopher
In Jena, Louisiana, nooses swing from the schoolyard oak tree and six black high school students are persecuted in ways that eerily evoke the past. The story illuminates the entrenched culture of racially motivated violence in America.

UNTITLED IRAN PROJECT (US)
Dir: James Longley
A turning point in Iranian history from the point of view of a young person.

WE ARE THE ZABALLEEN (US/Egypt)
Dir: Mai Iskander
Egypt’s indigenous garbage collectors, the Zaballeen, fight to hold on to their jobs when Cairo modernizes its public waste disposal system.

WE HAVE NO ORDERS TO SAVE YOU (US/India)
Will Sankhla
The youngest survivors of the 2002 Gujarati riots in India move into adulthood, facing choices that will affect their future and the future of pluralism in India.

WHATEVER IT TAKES (US)
Dir: Christopher Wong
An Asian American rookie principal leads teachers and students to give 100 South Bronx students a new life.

WHERE WOMEN RULE (UK)
Rachael Turner and Alison Quirk
In the first women-only village in Kenya, women learn to thrive after entrenched violence and male domination.

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Grantees 2006

9 STAR HOTEL (Israel)
Dir: Ido Haar
A group of young Palestinian men form a precarious, makeshift community of migrant workers living illegally in the hills outside a small city in Israel.

A JIHAD FOR LOVE (US)
Dir: Parvez Sharma
This film is an exploration of the intersection of Islam and homosexuality. Openly gay, Muslim filmmaker Parvez Sharma creates a mosaic of homosexuals living in Islamic countries and countries with diasporic Muslim populations.

ANGOLA MUSIC SCHOOL (Rivers of Gold) (working title) (UK)
Dir: Phil Grabsky
The film follows a year in the troubled life of Luanda’s only music school. Phil Grabsky follows the school director and three students as they navigate post-war Angola while pursuing their dreams.

BOMBHUNTERS (US/Cambodia)
Dir: Skye Fitzgerald
An engrossing examination of the micro-economy that has emerged in Cambodia from untrained civilians harvesting unexploded bombs as scrap metal.

CHECKPAPI (US)
Dirs: Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt
The story of Lavetta Elk, a young Lakota woman who launched an historic lawsuit against a US  Army recruiter for sexual assault.

DREAM OF SHAHRAZAD (South  Africa)
Dir: Francois Verster
Dream follows self-exiled Iranian conductor Alexander (Ali) Rahbari as he returns to Iran to lead the Tehran Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s SCHEHERAZADE suite, the classic symphonic rendition of tales from THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Using the music as starting point, the film explores the ways in which the West perceives Islam and the Middle East.

EVERYTHING’S COOL (US)
Dirs: Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand
A group of self-appointed global warming messengers are on a life or death quest to find the iconic image, proper language, and points of leverage that will help the public go from embracing the urgency of the problem to creating the political will necessary to push for a new energy economy. Meanwhile, the industry funded nay-sayers sing what just might be their swan song of scientific doubt and deception.

FULL BATTLE RATTLE (US)
Dirs: Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss
Full Battle Rattle follows life inside the US Army’s Iraq simulation in California’s Mojave Desert from the perspective of the Iraqi-American civilians who work there as “role players” and the US soldiers who train there.

GREENSBORO: CLOSER TO THE TRUTH (US)
Dir: Adam Zucker
Survivors of the 1979 Greensboro massacre, in which members of the Klu Klux Klan murdered five Communist Labor organizers, and the attempt to re-examine the killings in a present-day Truth Commission.

JUSTICE MUST BE SEEN (Israel)
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz
A study of the Israeli Military Court system in the occupied Palestinian territories in the last 40 years, and its effect on both the Israeli and Palestinian societies.

MADE IN L.A. (US)
Dirs: Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar
MADE IN L.A. intimately documents the lives, struggle and personal transformation of three Latina immigrants working in garment factories.

MEGAPOLIS (US)
Dir: Astra Taylor
This collaboration between “urban theorist” Mike Davis and the filmmaker is a meditation on the changing shape of cities in the modern age.

MISS GULAG (US)
Dir: Maria Yatskova
Through the prism of a beauty pageant staged by female prisoners of Siberian labor camp emerges a complex narrative of the lives of the first generation of women to come of age in Post-Soviet Russia.

MY AMERICAN DREAM (US)
Dirs: Shari Roberston and Michael Camerini
Shooting since the summer of 2001, this film provides a backstairs pass to the halls of power in government, tracking the vast array of voices and forces that have converged around the issue of immigration.

MY WIVES AND ME (Iran)
Dir: Nahid Persson
Persson’s latest film is an intimate and often comic portrait of a man living with multiple wives and numerous children in an Iranian village.

PEACEFUL WARRIORS (Colombia)
Dir: Margarita Martinez Escallon and Miguel Salazar
Intense portrait of a non-violent civil resistance movement started by the indigenous Nasa  people of southern Columbia against armed para-military and guerilla fighters occupying their ancestral land.

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME (China/South Africa)
Dir: Weijun Chen
This film follows the race for the prestigious role of Class Monitor in a grade school in China, reflecting on the larger issue of whether democracy is possible in China.

PORT OF MEMORY (Palestine/Germany)
Dir: Kamal Aljafari
An historical recounting of the occupation of the Palestinian port town of Jaffa by Israeli forces in 1948 by survivors of the occupation and visible traces in present day Jaffa.

PRECIOUS OBJECTS OF DESIRE (US)
Dir: Deann Borshay Liem
A feature-length follow up to Liem’s personal meditation, First Person Plural, the film will document the search for a woman whose identity the director was given at the time of her adoption from South Korea by an American couple.

REBIRTH OF A NATION (US)
Dir: Daniel Junge
Follows the critical first days in the presidency of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president in Africa and democratization of Liberia in the wake of a corrupt and violent regime.

RECYCLE (Jordan)
Dir: Mahmoud Al Massad
RECYCLE follows an ex-mujahadeen in Jordan struggling to balance his Islamic faith with the disillusionment and hardships of his daily life.

RELEASE (US)
Dir: Laura Poitras
Release explores the psychological and political repercussions of the United States’ policy of detention at Guantanamo Bay Prison by following the stories of men released from Guantanamo and returning home.

SADDAM ON TRIAL: BATTLE FOR SADDAM (Denmark)
Dirs: Esteban Uyarra and Michael Christofferson
The filmmakers were granted unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to this historic trial in a gripping account of the trial of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

SPEAKING FROM THE GRAVE (US)
Dirs: Carrie Lozano and Sam Green
This film is an in-depth exploration of the new frontier of forensic anthropology and the use of science to bring about justice in countries affected by war.

TERRA INCOGNITA: THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF STEM CELL RESEARCH (US)
Dir: Maria Finitzo
The issues and controversy surrounding stem-cell research are illuminated by the story of one doctor’s pioneering research and the personal stake he has in its success.

THE AXE IN THE ATTIC (US)
Dirs: Ed Pincus and Lucia Small
Two filmmakers embark on a road trip across America to document the lives of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK (US)
Dirs: Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern
Following the experiences of former US Marine Brian Steidle, the film documents his quest to document and expose acts of genocide after serving as an unarmed military observer for the African Union in Darfur, Sudan from 2004 through 2005.

THE LEARNING (US)
Dir: Ramona Diaz
A fascinating story of globalization and class.  Seeking qualified teachers,  the Baltimore school system has begun to recruit teachers from the Philippines. THE LEARNING follows a group of women who have left their families and native land to teach young American students in inner city Baltimore.

THE SARI SOLDIERS (US)
Dir: Julie Bridgham
The film intimately follows the story of six Nepali women on opposing sides of Nepal’s conflict as they battle to transform their country’s future.

THE TIGHTROPE (US)
Dir: Petr Lom
Hidden deep in a remote area, which has the largest Muslim minority in China is a school for orphans. This documentary follows the lives of several children and their attempts to evade poverty by following their dreams of becoming tightrope walkers.

THE VISITORS (US)
Dir: Melis Birder
THE VISITORS follows the lives of women who faithfully visit their sons and husbands in prison every week and the ways their own lives are constrained  by their loved ones’ incarceration.

TROUBLE THE WATER (US)
Dirs: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal and Amir Bar-Lev
The story of one couple who lived in the 9th Ward in New Orleans, and their experience before, during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON (US)
Dirs: Kate Davis, David Heilbroner and Franco Sacchi
The film is an in-depth look at individuals and communities of Christian Apocalyptic believers in contemporary America.

WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING (US)
Dir: Tod Lending
A kaleidoscopic journey into the aftermath of war inspired by and adapted from the national bestseller written by veteran New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges.

WONDERS ARE MANY
Dir: Jon Else (US)
A creative exploration of the hydrogen bomb, following the making of “Doctor Atomic,” Peter Sellars’ and John Adam’s new opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of nuclear weapons.

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Grantees 2005

AN AMERICAN MARTYR (UK)
Dir: Rodrigo Vázquez
The story of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist, crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in March of 2003.

BLACK GOLD (UK)
Dirs: Marc and Nick Francis
An exposition on the relationship between Western coffee consumption and the collapse of the Ethiopian coffee economy, leading to starvation for the farmers and a dependence on outside aid.

GREENSBORO: CLOSER TO THE TRUTH (US)
Dir: Adam Zucker
Survivors of  the 1979 Greensboro massacre, in which members of the Ku Klux Klan murdered five Communist labor organizers, and the attempt to re-examine the killings in a present-day Truth Commission.

HOME FRONT (US)
Dir: Richard Hankin
Explores daily life of a wounded veteran of the Iraq war as he attempts to readjust to friends, family, community and his new reality.

HOMELAND (US)
Dir: Doan Hoang
The moving story of a Vietnamese family’s attempts to reconcile, following decades of political schism, war, exile and recrimination.

IN THE PIT (EN EL HOYO)
Dir: Juan Carlos Rulfo (Mexico)
A cinematic eye into the daily lives of construction workers building the Second Deck of Mexico City’s Periférico Freeway.

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (US)
Dir: James Longley
A prismatic exploration of different sectors of the Iraqi public, and their experiences during the first two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

KIDNAPPED! (YUKAI!) (Australia)
Dir: Melissa Kyu-Jung Lee
The abduction of Japanese citizens in the 70s and 80s by North Korean spies and its affect on current Japan/North Korean relations as an extraordinary tale of political maneuverings and international espionage.

