The , a film festival focused on human rights stories, will be bringing award-winning films and filmmakers from around the world and pairing them with local activists and community leaders from Fort Collins this weekend. The festival, which runs from April 2-6, is produced by CSU's Department of Communications and will screen 24 films at The Lory Student Center and The Lyric, with discussions and panels throughout the events.
Life After opens on the story of Elizabeth Bouvia. In 1983, Bouvia petitioned a court in California to allow her to starve herself to death. She suffered from profound cerebral palsy; the court denied her request, and Bouvia’s case and her personal experience guide the film’s urgent discussion of the question of medically assisted suicide.
Canadian director Reid Davenport is himself a victim of cerebral palsy, and he brings profound understanding to his film, and a rare balance to this contentious question. His narration helps normalize his speech for the audience. As he argues for better care to help disabled people avoid despair, he says that segregation in institutions is part of the trauma of being disabled.
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Assisted suicide is a terrible question for a society, a family or a person to confront. Opponents worry that people will be pressured to take their own lives; those in favor say that life with certain diseases and disabilities is unendurable. Life After threads the needle well.
Songs of Slow Burning Earth by Ukrainian filmmaker Olha Zhurba starts with an agitated caller reporting explosions to an emergency hotline. In the Kyiv train station, a mother with a small child sits numb, ignoring an announcement to seek shelter from a coming air raid. An older man, devastation in his face, slowly scratches his forehead. Hundreds of people cram onto the trains – with moments of fear and anger, generosity and selfishness. Then images of destroyed tanks on a wet road. These are some of the songs of the film’s title. Some sing of despair, others of the implacable act of enduring the terror. Workers in a commercial bakery go about their jobs, glancing at the ceiling when the explosive sounds of war come closer.
It’s not all grim. School kids work at their desks; they look well-cared for. But when a teacher asks students to imagine their futures, everyone stays silent. The film closes on kids in a dreary Russian school doing what looks like forced military marching. Enough said.
At least since the Iranian revolution of 1979, Iran has had one of the great national cinemas. Unlike the cruelty of the government, Iranian cinema – with many films like the recent Seed of the Sacred Fig – shows deep humanity and opposition to repression. There’s less of a documentary tradition, but My Stolen Planet by Farahnaz Sharifi is a gem of personal storytelling.
Sharifi puts together home movies, school photographs, and current film footage in a dazzling array of visual voices -- all to attack the criminality and horror of Iran’s present government. With movies and photos of family celebrations, Sharifi shows Iranians were happy to see the infamous Shah overthrown, but the government quickly turned murderous. Post-revolution pictures show young Sharifi as a grim little girl in a mandated headscarf, then lines of other schoolgirls standing like dour automatons.
Sharifi says that “the first thing they teach in school is to wish death on others.” Recent footage shows huge pictures of Iran’s Supreme Leader glaring down on the streets, with text reading “Death to America.” A blunt young woman speaks directly to the camera to accuse the regime of murder and lying, of refusing to import vaccines for COVID-19 from the west, and then lying about the ravages of the COVID-19 epidemic. Sharifi adds images that go beyond words – film of nurses and doctors in a COVID-19 ward, hidden under protective gowns and masks, dancing to try to entertain their mostly dying patients. The clarity of vision in My Stolen Planet is thrilling.
Access the film festival for this weekend's opportunity to see these films and more.
