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Crises and Migration

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Raoul Peck
Year: 2012 / 100m
March 16 / 15

Award-winning Haitian born filmmaker Raoul Peck takes us on a two-year journey inside the challenging, contradictory, and colossal rebuilding efforts in post-earthquake Haiti.

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Nagieb Khaja
Year: 2012 / 88m
March 17 / 16

Alternating between the participants' scenes of daily life and Nagieb's own experiences, My Afghanistan depicts a country where civilians are the greatest victims of the war, and Afghans struggle to live in the constant shadow of violence.

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Margreth Olin
Year: 2012 / 90m
March 21 / 20

In this compelling documentary, filmmaker Margreth Olin follows a number of boys from Salhus, a Norwegian centre offering temporary residence to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. A visceral and provocative film, Nowhere Home scrutinises one of Europe's major moral dilemmas.

(London Premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Kim Nguyen
Year: 2012 / 90m
March 13

At 14, Komona has lived through horrors that eclipse an adult's worst nightmares. In this mesmerizing, otherworldly drama, shot entirely in the Democratic Republic of Congo, comes a story of child soliders and incredible human resilience.

Focus on Asia/South Asia

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Alex Meillier
Year: 2012 / 78m
March 20 / 19

Alias Ruby Blade: A Story of Love and Revolution tells the remarkable love story of human rights activist Kirsty Sword and political prisoner Xanana Gusmão.

Filmmaker(s): Marc Wiese
Year: 2012 / 104m
March 18 / 20

Camp 14 – Total Control Zone is a fascinating portrait of a young man who grew up imprisoned by dehumanizing violence yet still found the will to escape.

Filmmaker(s): Anand Patwardhan
Year: 2012 / 185m
March 20

Denied basic human rights for centuries and abhorred as lesser beings, Anand Patwardhan deftly balances the story of the Dalits in India with intimate family portraits, moments of inspiration, and glimpses of a better future.

(Exclusive Preview)
Filmmaker(s): Joshua Oppenheimer
Year: 2012 / 122m
March 19 / 18

A true cinematic experiment, The Act of Killing explores a chapter of Indonesia's history in a way bound to stir debate—by enlisting a group of former killers, including Indonesian paramilitary leader Anwar Congo, to re-enact their lives in the style of the films they love.

Occupation and the Rule of Law

Filmmaker(s): Dror Moreh
Year: 2012 / 95m
March 16 / 15

In an unprecedented and candid series of interviews, six former heads of the Shin Bet—Israel's intelligence and security agency—speak about their role in Israel's decades-long counterterrorism campaign.

Filmmaker(s): Ra’anan Alexandrowicz
Year: 2011 / 101m
March 16 / 17

Can a modern democracy impose a prolonged military occupation on another people while retaining its core democratic values?

Traditional Values and Human Rights: Disability Rights

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Harry Freeland
Year: 2012 / 84m
March 15 / 21

Filmed over six years, In the Shadow of the Sun tells the story of two men with albinism in Tanzania pursuing their dreams in the face of virulent prejudice.

Traditional Values and Human Rights: LGBT Rights

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Srdjan Dragojevic
Year: 2012 / 115m
March 20 / 21

Srdjan Dragojevic's The Parade takes a comedic look at Serbia through the lens of one group's fight to hold a Gay Pride parade in Belgrade.

Traditional Values and Human Rights: Women's Rights

(UK premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Karima Zoubir
Year: 2012 / 59m
March 17 / 19

With enthusiastic musicians and ornate wedding parties setting the stage, we meet Khadija, a Moroccan divorcee who works as a camerawoman at weddings in Casablanca. As the film unfolds, Khadija talks candidly about the issues she faces and the competing forces at play in the lives of women in Morocco and beyond.

(UK Premiere)
Filmmaker(s): Jehane Noujaim and Mona Eldaief
Year: 2012 / 75m
March 15 / 16

Rafea is a Bedouin woman who lives with her daughters in one of Jordan's poorest desert villages on the Iraqi border. When she is selected for an intriguing programme called the Barefoot College in India, Rafea doesn't need to think twice, and travels to join 30 illiterate women from different countries to train to become solar engineers.

(Exclusive Preview)
Filmmaker(s): Kim Longinotto
Year: 2013 / 90m
March 14

Like many other women in rural South Asia, Salma, a young Muslim girl in India, was forced into seclusion once she reached puberty. She was forbidden by her family to study and pushed into marriage. Words were Salma's salvation.

Filmmaker(s): Jeremy Teicher
Year: 2012 / 82m
March 18 / 21

Tall as the Baobab Tree poignantly depicts a family struggling to find its footing on the edge of the modern world fraught with tensions between tradition and modernity.

Filmmaker(s): Atiq Rahimi
Year: 2012 / 98m
March 15 / 18

What does it mean to be a woman in a world ruled by religion and violence? A poetic and politically charged allegory, The Patience Stone focuses on the plight of women ruled by archaic laws and traditions.

Filmmaker(s): Haifaa Al Mansour
Year: 2012 / 97m
March 22

In the first full-length feature film shot entirely inside Saudi Arabia, Wadjda tells the story of a 10-year-old girl living in a suburb of Riyadh who is determined to fight for her dreams... with or without society's approval.