MAQUILOPOLIS (US)
Dirs: Victoria Funari and Sergio De La Torre
The story of globalization and the transformation of Tijuana through the eyes of Mexican women factory workers.

MY COUNTRY MY COUNTRY
Dir: Laura Poitras (US)
A cinema verité film that explores US Military’s strategic planning and on-the-ground efforts to implement democratic elections in Iraq.

OUR DISAPPEARED (US)
Dir: Juan Mandelbaum
A filmmaker’s personal search for friends who were “disappeared” in Argentina during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship in Argentina, and considers their complicated legacy.

PASSABE (Singapore/East Timor)
Dirs: James Leong and Lynn Lee
A chronicle of Truth and Reconciliation hearings in East Timor, in which one participant confesses his crimes in a 1999 massacre, seeking atonement and understanding.

PROJECT KASHMIR (US)
Dirs: Senain Kheshgi and Geeta Patel
Chronicles the journey of two American women (one Muslim and the other Hindu) to Kashmir on a mission to understand the lingering effects of war on their homeland and their own cultural identities.

REBIRTH OF A NATION (US)
Dir: Jonathan Stack
Follows the democratization of Liberia as the second installment to LIBERIA: AN UNCIVIL WAR.

RUSSIA’S PEPSI GENERATION (US)
Dir: Robin Hessman
Follows the present day lives of the last generation of Soviet Children brought up behind the Iron Curtain, and the journey of these “crossover” children in dealing with their post-Soviet reality.

SECRECY (US)
Dirs: Robb Moss and Peter Galison
About the fundamental threat to democracy stemming from the exponential growth of systems of classified information.

THE FEATHER MAN
Dir: Azza el-Hassan (Palestine/Germany)
A Palestinian attempt to project, dismantle and interrogate relationships with the other side (Israel) in times of war.

THE MOTHER’S HOUSE (South Africa)
Dir: Francois Verster
A documentary profiling three generations of women shouldering burdens of poverty, oppression and sexual violence in post-apartheid South Africa.

THE PAPER (US)
Dir: Aaron Matthews
A revealing glimpse of the pressures and challenges of modern journalism as faced by the staff of a University newspaper embroiled in controversy.

THE REFUGEE ALL STARS (US)
Dirs: Zach Niles and Banker White
Via the Refugee All Star Band, six Sierra Leoneans, who have been living for years as refugees in Guinea, struggle to keep their hope and music alive.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE HMONG (US)
Dir: Deborah Dickson
A touching portrayal of the large Hmong refugee communities in Thailand and the United States as a result of the “secret war” in Laos.

THE TRIAL OF PASCUAL PICHUN (Canada/Chile)
Dir: Maria Teresa Larrain
Focuses on the conflict between landowners and Mapuches (Native people of Chile), when MININCO, a Canadian multinational forestry company, settles in Mapuche land.

THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT (US)
Dirs: Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern
A harrowing documentary following the wrongful conviction and 19-year imprisonment of Darryl Hunt for an infamous rape and murder of which he was later exonerated.

TIBET IN SONG (US/Tibet)
Dir: Ngawang Choephel
Documents the courageous and determined preservation of Tibetan musical traditions under Chinese occupation and cultural domination.

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Grantees 2004

AFTER (Belarus)
Dir: Renata Gritskova
As a follow-up film to Prison Camp, Gritskova reexamines the lives of the young men imprisoned in Belarus and where they are now.

AL OTRO LADO (TO THE OTHER SIDE) (US)
Dir: Natalia Almada
In chronicling the stories of three corridor musicians who journey from Sinaloa, the drug capital of Mexico, to the US singing songs about immigration and drugs, Almada illuminates the economic crisis forcing many Mexicans to turn to trafficking or dangerous border crossings.

HASAN’S WAR (UK)
Dir: Leslie Woodhead
As a follow-up film to A Cry From the Grave, Woodhead explores the challenges of genocide in the 21st century through one man’s quest for justice, exposing the continuing failure of the international community to call the authors of the Srebenica genocide to justice.

IMPROVISATION (Palestine)
Dir: Raed Andoni
Improvisation explores the conflict of identity faced by different generations of Palestinians, as told through the story of a family of musicians who are divided in their                                                                                                                           political views, but united by their passion for Oud and Arab classical music.

IN RWANDA, WE SAY THE FAMILY THAT DOES NOT SPEAK DIES (US/France)
Dir: Anne Aghion
This film, a follow-up to ‘Gacaca, Living Together Again in Rwanda?’ follows the release and re-integration of a prisoner into his hillside community in order to chronicle the reconciliation process in Rwanda today.

LAND MINES: A LOVE STORY (Australia)
Dir: Dennis O’Rourke
Filmed in Afghanistan, this story is about people whose lives and relationships have been defined by land mines.

MARRY ME OUT (Italy)
Dir: Fibi Kraus
The film follows a Yemeni woman who wants to find a way to freedom and safety for the women in a Sana’a prison who are detained without trial and banished by their family.

MONKEY DANCE (US)
Dir: Julie Mallozzi
About three Cambodian-American teens in Lowell, MA who are trying to navigate through the landscape of US urban adolescence and relate to their parents’ nightmarish memories of the Khmer Rouge.

PASSAGE THROUGH FEAR (US)
Dir: Pamela Yates
Reveals the human drama of Peru’s war against terrorism, and the disturbing lessons we may learn from it.

REFUGEE DREAMS (US)
Dir: Anne Makepeace
Chronicles a year in the lives of two extended Somali Bantu families as they leave a legacy of oppression in Africa to face new challenges in America.

SENTENCED HOME (US)
Dir: Nicole Newnham and David Grabias
Explores the ongoing deportations of convicted Cambodian Americans by following three young offenders based out of Seattle and their forced return to Cambodia, a home they barely know.

SENTENCED TO MARRIAGE (Israel)
Dir: Anat Zuria
The film traces the story of 3 women who fight for their right to divorce in Israel where there are no civil marriages and all marriages and divorces take place under the auspices of the Jewish Rabbinical court.

THE FIRE NEXT TIME (US)
Dir: Patrice O’ Neill
Set in Montana’s Flathead Valley, the story reflects some of the most critical issues in our country today; the role of media in spreading intolerance, the high stakes in the battle over growth and environment, and the threat of politically motivated violence.

THE SELF-MADE MAN (US)
Dir: Susan Stern
Explores the philosophical and psychological issues behind the assisted suicide debate.

THE WALL (Israel/France)
Dir: Simone Bitton
A humane and psychological study of the construction of a “security fence” aimed at preventing Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating Israeli territory.

WAITING TO INHALE: MARIJUANA, MEDICINE AND THE LAW
Dir: Jed Riffe (US)
Focuses on the experiences of patients, activists, law enforcement officials and politicians involved in the struggle over legalization of cannabis for medical use.

WESTERN SAHARA, AFRICA’S LAST COLONY
Dir: Shantha Bloemen and JoMarie Fecci (US)
A group of loosely connected Sahrawis nomads, through the tragedy of exile, are able to forge a strong sense of nationhood and give a voice to those who have spent much of their lives fighting for an independent homeland.

WHY WE FIGHT (US)
Dir: Eugene Jarecki
The film looks inside the anatomy of the American war machine and moves beyond the headlines about how the Iraq war was waged to the deeper question of why.

STORY OF A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (South Africa)
Dir: Khalo Matabane
About contemporary South Africa, told through talk radio and explored through a road movie.  A journey of a young black filmmaker in search of his “new country.”

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Grantees 2003

THE LAST CONQUISTADOR (US)
Dirs: Cristina Ibarra and John Valadez
Explores the complex legacy of conquest via the controversial construction of a larger-than-life public memorial to Juan de Oñate in El Paso, TX and the long-standing racial tension it is re-igniting between the Àcoma Indians and Hispanics.

LIBERIA: AN UNCIVIL WAR (US)
Dir: Jonathan Stack
Follows the strife in Liberia during the last months of Taylor’s regime and the American role in the conflict.

THE IMMORTAL (Nicaragua/Spain/Mexico)
Dir: Mercedes Moncada
Moncada investigates post-civil war Nicaragua and its current environment of religious manipulation, male chauvinism and poverty.

MUSHARRAF’S DESTINY (Pakistan)
Dir: Sabiha Sumar
Explores the challenges facing President Musharraf in his attempts to contain Islamists and modernize Pakistan post 9/11.

MILOSOVIC ON TRIAL (Denmark)
Dir: Michael Christoffersen
This film follows the case of Slobodan Milosevic before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague from the trial through the appeals process.

MAFETEEH (Palestine/Israel)
Dir: Saleem Daw
MAFETEEH or “The Keys”, tells the stories of loss experienced by Israeli Palestinians
through the unique story of internally displaced refugees who still retain the keys to the homes from which they were evicted.

FREEDOM MACHINES (US)
Dir: Jamie Stobie
Explores the struggles of people with disabilities as they contend with the
promise of new technologies and the realities of governmental paralysis, economic hurdles, and pervasive discrimination.

JUSTICE (Italy)
Dirs: Fabrizio Lazzaretti and Vanni Gandolfo
JUSTICE follows Sisto Turra, the father of a young man murdered by police in Colombia, and his groundbreaking struggle to bring the Colombian government to justice.

THE BOY WITH NO FACE (Sweden)
Dir: Folke Ryden
The story of a Swedish man’s attempt to help a young Vietnamese boy severely disfigured by an American phosphorus bomb nearly 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War.

VALLEY OF TEARS (US)
Dir: Hart Perry
Explores the ethnic divisions and inequalities within a small south Texas farming community that is home to a large population of Mexican/American migrant workers.

ON THE OBJECTION FRONT– A PERSONAL JOURNEY (Israel)
Dir: Shiri Tsur
The filmmaker presents the stories of Israeli combat soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories of Palestine and are willing to voice their objections.

THE WALL (France)
Dir: Simone Bitton
Studies the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by tracking the Israeli construction of a gigantic wall at the northern West Bank, designed to prevent Palestinian terrorist infiltration.

TWO MEN TALKING (US)
Dir: Doug Block
Explores the complexities of South Africa’s human rights issues through the autobiographical storytelling performance of two white, gay South African expatriates who return home to tell their story.

