Human Rights Watch Film Festival Coverage

A still from George Kurian's The Crossing. (Courtesy of Human Rights Watch Film Festival)

The last of my interviews for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival was just posted on Film Journal International's website: http://www.filmjournal.com/features/george-kurian-the-crossing-syrian-refugee-short-human-rights-watch-film-festival. This one is with George Kurian for The Crossing, a documentary short about a group of Syrians who had been living in Cairo, and decided to risk yet another emigration, this time to Italy. Links to my other filmmaker interviews appear below.

Human Rights Watch Festival Coverage

A still from Mehrdad Oskouei's documentary Starless Dreams, which screened this weekend at HRWFF. (Photo courtesy of HRWFF.)

Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which opened on June 10th, comes to New York City every year, and I have been covering it for nearly a decade (for Film Journal International) because it remains one of the most important venues for short subject and feature-length human rights documentaries and narrative films. My overview of the 2016 slate is here: http://www.filmjournal.com/features/advocating-women-female-issues-dominate-human-rights-watch-fest.

Daniel Beaty and Omari Hardwick in a still from Jamal Joseph's Chapter & Verse. (Photo courtesy of HRWFF.)

As part of my coverage, I interviewed Iranian filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei for his documentary Starless Dreams, about a juvenile detention ward for girls: http://www.filmjournal.com/features/juvenile-injustice-starless-dreams-painfully-intimate-look-imprisoned-girls-iran. It screened at HRWFF this weekend. You can read my interview with American filmmaker and former Black Panther Jamal Joseph for his debut narrative feature Chapter & Verse, the story of a former inmate who returns to his Harlem neighborhood: http://www.filmjournal.com/features/fathers-and-sons-jamal-joseph-depicts-redemption-harlem-chapter-and-verse. The film screened on Sunday, June 12th, to a full house. Check back for my upcoming interview with George Kurian for The Crossing, a documentary short about a group of Syrian refugees that will screen at HRWFF on June 15th and 16th.