OPERATION SPRING (Austria)
Dirs: Angelika Schuster and Tristan Sindelgruber
Schuster and Sindelgruber follow the developments surrounding the trials of black Austrians arrested as suspected drug dealers in 1999.  The film focuses on several cases that are currently being appealed, and questions the motives of OPERATION SPRING, the police code name for the massive arrests.

ADVISE AND DISSENT (US)
Dir: David Van Taylor
This film will chronicle the potential controversy around the next U.S. Supreme Court justice confirmation battle, and explore fundamental questions of the Judiciary’s role in an open society.

GARDEN (Israel)
Dirs Adi Barash and Ruthie Shatz
Through the stories of four teenage boys from Israel, Palestine, Russia and Jordan, who work as prostitutes in downtown Tel Aviv, the film reveals the plight of rejected young immigrants struggling for a better future.

RED HOOK JUSTICE (US)
Dir: Meema Spadola
Explores a controversial new approach to justice for low-income neighborhoods, by following the daily activities of the Red Hook Community Justice Center, a pilot project in Brooklyn that houses a court and an array of social services.

PINK INFERNO/FOUR PRISON STORIES (Brazil)
Dir: Liliana Sulzbach
This film depicts daily life at a correction house in Brazil run by nuns, as the female inmates struggle with loss of freedom and autonomy and reintegration into society.

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Grantees 2002

AND ALONG CAME A SPIDER (Iran)
Dir: Maziar Bahari
Examines the murders of 16 prostitutes in Iran.  Through interviews with the killer, his family, and the families of the victims, the project seeks to understand the murderer’s motivations for killing and the religious and political contexts that inspired and allowed the murders to take place.

CHILD SOLDIERS (France)
Dir: Michael Offer/Jeanne Charuet
The devastating 13-year conflict between the Government of Northern Uganda and the Lords Resistance Army is depicted in CHILD SOLDIERS. This project chronicles the daily lives of child soldiers and the attempts to demobilize them from the frontline and reunite them with their families.

GARDEN (Israel)
Dir: Adi Barash/Ruthie Shatz
Through the stories of four teenage from Israel, Palestine, Russia and Jordan, who work as prostitutes in downtown Tel Aviv, the film reveals the plight of rejected young immigrant struggling for a better future.

IRAN, VEILED APPEARANCES (Belgium)
Dirs: Thierry Michel/Christine Pireaux
The project depicts Iran at a turning point in history, as the modern population of an ancient civilization searches for its identity between capitalism and Islamism, religion, collectivism and individualism.

THE IRON
Dir: Danae Elon (US)
Investigates the despair of the Middle East conflict, through the filmmaker’s search for a former Palestinian employee, and her larger attempt to find hope in the act of speaking out with a story of peace.

THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN (US)
Dirs: Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk
The filmmakers follow 3 refugees of the Sudanese Civil War from a Kenyan refugee camp through their first year in the U.S.  Their struggle to create new lives for themselves, hold on to their traditions, and cope with the psychological scars of their past, raises new questions about immigration, foreign aid, race and cultural identity.

ROMANTICO (US)
Dir: Mark Becker
Explores the harsh realities of U.S.-Mexico border policy through the stories of two Mexican musicians who immigrated illegally to the U.S.  To work and support their families in Mexico, they roam the streets of San Francisco and play for tips.

SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS (US)
Dir: Hank Rogerson/Jilann Spitzmiller
Documents an all male Shakespeare company in the U.S. prison system. The film follows the inmates
whose lives are changed as the works of Shakespeare inspire them to examine their crimes, form new ways of thinking about themselves and the world, and experience a sense of community and accomplishment for the very first time.

THE WAY BACK HOME (Palestine)
Dir: Ghada Terawi
Through the return to her homeland, the filmmaker explores life in Palestine, and the meaning of a “homeland” in light of the Middle East conflict.

GACACA, LIVING TOGETHER AGAIN IN RWANDA? (US/France)
Dir: Anne Aghion
This project tells the story of the Rwandans’ attempt to reconcile and live together again after the 1994 massacre, through the Gacaca, a participatory form of justice that traces its origins to pre-colonial times.

KANSAS STORIES (US)
Dir: Renee Tajima-Pena/Gita Saedi
KANSAS STORIES explores the struggle of immigrants trying to carve out new lives in American communities that have mixed feelings about their presence.  The filmmaker follows two families and details their parallel struggles, as recent U.S. immigrants, to reunite their families.

WHEN THE WAR IS OVER (South Africa)
Dir: Francois Verster
WHEN THE WAR IS OVER exposes the difficulty that residents of South Africa’s Western Cape now face, in the aftermath of the armed struggle against Apartheid.  The film focuses on the day-to-day lives of former members of a 1980’s teenage guerilla unit.

13 DAYS IN JENIN CAMP (Palestine)
Dirs: Raed Andoni and Nizar Hassan
Explores the Israeli/Palestinian conflict through the stories of Palestinian residents and Israeli soldiers involved in the battle inside the Jenin Refugee camp.

ALGERIA AT WHAT COST? (Algeria/France)
Dirs: Malek Bensmail and Thierry Leclere
The filmmakers investigate the corridors of power at the heart of Algerian society through previously unpublished archive materials and interviews related to the Algerian civil war.

THE KIDS OF SONAGACHI (US)
Dirs: Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman
This film follows a group of children who live in the brothels of Sonagachi, Calcutta’s largest red-light district.  THE KIDS OF SONAGACHI documents the children’s lives with their prostitute mothers, and the filmmakers’ attempt to improve the children’s lives and empower them through the art of photography.

THE FLUTE PLAYER (US)
Dir: Jocelyn Glatzer
Tells the story of Arn Chorn Pond, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge military regime, who is now striving to heal the scars of Pol Pot’s genocide by bringing Cambodia’s once outlawed traditional music back to his people.

GOLAN (Israel)
Dir: Amit Goren
Explores the lives of the Israeli settlers in the formerly Syrian Golan Heights, a controversial area
on the verge of dramatic change.

STANDARDS OF DECENCY (US)
Dir: Jane Greenburg
Explores the case of a mentally retarded man on Mississippi’s death row.

THE PASSION OF MARIA ELENA (Mexico)
Dir: Mercedes Moncada
An exploration of cultural differences and corruption in Mexico, THE PASSION OF MARIA ELENA follows a Rarámuri woman and her struggles to find justice for her murdered son in two very different judicial systems, one Mexican and one Rarámuri.

MADE IN CHINA (US)
Dir: Micha Peled
Investigates the issues of globalization and sweatshop labor, through the lives of three young female workers and the factory own er of a jeans factory in China.

A FEMINISED ISLAM? (Pakistan/France)
Dir: Sabiha Sumar
A FEMINISED ISLAM? chronicles the Taliban take over of Pakistani society through the stories of four women of differing social backgrounds.  The film also reveals the filmmakers struggle against the growing religiosity in Pakistan.

ON THE FRINGES OF SAO PAULO: SQUATTING (Brazil)
Dirs: Evaldo Mocarzel and Ugo Cesar Giorgetti
Focuses on Sao Paulo’s poverty stricken, specifically on the lives of people who occupy
abandoned buildings in a daily search for shelter and survival.

THE FARMINGVILLE PROJECT (US)
Dir: Carlos Sandoval
The use of undocumented workers is an ongoing controversy in American society.  THE FARMINGVILLE PROJECT explores these workers’ impact on local communities, and an increasingly global economy, through the story of a small, deeply conflicted, Long Island community.

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Grantees 2001

THE INNER TOUR (Israel)
Dir: Ra’anan Alexandrovwicz /Liran Atzmor
About Palestinians living in the West Bank who take a bus tour through Israel.

ASHA (US)
Dir: Raney Aronson
A profile of Indian women who are working at the grass-roots level to stop the devastation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India.

JESSE’S LAND (Israel)
Dirs: Liran Atzmor and Ruth Walk
About a group of Jewish Settlers in Hebron.

STOLEN LIVES (US)
Dirs: Gillian Caldwell and Tia Lessin
Documents the plight of women garment workers on the US commonwealth of Saipan.

SCENES OF RECONCILIATION (France)
Dirs: Maryline Charrier and Corinne Moutout
About reconciliation in South Africa.

A NEEDLE IN THE SAND (US)
Dirs: Gail Dolgin and Vincente Franco
About a Vietnamese mother and the reunion with her Ameriasian daughter after 22 years.

SYSIPHUS’ DREAM: ALGERIA, THE RECONCILIATION (France)
Dirs: Anne Duval/Faouzia Fekiri/Frederic Sichler
The social and political situation in Algeria as told through the everyday life of an 11 year old boy.

CROATIA 2000 (Croatia)
Dir:  Boris Matic
About ten politicians struggling for power during the first election campaign after the death of Franjo Tudjman.

TO BE GAY IN CHINA (UK)
Dir:  Julian Ozanne / Eric Ransdell
Documents the struggle of Chinese homosexuals in a society undergoing radical cultural change.

BORN FROM THE ASHES (Bulgaria)
Dir:  Adela Peeva
About the Roma living in villages near the Bulgarian town of Tvarditsa.

SONG ON A NARROW PATH (Palestine, Italy)
Dirs: Akram Safadi and Stefano Tealdi
A portrait of Jerusalem as seen through the eyes of Palestinians.

DO YOU REMEMBER SARAJEVO? (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Dirs: Jasmila Zbanic/Sead & Nihad Kresevljakovic
On the citizens of Sarajevo and their own documentation of life during the siege.

MY TERRORIST (Israel)
Dirs: Yulie Gerstel and Michal Aviad
Examines issues of reconciliation from the personal story of the filmmaker who as a flight attendant was the victim of a terrorist attack.

FACING CAMBODIA (Australia)
Dir: Nick Greenway and Chris Hilton
Documents the upcoming war crimes tribunal of the Khmer Rouge and the emotional legacy of that period of genocide in Cambodia.

POTE MAK SONJE: THE RABOTEAU TRIAL (US)
Dir: Harriet Hirshorn and Christine Cynn
Chronicles the November 2000 trial of high level military and paramilitary members who were convicted for their participation in the 1994 massacre of civilians in Roboteau, Haiti.

THE STORY OF A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (South Africa)
Dir: Khalo Matabane
About contemporary South Africa, seen through the eyes of ordinary South Africans through six radio talk shows.

UNDOCUMENTED DREAMS (US)
Dir: Carlos Sandoval
The story of a working class community at the doorsteps of the legendary Hamptons, and reactions to the presence of Mexicans looking for work.

FOUR PRISON STORIES (Brazil)
Dirs: Liliana Sulzbach  and Annette Bittencourt
About the largest women’s prison in Rios Grande do Sul, Brazil.

THREE WOMEN (Israel)
Dir: Anat Even
About three young widows who live together with their eleven children in one house in Hebron.

CLOSURE (Israel)
Dir: Ram Loevy
About life under siege in Gaza.

SENORITA EXTRAVIDA (US)
Dir: Lourdes Portillo
About more than 320 Mexican girls and women whose bodies have been found in the desert outside of Juarez since 1993.

GHOSTS OF ATTICA (US)
Dirs: David Van Taylor  and Brad Lichtenstein
Account of America’s most violent prison rebellion, its suppression, and the days of torture that ensued.

BLATNOI MIR (Finland)
Dirs: Pertti Veijalainen and Jouni Hiltunen
About the culture of Russian prisons as reflected in the tattoos of the prisoners.

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Grantees 2000

HIZBOLLAH (Lebanon/France)
Dirs: Maher Abi-Samra and Jacques Bidou
Examines the Hizbollah movement from within by retracing the experiences of two women and highlighting their personal, social, and political factors that lead them to becoming activists in the Hizbollah une 2 of child labor.

RAMLEH: THE HEART OF THE LAND (Israel)
Dir: Michal Aviad
Examines the instability of a country of many cultures, displaced peoples, immigrants and refugees.

GRENADA: A DREAM DEFERRED (US)
Dir: Damani Baker
The filmmaker’s search for historical, political, and emotional truth by returning to his childhood paradise of Grenada, sixteen years after he was evacuated from his home and his dreams were shattered by the US military invasion.

DIAMONDS AND RUST (Israel)
Dirs: Adi Barash and Ruthie Shatz
Tells the story of a mixed mining crew of Namibians, South Africans, Cubans and one Israeli working on a diamond dredging ship by the name of “The Spirit of Namibia”.

T-SHIRT TRAVELS (US)
Dir: Shamtha Bloemen
The story of how secondhand clothes, given away as charity in the western world, end up in Zambia, Africa.

COCONUT REVOLUTION (UK)
Dirs: Mike Chamberlain and Dom Rotheroe
About the island of Bougainville, the subjugation of a people by oppressive multi-nationals and the resourceful resilience with which the indigenous people finally triumphs.

BOUGAINVILLE: BREAKING BOWS AND ARROWS (Australia)
Dirs: Ellenor Cox and Liz Thompson
On the reconciliation process following the Bougainville Crisis.

SOUTHERN COMFORT (US)
Dir: Kate Davis
The story of a female-to-male transsexual in the back hills of Georgia, who has been diagnosed with uterine cancer and denied treatment by over 20 doctors because he is transsexual.

OGONIS: THE RELUCTANT IMMIGRANTS (US)
Dir: Steve James
Follows two Nigerian refugee families – the Nwidors and Wiwa-Lawanis – from the refugee camp in neighboring Benin through their pivotal years in Chicago. (part of “The New Americans” mini-series

SHEBEEN (UK)
Dirs: Pascale Lamche and Duncan Sim
About the construction of a plan to make hand-made shoes in Soweto, and how it becomes a metaphor for a burning desire to rebuild and grow and mend the fabric of a society that was rippled by Apartheid.

JUSTIFIABLE HOMOCIDE (US)
Dirs: Jon Osman and Jonathan Stack
On the murder of two young Puerto Rican men killed by two NYPD detectives in the Bronx in 1995; follows Margarita Rosario, the mother and aunt of the victims as she transforms into a powerful activist.

CHATO IS DEAD: AN IMMIGRANT’S STORY (US)
Dir: Oren Rudavsky
On the tragic death of Eduardo Daniel, a 23 year old Mexican immigrant who was buried in concrete on a building site in Brooklyn.

THE IDLE ONES (Finland)
Dir: Ulla Simonen
About young unemployed men living in the countryside of Eastern Finland; to describe a state of affairs in Europe, where a lack of a regular job is becoming a way of life for some of the younger generation.

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP RIVER (India)
Dir: Arvind Sinha
About the entrapment of 2 million people inside the banks of rivers in Bihar, India.

BLINK (US)
Dir: Elizabeth Thompson
About the transformation of former white supremacist Gregory Withrow, and his struggle to face the extraordinary cruelty of his past.

UP AT DAWN (Canada)
Dir: John Zada
About the working children of Egypt, and a close look at Egypt’s reaction to western perceptions about itself and the issue of child labor.

THE GACACA TRIBUNALS (US)
Dir: Anne Aghion
About the 130,000 pending genocide crime cases in Rwanda and the Gacaca Tribunals, a community based process of participatory justice which traces its origins in pre-colonial Rwandan tradition.

NO ORDINARY THEATER (Palestine)
Dirs: Raed Andoni, Daoud Kuttab and Suha Arraf
About two residents of the Sumud Camp in East Jerusalem and their larger stories of conflict and dispossession.

SISTER CITIES (US)
Dir: Ralph Arlyck
On the immigration pipeline between Poughkeepsie, New York and San Augustin Yatareni, Oaxaca.

DISOBEDIENCE (Mozambique)
Dir: Licinio Azevedo
The unusual story of the suicide of a man due to the disobedience of his wife.

THE SOLITUDE OF MEMORY (Italy)
Dir: Enrica Colusso
The story of the search for identity of four immigrants in therapy at the Franz Fanon Ethnopsychiatric Centre in Turin.

SOMEWHERE BETTER (UK)
Dirs: Mira Erdevicki and Mike Chamberlain
A about the human stories of Czech and Slovak Gypsies coming to Britain to seek asylum.

FACING LIFE AFTER DEATH (South Africa)
Dir: Ingrid Gavshon
About Duma, one of the members of the “Sharpeville Six”, who was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced to death. He was then granted a stay a few hours before his execution and now works for a support group for survivors of gross human rights abuses.

YEMEN SATMARS (Israel)
Dir: Nitzan Gilady
About the Satmar Hassidim and Yemenite children, through the story of the Naharis, a Jewish family whose child was kidnapped.

GEORGINA! (New Zealand)
Dir: Annie Goldson
The story of Georgina Beyer, born George,a Maori transsexual recently elected to the New Zealand Government by a conservative electorate in the rural heartland.

H.I.J.O.S. SPLIT SOUL (Argentina)
Dirs: Carmen Guarini and Marcelo Cespedes
About the H.I.J.O.S – (”Children for the Identity and Justice Against Oblivion and Silence”) in Argentina.

GRANDSON, FATHER, GRANDFATHER! (Yugoslavia)
Dir: Zelimir Gvardiol
About the present living situation of one man and his family from a small town in Serbia, whose son was killed as a soldier in Kosovo. This man publicly refused to accept the Medal of Merit posthumously granted to his only son by Slobodan Milosevic.

A FEMALE CABBY IN A MAN’S CITY (Belguim)
Dir: Belkacem Hadjadj
Follows Choumicha, a widow with three children who becomes a woman taxi driver in Sidi Bel Abbes, an Algerian inland city – to explore the status of women in Algeria today.

DR. DEATH AND THE GENOCIDE BUG (South Africa)
Dir: Liza Key
Examines the nature of evil as manifested in South African scientist, Wouter Basson’s chemical and biological warfare program.

THE SECRET LIVES OF SERBS (US)
Dir: Dejan Kovacevic
An examination of how the Serbian people are now interpreting the brutal atrocities committed recently in Kosovo.

EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS: FIVE YEARS LATER (Kazakhstan)
Dirs: Galina Kuzembayeava and Vladimir Nazarov
A sequel to the documentary EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS  shot in 1995-96 about a juvenile detention facility in Kazakhstan.

A SENTENCE OF DEATH (US)
Dir: Miri Navasky
An investigation into the process of capital justice, to provide a deeper analysis of the key factors that lead to a sentence of death.

SEEKING JUSTICE (US)
Dir: Gail Pelett
A about a new legal landscape that allows families and loved ones of victims of human rights violations to be taken to court.

HOME VIOLENCE: RUSSIA (Russia)
Dir: Elena Ploshchanskaya
About domestic violence in Russia.

NANA (US)
Dir: Claudia Pryor
About the first female chief in the history of Ghana, Nana Boakyewa Yiadom II — a woman who divides her time between a royal existence in the Ghanaian mountains and a busy but relatively inconspicuous life in Flushing, New York.

TICKING BOMBS (Israel)
Dir: Ido Sela
The story of a group of veterans who served in the “Duvdevan” and “Shimshon” units of the IDF, set up during the Intifada which serve as the spearhead for combating terrorism acting within the civilian population.

NARI ADALAT: THE WOMEN’S COURT (Canada/India)
Dirs: Monique Simard and Deepra Dhanraj
About the women’s courts in the state of Gujarat in India; an answer to the official courts where they seldom find justice regarding issues such as domestic violence.

RED HOOK JUSTICE (US)
Dir: Meema Spadola
Profiles the first year of the new Red Hook Community Justice Center as a way of exploring the universal experience of how justice works for low income people.

KANSAS, DOI MOI (US)
Dir: Renee Tajima-Pena
Follows the journeys of two families: Vietnamese refugees, the Caos and Mexican migrant workers, the Flores, as they struggle to forge new lives as meatpackers in rural southwest Kansas. (part of “The New Americans” mini-series).

ATTICA: A THIRTY YEARS’ WAR
Dir: David Van Taylor (US)
Chronicles the on-going 30 year struggle for a just resolution of the suppressed 1971 Attica prison uprising.

BURNING THROUGH THE PRESENT
Dir: Francois Verster  (South Africa)
Investigation into the problems besetting the Western Cape today in the context of the armed struggle against Apartheid — through the story of an urban guerilla group formed during the 1980’s called the Bonteheuwel Military Wing (BMW).

SEEING IS BELIEVING (Canada)
Dirs: Peter Wintonick and Katerina Cizek
Examines the use of small format personal video cameras by activists, non-governmental organizations and newscasters as a means of documenting human rights violations around the world.

NEW OLD BRIDGE (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Dir: Jasmila Zbanic
Follows the four year reconstruction of the Old Bridge in Mostar.

STEEL BUTTERFLY (US)
Dir: Ramona Diaz
About how excessive power is amassed and sustained by popular support, and how one woman, Imelda Marcos, rationalizes her seemingly unconscionable abuse of such power.

GEORGINA (New Zealand)
Dir: Annie Goldson
About the life of Georgina Beyer, born George, a Maori transsexual recently elected to the New Zealand Government by a conservative electorate in the rural heartland.

WAKE UP SERBIA (Yugoslavia)
Dir: Zelimir Gvardiol
About the present living situation of one man and his family from a small town in Serbia, whose son was killed as a soldier in Kosovo. This man publicly refused to accept the Medal of Merit posthumously granted to his only son by Slobodan Milosevic.

VOYAGES IN BOLIVIA (Israel)
Dir: Ron Havilio
A journey to Potosi, a forgotten city in the Bolivian Andes, reflecting upon the effects of poverty and colonialism.

SOLDIER BOYS (Canada)
Dirs: Christa Schadt and David Hallam
Investigates the horror and the heroism in the lives of child soldiers, focusing on the Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda.

HLK – HARD LIVING KIDS (Italy)
Dirs: Davide Tosco and Massimo Arvat
On the HLK youth gang in Cape Town and their lifestyle and conditions inside and outside prison.

RED RUBBER BOOTS (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Dir: Jasmila Banic
About mass graves in Bosnia & Herzegovina.

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Grantees 1999

SOUTH (France)
Dir: Chantal Akerman
Focuses on the lynching of James Byrd Jr. that took place in Jasper, Texas in June 1998, in attempt to understand racism and how such things are still happening at the end of the 20th century in the heart of the US.

MUNICH 72 (UK)
Dir: John Battsek and Kevin MacDonald
About the present day consequences of a single act of terrorism: the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, by a Palestinian group known as Black September.

DISSENT & OPPOSITION IN THE GDR (US)
Dir: Hava Beller
Explores the motivating principles and activities of individuals in the German Democratic Republic, who comprised the opposition to the GDR regime, and who fought for social justice, civil liberties and human rights.

WAXTER GIRLS (US)
Dir: Liz Garbus
About the lives of girls confined in Waxter Secure, a juvenile prison in Maryland.

THE RESILIENT SPIRIT (US)
Dir: Sharon Greytak
An intimate look at the aspirations and realities of people with disabilities on an international scale; through interviews with six participants with disabilities from Russia, China, Italy, Brazil and the US.

FINAL ACCOUNT (UK)
Dirs: Luke Holland and Pascale Lamche
About the current campaign for justice, recognition and compensation by former slave-laborers of the Nazi industrial and economic complex.

RETURN TO DUSHANBE (France)
Dir: Gulya Mirzoeva
A series of portraits about the filmmaker’s return to her native land of Tadzhikistan.

OS CARVOEIROS (US)
Dir: Nigel Noble
On the thousands of migrant workers who cut down forests in the Brazilian Amazon, for the sole purpose of producing charcoal for pig-iron and steel industries in Brazil and abroad.

OUR HOUSE IN HAVANA (US)
Dir: Stephen Olsson
Follows the return journey of a 68 year old Cuban exile and her son from the US to Havana, to explore the nature of the ideological divide which separated the Cuban people for the last 40 years.

PICTURES FROM THE LIFE OF REFUGEES (Yugoslavia)
Dir: Goran Radovanovic
About the 800,000 refugees who live in Serbia, carefully hidden from the eyes of the public, striving to be what they once were: ordinary people with homes.

ST. GABRIEL: WOMEN’S PRISON (US)
Dir: Jonathan Stack
Documents the lives of five incarcerated women.

20 YEARS TO LIFE (US)
Dir: Jonathan Stack
Searches for the truth behind the accusation, trial, conviction of Vincent Simmons, an inmate at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

THE LOVERS OF SAN FERNANDO (Finland)
Dirs: Peter Torbionsson and Mikae Wahlforss
About life in San Fernando, a tiny village under the mountains on the Nicaraguan border with Honduras.

SOUND AND FURY (US)
Dirs: Roger Weisberg and Josh Aronson
Profiles several deaf subjects to explore the 200 year old battle within the deaf community between oralists, who communicate through lip reading and speech, and manualists, who rely on sign language.

MAS 2000 (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
Dirs: Sabina Arslanagic/Jasmila Zbanic
About mass graves in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

WITCHES IN EXILE
Dir: Allison Berg (US)
Travels inside witch villages in Ghana; conveys the personal experiences of a group of women facing the threat of being sacrificed along the complex fault lines of an emerging modern Africa.

RELATIVELY GAY (US)
Dir: Arthur Dong
Examines the relationships between anti-gay public figures and their gay and lesbian children.

450 (Argentina)
Dir: Dario Gustavo Doria
Reflects the injustice and indifference suffered by millions of retired people in Argentina – narrates the daily struggle of a group of elderly people who will not resign to the fact that their rights are being violated.

BROKEN CITIES (UK)
Dirs: Michael Downey and Lucy Baldwin
Follows the process of the play “Brokenville” by Philp Ridley, and its Kosovan actors; explores the lives of the Kosovan refugees in this London suburb.

INDIRA’S DIARY (Germany/France)
Dirs: Eduard Erne and Margarita Seguy
Tells the story of Indira Berisha who escaped from Kosovo during the first days of the NATO bombardment.

THREE WOMEN, ONE HOME (Israel)
Dir: Anat Even
About three young widows who live together with their thirteen children in one house in Hebron, destined to live an extraordinary environment under bizarre circumstances.

THE WAR WHICH WASN’T (South Africa)
Dirs: Harriet Gavshon/David Jammy
On the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale and the end of the Cold War.

JOURNEY BACK TO YOUTH (Germany)
Dir: Alexander I. Goutman
The story of Traute Sommer and more than 1,200 other German women, who were forcefully taken to the Soviet Union from territories freed by the Red Army.

THE PINOCHET CASE (France)
Dirs: Patricio Guzman and Yves Jeanneau
On the investigation of, and proceedings against Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity.

SOLDIER BOYS (Canada)
Dirs: David Hallam and Christa Schadt
Investigates the horror and the heroism in the lives of child soldiers.

POTOSI (Israel)
Dir: Ron Havilio
A journey to Potosi, a forgotten city in the Bolivian Andes, reflecting upon the effects of poverty and colonialism.

SHADOW PLAY (Australia)
Dir: Chris Hilton
Account of the slaughter of more than 500,000 people in Indonesia in 1965-66, how the Suharto regime came to power and the subsequent entrenchment of that power, with the complicity of Western nations.

WANTED (UK)
Dirs: Kim Hopkins/Mark Blaney
Follows a rookie straight out of Indian police academy as he pairs up with a seasoned officer, and ventures out of their modern day fortress in Pine Ridge, patrolling the shanty towns of Wounded Knee, Red Cloud and Cluster.

GENOCIDE ONT RIAL: A FILM FOR RWANDANS (US)
Dirs: Mandy Jacobson and Mark Frohardt
On the prosecution of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

THE DIE IS CASTE (India)
Dir: Ranjan Kamath
On the Dalits, the 160 million people at the bottom of India’s caste system.

A PRAYER FOR CHERNOBYL (Belarus)
Dir: Yuri Khashchavatski
On the survivors of the Chernobyl disaster, based on the book by Svetlana Alexievich.

BANANA TOURISTS (France)
Dirs: Aldo Lee and Phillip Brooks
White South African farmers affiliated to an extreme right wing organization have bought large farms in northern Mozambique – this land is occupied by small nomadic tribes whose way of life is now threatened. This film will explore the way in which these two cultures are living together.

SUDDENLY THE COMPUTER BEEPED (Israel)
Dir: Ram Loevy
Illustrates the human implications of Israel’s policy of closure on the Occupied Territories; to encourage public debate in Israel and the international community about the effects of closure.

INDONESIA: THE STUDENT REVOLT (US)
Dir: Daniel McGuire
On the recent political upheaval in Indonesia, emphasizing the role of the student movement in toppling longtime dictator, President Suharto.

CHILDREN OF THE WAR (Hungary)
Dir: Ferenc Moldovanyi
Depicts the absurdity of war, hate and responsibility through the fate, memories, past and present of traumatized children in Kosovo.

LAND OF THE SPIRIT (Germany)
Dir: Lindsey Morrison
On Shamanism as a strategy for survival in Burma’s dictatorship.

TURNED OUT (US)
Dir: Jonathan Schwartz
Documents the impact of prisoner rape on their victims, their families and the communities to which they return.

HARVEST OF TERROR (UK)
Dir: Toni Strasburg
A personal story of one man, a trained killer and one time soldier, now doing humanitarian work in South Africa.

THE RISE AND FALL OF BOMBAY (US)
Dir: Sanjay Talreja
Explores how Bombay, once India’s most liberal and secular city, has now become a bastion for ethnic and religious fundamentalism.

HLK- HARD LIVING KIDS (Italy)
Dirs: Davide Tosco and Massimo Arvat
On the HLK youth gang in Cape Town – explores the dynamics and life style of gang members inside and outside prison, describing their life in the ghettos and townships, how they grew up in poverty and joined teenaged gangs for survival.

THE MEN IN THE TREE (India)
Dir: Lalit Vachani
Explores the rapid growth and the dangerous social consequences of Hindu fundamentalist forces in India – focuses on the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the secret right-wing Hindu fundamentalist organization.

BLATNOI MIR (Finland)
Dirs: Pertti Veijalainen/Jouni Hiltunen
About culture of Russian prisons as reflected in the tattoos of the prisoners.

RAILROAD OF HOPE (China)
Dir: Ning Ying
About people aboard train line #96, that connects central China’s Yichang to prosperous Guangzhou; their present conditions and visions about the future.

VELIKI OTOK (Slovenia)
Dirs: Zelimir Zilnik and Toni Trsar
On refugees and illegal migrants in Slovenia.

THE BRIDGE OF PEACE (Croatia)
Dir: Maja Zrnic
Story of Josip Silic, a man who takes upon himself the moral duty to find and compromise individuals and political groups who are responsible for barbaric destruction of the 427 year old bridge in Mostar during the war in the former Yugoslavia.

CHILDREN UNDERGROUND (US)
Dir: Edet Belzberg
Ventures below the streets of Bucharest, Romania and reveals the lives of abandoned children who live there.

WITCHES IN EXILE (US)
Dir: Allison Berg
Travels inside witch villages in Ghana; conveys the personal experiences of a group of women facing the threat of being sacrificed along the complex fault lines of an emerging modern Africa.

AMERICAN GYPSY (US)
Dir: Jasmine Dellal
Tells the story of a family of American Gypsies whose community was shattered when police illegally raided their home and charged them with fencing stolen goods; explores how Gypsies preserve their culture in modern America.

CHRONICLE OF A SIEGE (TE DUROCH) (US)
Dir: Alessandra Zeka/Rob Rapley
Tells the story of oppression and survival through the eyes of women in Albania, whose experiences illuminate the nature of tyranny, the humanity of victims, and the resilience of society.

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Grantees 1998

WOMEN (Slovenia)
Dir: Zelimir Alajbegovic
On violence against women and children in Slovenia.

SHOOTERS (US)
Dir: Ana Coyne Alonso
Follows a photojournalist’s quest to find the soldier who shot him, to investigate the relationship between the media and military during times of conflict.

CROSSROAD STREET – ACT TWO (Latvia)
Dirs: Leonid Berzins and Baltic Media Center
On Latvians living on a small sidestreet on the outskirts of Riga, as a reflection of the historic transformations in Latvia and all post-communist countries (second part to same documentary done ten years ago).

DEATH OF A SLAVE BOY (Sweden)
Dir: Magnus Bergmar
On the life and death of murdered human rights activist and former bonded child slave in the Pakistani carpet industry, Iqbal Masih.

KHILAWADI: ELDEST DAUGHTER OF A GYPSY (US)
Dirs: Mystelle Brabbee and Craig McTurk
About a community of gypsies in India, where the eldest born daughter to each family must be a prostitute to support the rest.

SILENT DECADES (US)
Dir: Amy Chen
Examines the experience of the Chinese American community during the Cold War era of McCarthy witchhunts and anti-Communist red hysteria, from 1950’s through 1970’s.

FROM BOJANOVICE TO THE SPANISH HALL (Czech Republic)
Dir: Jana Chytilova
About the Czech underground rock group, Plastic People of the Universe, and their unintentional political influence.

MY FEMINISM (Canada)
Dirs: Laurie Colbert and Dominique Cardona
On the value of feminism and the continued existence of the feminist movement.

STORIES OF TRUTH & RECONCILIATION FROM SOUTH AFRICA (South Africa)
Dir: Don Edkins/SADOC
Four part Documentary series on reconciliation in Southern Africa, each focusing on Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING? (US)
Dir: Emily Fisher/Francesca Maniglio
On the South Bronx’s St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction and its relations with its community; to explore the many dimensions of harm reduction and human rights in the South Bronx.
Nicholas Fraser/Christian Poveda (UK) “Journey to the Right”

MY BABUSHKA (US)
Dir: Barbara Hammer
Personal search for the filmmaker’s relatives, while opening investigations of anti-Semitism, feminism, class divisions, and homophobia in Ukraine.

MAIN REEF ROAD
Dir: Nicolaas Hofmeyr
A road movie following a road that originally joined the gold mines of the Johannesburg region; portrays the chaos of urbanization and the forces that drive it, and searches for the sense of identity among the people of the new province of Gauteng.

BITTER WATER (US)
Dir: Meredith Lavitt/Mary Fish
On a small group of Navajo women elders who have been fighting against forced relocation by the US government, and the expansion of the Peabody Coal Company’s strip mining operation for the past 25 years.

AMERICA’S WAR AGAINST MARIJUANA (US)
Dir: Alaine Lowell
Examines the prohibition of marijuana through interviews with lawmakers, researchers, medical marijuana users and marijuana prisoners.

THE UNTOLD STORY OF U.S. WEAPONS & TWO MILLION REFUGEES IN KURDISTAN (US)
Dir: Kevin McKiernan
Chronicles the Turkish-Kurdish civil war through the human interest story of a Kurdish-American family in California, while exploring weapons transfers and the military alliance between the US and Turkey.

MADE IN THAILAND (US)
Dir: Eve-Laure Moros
About women factory workers in Thailand and their struggle to organize unions in their newly industrialized country.

MARKETING CINDERELLA (Canada)
Dir: Mira Niagolova
About prostitution and trafficking of women in and from Eastern Europe, to Western Europe and North America.

WELCOME TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER (US)
Dir: Christopher Pavsek
On the AIDS epidemic in Vietnam, and its connection to the current social transition.

WOMEN FROM THE VILLAGE OF SOULS (Bulgaria)
Dir: Adela Peeva
Profiles three women living in the eastern Rodope mountains, on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey.

THE SENTENCE  – THE ACCUSATION (Bulgaria)
Dir: Anna Petkova
An examination of prison camps created by Communist authorities in Bulgaria and their victims; to look at the current lack of justice ten years after the transition to democracy.

THE CHILDREN WE SACRIFICE (US)
Dir: Grace Poore
About the incestuous sexual abuse of girls in South Asia and the Diaspora.

HAMMERING IT OUT: WOMEN IN THE CONSTRUCTION ZONE (US)
Dir: Vivian Price
On the status of women as a human rights issue, through the stories of women construction workers.

AFTER STONEWALL (US)
Dir: John Scagliotti
Sequel to the documentary Before Stonewall; explores the gay and lesbian experience from the period of the Stonewall riots in 1969 to the end of this century.

DEATH OR LIFE: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN AMERICA (US)
Dir: Ned Schnurman
Provides a comprehensive and rational debate on the death penalty and the continuing struggle to define its role in our modern justice system.

COUNTRY OF WORDS (US)
Dir: Veronika Soul
Defines the post-Oslo experience in the West Bank and Gaza, through the voices of Palestinian writers who recently returned to their homeland after almost 30 years of exile.

TIME ZONE – PRISON (Latvia)
Dir: Arta Biseniece
Examines juvenile delinquency, through the stories of imprisoned youths in Latvia.

HACIA LA MONTANA: DAY OF THE DEAD IN CHENALHO (US)
Dir: Judith Gleason
About human rights in the Chiapas highlands of Mexico, as seen through the eyes of one community organizer/activist and her family.

RIPPLES IN THE WATER (Denmark)
Dir: Esther Heller
On the Crisis Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania – a shelter for female victims of physical and sexual violence.

NATIVE TONGUE (US)
Dir: Steve Lawrence/Internews
Over four days, links two storyteller/performance artists (one, and Aboriginal in Australia, the other a Native American) to compare and contrast their experiences as indigenous minorities.

TYPHOID MARY’S CHILDREN (US)
Dirs: Laura LeMarr and Pamela Roberts
Addresses public health policy through the story of Typhoid Mary; examines contemporary society’s response to infections disease carriers.

MR. DEATH (US)
Dir: Errol Morris
The story of Fred Leuchter’s twisted dream of electricity, executions and the Holocaust.

DEATH COMES TO THE MAQUILLAS (US)
Dir: Lourdes Portillo
About women workers in the assembly plans on Mexico’s northern border; explores the human rights story behind an unresolved sex-murder case in the Juarez area of Mexico.

KING CAFE (US)
Dirs: Scott Pearson and Ray Telles
On the coffee industry in countries such as Guatemala, and the emergence of the organic/Fair Trade coffee movement.

MEI MEI’S JOURNEY WEST (US)
Dirs: Suzanne Rostock and Heather MacDonald
Examines the complexities and questions that arise as a result of adoptions of Chinese children by predominantly Caucasian parents giving voice to the children who are dealing with issues of identity and racial difference, before they are even able to understand them.

SONS AND DAUGHTERS (US)
Dir: Meema Spadola
A bout children of gay and lesbian parents, through the eyes of the children themselves.

LOST LNDS (Netherlands)
Dirs: Manfred van Eyk and Caroline Hanrath
On the disappearing of the Khanty in Western Siberia.

SHAME (US)
Dir: Christopher Walker
Tells the story of how South Africa’s last remaining Bushmen are attempting to reclaim their land and traditions following centuries of genocide and persecution.

THE ROAD OF BROTHERHOOD AND EQUALITY (Slovenia)
Dir: Maja Weiss
A road trip through Ljubljana-Zagreb-Belgrade-Skopje on road B 51, recently re-opened after being a road of war.

KARLOVAC PROJECT (Croatia)
Dir: Tatjana Bozic
On the lives of people of Karlovac, Croatia, to explore the human rights situation in post war Croatia and examine the effects of war and dictatorship.

THIS WAY OUT (France)
Dir: Jill Burnett
The stories of seven refugees from various countries who have sought asylum in Toronto, based on persecution due to their sexual orientation.

THE BANKER AND THE LIFE
Dir: Antra Cilinska
On the first years of independence in Latvia, focusing on the bankruptcy of one of the first biggest private banks, Banka Baltija.

GORAZDE: PSYCHOGEOLOGY OF A BORDER (France)
Dir: Bruno Florentin
On life on the enclave of Gorazde, located at the center of the Serb entity of Bosnia.

MUGAM: STORIES OF UYGHUR WOMEN (Canada)
Dir: Paul Lee
About the struggles of Uyghur women in Central Asia, to achieve equal access to education and career opportunities as full participants of Uyghur society.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE SOVIET SYSTEM (US)
Dir: Olga Shalygin
Documents the attitudes of women and areas of their lives that have been effected by economic and cultural changes in the former Soviet republics.

THUNDER IN GUYANA: THE LIFE OF JANET JAGAN (US)
Dir: Suzanne Wasserman
The story of Janet Jagan, who became president of her adopted country, Guyana.

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Grantees 1997

SECRET PEOPLE (US)
Dir: John Anderson/Laura Harrison
On the historical experience and current problems of people with leprosy in America.

RUSSIAN SEX TRADE (US)
Dir: Gillian Caldwell/Lilibet Foster
Investigates the underworld of the Russian Mafia, and its role in the illegal trafficking of women and children to distant locations throughout Russia, Asia, and the US.

DIAMOND IN THE DARK: WOMEN IN ROMANIA (US)
Dir: Olivia Carrescia
About women, survival, and transition in present day Romania; to introduce the women of Romania to the outside world and to each other.

FROM MADNESS TO HOPE (US)
Dir: Esther Cassidy and William Kavanagh
Portrays the end of El Salvador’s civil war and its current struggle for democracy, as seen through the eyes of a US Congressman, an American priest, and a former Salvadoran rebel combatant and his wife.

THE FIRE THIS TIME (US)
Dir: Michael Chandler and Vivian Kleiman
On the church burnings in South Carolina, focusing on the only case in which the federal government has brought criminal and conspiracy charges: the burning of Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville and Macedonia Baptist Church in Manning, both remote country churches a few miles apart in South Carolina.

THE JEW IN THE LOTUS (US)
Dir: Laurel Chiten
Inspired by Rodger Kamenetz’s book, the story of a meeting of a group of rabbis and the Dali Lama in India, and Kamenetz’s own journey back to Judaism and his involvement with the plight of the Tibetans in exile.

BEYOND PIGS AND BUNNIES (US)
Dir: Sybil DelGaudio
On independent filmmakers John and Faith Hubley, and their style of re-defining animation’s potential to tackle serious subjects while producing works that are expressive of personal and political points of view.

PALAWAN PROJECT (US)
Dir: J. Scott Dodds
About a forest conservation program underway to protect the rights of hunter-gatherer peoples in the Philippines, which also works to preserve the virgin rain forest they inhibit.

THE PINK TRIANGLE (US)
Dir: Rob Epstein/Jeffrey Friedman
Tells the stories of gay men who survived the Holocaust, as an important testament to human resilience in the face of unconscionable cruelty.

BLACK AND WHITE IN COLOUR (Czech Republic)
Dir: Mira Erdevicki
About the human rights of the Gypsy minority in the Czech Republic and the boundaries among the cultures physically living in one area next to each other, which are at the same time culturally isolated (Gypsies, Czech, and Slovaks).

DEAD MAN TALKING (UK)
Dir: Ken Fero
On civil rights abuses of Blacks by the police in contemporary Britain; explores why high number of black men die in police custody in the UK each year, and the unwillingness of the British authorities to address this issue.

STEALING THE FIRE
Dir: John Friedman/Eric Nadler (US)
On Karl-Heinz Schaab, Saddam Hussein’s top nuclear spy, leader of a German ring of nuclear experts who sold secret information to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Brazil; explores the 50 year history of atomic weapon proliferation carried out by Germans.

KIDS ON THE BROW (Germany)
Dir: Michael Hammon/Jacqueline Gorgen
On a select group of street children living in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, to describe the harsh reality of life in the new South Africa

UBUNTU (US)
Dir: Daivd Haugland
Explores how the democracy struggle in South Africa came to include the struggle for gay rights.

PEACE EFFORT IN VUCOVAR (The Netherlands)
Dir: Rob Hoff
Follows the peace missions of Max van der Stoel, High Commissioner for National Minorities for one year in the former Yugoslavia.

DEFENDING EVERYBODY: A HISTORY OF THE ACLU $15,000 (5/97)
Dir: Lawrence Hott/Diane Garey
On the nature of civil liberties in the US; to give an insight into the dramatic changes in the meaning of “freedom of expression’ over time, and the current debate about the reasons for, and the protection of, civil liberties.

DISTANT GROUND (US)
Dir: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavatn
A personal coming of age film about the consequences of betrayal — the US betrayal of its Laotian war partner during the Vietnam War, the resulting impact on the Laotian soldiers and their families, and Thavisouk Phrasavath’s (co-director) father’s betrayal of his family in the name of that war.

WHITE EARTH FILM PROJECT (US)
Dir: Nicholas Kurzon
About the end of a political dynasty in the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota, revealing the process by which a disempowered community reclaims its right to free speech and fair politics.

THE NEA TAPES (US)
Dir: Paul Lamarre and Melissa Wolf
Interviews of artists and others who support the NEA, to stimulate public awareness of the support for artistic expression as a concept directly connected to freedom of expression.

BEHIND THE VEIL (US)
Dir: Steve Lawrence and Kim Spencer
Examines the distrust between Iran and the US, through dialogue between a woman high school teacher in Tehran and her counterpart in a suburb of Washington, DC.

INDONESIA: ISLANDS ON FIRE (US)
Dir: Maria L. Mendonca and Medea Benjamin
On the global problem of sweatshop exploitation, with a focus on the repressive and un-democratic structures in Indonesia. Examines the role of US owned corporations in such countries.

WAR CRIMINAL: DUSAN BOLJEVIC (Yugoslavia)
Dir: Veran Matic and Janko Baljak
On war criminals Dusan Boljevic and his wife Jagoda, and how they executed their own ethnic cleansing, as told through their hearings and families of the victims of their killings, three years after the brutal crimes.

THIRD STRIKE (US)
Dir: Michael Moore
On California’s Three Strikes law and its effects on the administration of criminal justice within the broader context of California’s massive, on-going prison expansion program. Rekindles public debate about the fairness and consequences of the increasing reliance on prisons to address the problems of crime and violence in society.

CONSTANT COMPANION (Canada)
Dir: Denis Paquette
On contemporary realities of drug addiction, through the stories of active and recovering addicts.

HOUSE OF THE WORLD (US)
Dir: Esther Podemski
On a group of elderly Holocaust survivors, as they returned to Poddebicce, the small Polish village where they all grew up, in order to conduct a memorial service in a barely rehabilitated Jewish cemetery.

THE TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION F ILM PROJECT (US)
Dir: Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffman
On South Africa’s precedent setting Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

DREAMS OF SHELTER (US)
Dir: Deborah Shaffer and Gini Reticker
Profiles women from Togo, Afghanistan, China, and Bosnia who came to America seeking gender based asylum, only to be detained by US INS officials.

PROMISES (US)
Dir: Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg
Looks at the complexity of the Middle East conflict through the eyes of Israeli and Palestinian children.

HOMELAND (US)
Dir: Jilann Spitzmiller and Hank Rogerson
Profiles four families on an American Indian reservation, facing economic challenges typical to contemporary reservation life.

THE CIVILIZERS: GERMANS IN GUATEMALA (Germany)
Dirs: Uli Stelzner and Thomas Walther
A continuation of a series on Guatemala’s refugees and indigenous people.

CAROLINA, SOUTH AFRICA (Netherlands)
Dirs: Tjaart Theron and Alec Behrens
On life in Carolina, a small town in South Africa – through the exploration of lives of the people killed and the institutions in which they were involved in, as seen through the eyes of family, friends, colleagues, and officials.

THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY (US)
Dir: Patricia Van Heerden
On the South African Truth Commission.

CITIZEN HONG KONG (US)
Dir: Ruby Yang
About Hong Kong’s transition to Chinese rule; through the eyes of four young Hong Kong residents, each armed with a digital camcorder for a three to six month period after the changeover.

THE LAST GRADUATION (US)
Dir: Barbara Zahm
Follows the history of higher education programs in prisons, from the innovative programs initiated by prisoners in the wake of the 1971 Attica riots to the dismantling of programs today.

LIFE WITHOUT… (US)
Dir: Kelley Baker/Nicky Silverstone
Examines the lives of children of prison inmates, and how they cope with having a parent incarcerated.

THE PATIENCE OF THE STONE (Bulgaria)
Dir: Konstndin Bonev and Rossitsa Valkanova
The story of a small Bulgarian village in the Eastern Rhodopa Mountains near the Greek border – a village neglected by the state, and forgotten by society.

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE GREEN (US)
Dir: Bestor Cam
On the arrest of 458 war protesters in Lexington, MA in 1971, raising issues about the quest for peace, the meaning of citizenship, patriotism, and civil disobedience in an open society.

PUNITIVE DAMAGE (New Zealand)
Dir: Annie Goldson
The story of a young New Zealand man, who was killed during the Dili massacre in East Timor by the Indonesian military, and his mother’s lawsuit against an Indonesian general in Boston.

FRONT LINE (Lithuania)
Dir: Audrius Juzenas
Exposes children’s rights violations in Lithuania.

FALLEN CRADLE (US)
Dir: Rory Kennedy
On the impact of anti-entitlement laws, through the voices of the people most directly impacted by the legislation.

CHILDREN OF THE SHADOWS (US)
Dir: Karen Kramer
On the restavek children; children who have no rights and are forced to work as unpaid servants in Haiti.

PEOPLE LED BY HERDS (Bulgaria)
Dir: Boyan Papazov
A three part series about the unknown minority of the Karakachans on the Balkans.

A PIG’S TALE (UK)
Dir: Anne Parisio
The story of how USAID came to eradicate an entire species of indigenous Creole pigs, and how this had catastrophic consequences on the majority of Haiti’s rural poor.

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY (US)
Dir: Julia Pimsleur
The story of one African American’s struggle with the criminalization of black men in America (James Forman, public defender).

BLACK FEMINISM (US)
Dir: Kathe Sandler
Examines the contemporary concerns of Black feminists, and the complex and somewhat obscured history of this movement.

THE HEART BECOMES QUIET (Canada)
Dir: Robin Schlaht and David Chirstopher
Explores the complexities of people’s individual responses to the Bhopal gas disaster.

FREEDOM, BRIGHT SPARK… (Germany)
Dir: Pavel Schnabel
Portrait of people from the first post-war generation whose lives have been shaped by the massive influence of state ideologies and by their own efforts to escape this influence.

LIFE IN A GHETTO (Bulgaria)
Dir: Eldora Traykova/Aseen Vladimirov
On life in the gypsy ghetto of Stolipinovo (in Plovdiv) and the human rights violations against gypsy citizens.

PEOPLE OF THE KODOR VALLEY (Czech Republic)
Dir: Petr Zrno
Explores the lives of the Svan people, an isolated group in the Abkhazian part of the Caucasian mountains.

RESISTANCE (US)
Dir: Amir Bar-Lev
On two Holocaust survivors and Czech/American émigrés who left Prague as dissidents under the Communist regime. Explores issues such as the Holocaust and Czech Jewry, Communism, and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

ASYLUM SEEKERS (US)
Dir: Toby Beach and Peter Yost
Examines whether America is living up to its legal and moral obligations to defend human rights by providing protection to those fleeing persecution around the world – focuses on several individual refugees to demonstrate the impact of new immigration laws.

A GENERATION LOST (US)
Dir: Edet Belzberg
Explores the growing problem of child prostitution among Romanian street children.

POT: THE MOVIE (US )
Dir: Immy Humes
Explores the deep internal conflict over marijuana in today’s America.

BEWARE OF THE MINES (US)
Dirs: Melanie Judd and Ileen Kohn
On the global landmines crisis, in the context of those involved in the international movement to ban them; to help stigmatize landmines as cruel and inhumane, and to increase popular support for the ban.

THE LOST TRIBE (Germany)
Adam Kossoff
Exposes the history of neglect and the extensive human rights abuses that the Israeli Black Falasha Jews have undergone since their arrival in Israel.

SONG OF THE SHIRT (UK)
Maysoon Pachachi
About globalization; to convey the way people living in different parts of the world are all involved in the same economic process, and how this process intimately affects their lives.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT (UK)
Gabriella Polletta
On solitary confinement, as an example of what happens to the human mind when it is deprived of stimulation.

LIFE FOR RENT (Estonia)
Peter Urbla/Vilja Palm
Explores the reasons behind the high rate of suicide among Finno-Ugric countries.

THE BORDER (Mexico/US)
John Valadez
Reveals how the tragic changes taking place along both sides of the US/Mexican border are affecting the lives of everyday people who live there. Structured around a journey from one end of the border to the other (from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.)

ROMA, A WAY OF LIFE (US)
Sarah Webster
On the Roma society in Spain, as an effort to expose the major concerns of this ethnic group, break stereotypes and encourage mutual understanding.

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Grantees 1996

OUT AT WORK (US)
Dir: Kelly Anderson and Tami Gold
Portrays the lives of three people from various regions of the US and how their sexual orientation has profoundly affected their work and home experiences.

STRANGER WITH A CAMERA (US)
Dir: Elizabeth Barret
On the murder of filmmaker Hugh O’Connor, by his subject Hobart Ison, and its significance for media making and freedom of expression. Explores the nature of image-making in society, the function of culture in creating and viewing images, and the relationship between the observer and the observed.

TRANSNATIONALA: AN UNTITLED ROAD MOVIE (US/Slovenia)
Dir: Michael Benson
A road trip film about art and cultural differences by “East meets East in the West”; a group of Russian, Slovenian, and American artists as they travel through the US.

NO COUNTRY IS AN ISLAND (US)
Dir: Stephanie Black
On the origins and policies of the IMF and other international lending agencies, and how they affect daily life in developing countries; a focuses on the situation in Jamaica.

DISCOVERING HERSCHEL (US)
Dir: Benjamin Brand
On the life of Herschel Grynszpan, to address how the past is created, how minorities are obliged to give voice to their own stories, and how the struggle for human rights often takes place on the small, personal level.

SLAVEGIRLS (US)
Dir: Ellen Bruno
Explores the sale of young Burmese girls into the sex industry in Thailand; examines the social, political, and economic forces at work in the dramatic increase of this trafficking of Burmese youth into prostitution.

SCHOOL PRAYER: A COMMUNITY DIVIDED (US)
Dir: Ben Crane and Slawomir Grunberg
On the national debate over organized prayer in public schools, focusing on one case in rural Mississippi.

ODO YA! LIFE WITH AIDS (US)
Dir: Tania Cypriano
On the effect of AIDS on minorities, and the unusual response of the religion of camdomble, to educate and cope with the epidemic in Brazil.

PLACE YOUR BETS, GENTLEMEN (Belarus)
Dir: Viktor Dashuk
Examines the current political situation in the Republic of Belarus; violence against individuals, censorship, repression of non-conformists, slander of the opposition, and media censorship.

FAMILIAR STRANGERS (US)
Dir: Jasmine Dellal
The story of a family of American gypsies illegally charged with fencing stolen goods. Explores the way Gypsies preserve their ancient culture in modern America.

LICENSED TO KILL (US)
Dir: Arthur Dong
On men who have been convicted of murdering homosexuals and an exploration of anti-gay violence and prejudice.

HIDDEN FEELING (Bulgaria)
Dir: Ilko Doundakov
On the issue of homosexuality in Bulgaria.

NO TURNING BACK: JENNIFER’S SEARCH FOR EVERARDO (US)
Dir: Patricia Goudvis
Follows Jennifer Harbury’s search for her husband, a Guatemalan rebel, and the revelations it provoked about US policy, the CIA, and human rights abuses in Guatemala.

THE FATE (Yugoslavia)
Dir: Zelimir Gvardiol
Three short stories, on the destinies of the people of the former Yugoslavia.

A VILLAGE ON FIRE (US/Thailand)
Dir: Jeanne Hallacy
Documents the lives of three youths involved in the revolution fighting for democracy in Burma. Examines the evolution of their political ideas and the direct impact of the civil war on their lives over a three year period.

THREE WOMEN (US)
Dir: Prudence Hill
About three grassroots activist women (from Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, and the US), their work and its impact on higher level policy making.

PHOTOGRAPHER (Poland)
Dir: Dariuz Jablonski
On the Nazi extermination of the Jewish people as seen through the recently discovered photographs of Walter Genewein, administrator of the Lodz ghetto (taken between 1940 and 1943.)

CALLING THE GHOSTS: WAR CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN (US)
Dir: Mandy Jacobson
On the survivors of the mass rape in the former Yugoslavia, through the victims’ own advocacy efforts and pursuit of retribution in the International War Crimes Tribunal.

USUAL AND ACCUSTOMED PLACES (US)
Dir: Sandra Osawa
On the 100 year struggle of the Native Americans in the Northwest to achieve social justice.

COMRADES (US/Macedonia)
Dir: Mitko Panov
On the nature of war and friendship in the former Yugoslavia, through a search for the comrades who were once friends, but went separate ways as a consequence of the war.

MURDER BY PROXY (Bulgaria)
Dir: Dimiter Petkov
On Georgi Markov – Bulgarian writer-dissident, who was murdered in London.

GRAHAM AND I: A TRUE STORY (Croatia)
Dir: Nenad Puhovski
On Graham Bamford, a British citizen who put himself on fire in 1993 in attempt to change the attitude of the British government towards the war in the former Yugoslavia.

VOICES (Estonia)
Dir: Kaie-Ene Raak and Valentin Kuik
The third film of a three part series – an anthropological and ethnic examination of the lives of the Khanty people, as seen through the eyes and fate of Yeremey Aipin, Khanty writer.

ON THE EDGE (Canada)
Dir: Mara Ravins
On the youth (ages 18-24) in Latvia, as they explore new frontiers after years of communist rule. Explores how they learn to question, to seek and create their own place in society, and to rediscover personal freedom and assert their individuality.

INSIDE THE SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS (US)
Dir: Robert Richter
On the secret training at the US Army School of the Americas, as told through the experiences of Father Roy Bourgeois, leading activist in the campaign to close the School.

THE 6TH BRIGADE (Switzerland)
Dir: Dusan Simko
Documents the fate of 1,200 Jewish men in Slovakia, during WW II, who were forced to join the 6th Army Brigade of the fascist Slovak state between 1939-1945.

BLACKS AND JEWS (US)
Dir: Alan Snitow
On intergroup relations focusing on Black and Jewish communities in the US.

KEEPING A LIVE VOICE: RACIAL & ETNIC PREJUDICE IN ZIMBABWE (Zimbabwe)
Dir: Edwina Spicer
One part of a five part series, addressing important topics in Zimbabwean society. This part explores the widening gap between the various racial and ethnic groups of the society, as Zimbabwe enters an era of unprecedented financial hardship.

PHOTO ROBOT (US)
Dir: Lazar Stojanovic
A political portrait of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, through his public speeches, interviews, critics, and private life.

ONE HERD, TWO SHEPHERDS (Estonia)
Dir: Artur Talvik
On the deepening conflict in the Orthodox Church, the dissension between the Moscow Patriarchy and the Ecumenical Patriarchy of Constantinople. Centers around the different views of two Estonian high priest and their congregations, and their experience as clergymen in post W.W.II communist-atheist Estonia.

STEEL BUTTERFLY (US)
Dir: Ramona Diaz
On Imelda Marcos, revealing the dark, intimate side of dictatorship, looking in detail at her childhood, her marriage to Ferdinand Marcos, and their twenty year control of the Philippines.

HOMECOMING (US)
Dir: Charlene Gilbert On the history of African-American land loss and the decline of the small Black farmer in the southern region of the US.

JUVENILE JUSTICE (US)
Dir: Ron Kanter
Explores the juvenile justice system through the eyes of the disadvantaged youths and the public defenders who work on their behalf.

TWENTY YEARS LATER: THE LEGACY OF ARGENTINA’S DIRTY WAR (US)
Dir: Suzana Munoz
Explores the moral and psychological remains of the turbulent period of 1976-1983 in Argentina.

THE LOST CHILDREN (UK)
Dir: Jill Daniels
On the Macedonian child refugees of Northern Greece.

YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING? (US)
Dir: Emily Fisher
On the South Bronx’s St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction and its relations with the community; to explore dimensions of harm reduction and human rights.

GRETA (The Netherlands)
Dir: Haris Pasovic and Janneke Hazelhoff
On the life experiences of Greta Ferusic, who survived both the Holocaust and the siege of Sarajevo.

SONS OF THE EAGLE (Germany)
Dir: Stephan Stettele
On life in the mountains of Northern Albania.

CAROLINE, SOUTH AFRICA, 1996 (The Netherlands)
Dir: Tjaart Theron
On life in Carolina, a small town in South Africa – through the exploration of lives of the people killed and the institutions in which they were involved in, as seen through the eyes of family, friends, colleagues, and officials.

THE PAST IS ANOTHER COUNTRY (US)
Dir: Patricia van Heerden
On the use of history in constructing the present. Deals specifically with the advent of truth commissions in the late 20th century and focuses on the South African Truth Commission.

CHRONICLE OF A SIEGE (US)
Dir: Alessandra Zeka
Tells the story of oppression and survival through the eyes of women in Albania, whose experiences illuminate the nature of tyranny, the humanity of victims, and the resilience of society.

PERSONAL BELONGINGS (US)
Dir: Steven Bognar
An intimate story on the filmmaker’s Hungarian father, raising issues concerning community and ethnic identity.

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