film festival

Human Rights Film Festival Brings Diverse Stories to SU
By Joe Allen
September 27, 2017 - 3:48pm
Preview: The three day festival will feature film screenings, and opportunities to hear from the directors behind these projects.

This weekend, the fifteenth annual Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival will bring stories of human struggle from around the world to the Syracuse University campus. Beginning on Thursday, Sept. 28 and lasting through Saturday, Sept. 30, the festival has brought in a program of documentaries that speak to the universality of human suffering. Here's the full rundown of films on the schedule:

'Kai Po Che!' misuses filmmaking devices, falls flat
By Max B. O'Connell
September 29, 2013 - 5:34pm
'Kai Po Che!' which screened on Saturday at the Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival, overuses montage and only skims the surface of its few merits.

What exactly should a montage do?

It can show a rise to power or a fall from grace, a humorous series of failures or a chain of successes. One thing it probably should not do, however, is perform most of the heavy lifting for a film’s central friendship or relationship.

The feeble middlebrow Bollywood drama Kai Po Che! didn’t get that memo.

Message of 'Intersexion' meant for different medium
By Max B. O'Connell
September 29, 2013 - 5:26pm
'Intersexion,' which screened Saturday at the Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival, contains elements that make for a good, moving story, but the subject would be better served in a form other than a documentary.

The problem with many advocacy documentaries is that not enough filmmakers ask themselves, “Does this need to be a movie?” The result is a number of well-meaning but inconsequential films whose messages would be just as well served by a TV special or an article.

A new kind of documentary: 'The Act of Killing'
By Max B. O'Connell
September 29, 2013 - 5:17pm
'The Act of Killing,' which screened on Saturday at the Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival, tells the story of a 1960s Indonesian death squad through some of Hollywood's most beloved genres.

The Act of Killing features one of the most striking openings of the year: a group of women dressed in pink emerge from the mouth of a fish-shaped building, while a man in black robes and another man in drag stand, arms raised, in front of a waterfall.

It’s a beguiling, haunting opening that would be memorably surreal in any film, let alone a documentary about genocide.

Film festival draws attention to human rights issues
By Max B. O'Connell
September 25, 2013 - 3:35pm
The 11th annual Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival will feature five films that tackle human rights issues.

Art and social justice will intersect at the 11th annual Syracuse Human Rights Film Festival.

The festival, which is free and open to the public, will show five films from Thursday, Sept. 26, through Saturday, Sept. 28.

Presented by the Syracuse University Humanities Center and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, each of the films selected showcases important human rights issues from around the world.

Illuminating Oppression Enlightens Audiences
By Amy Brueckman
September 19, 2011 - 8:27am
Review: Three day film festival illuminates important issues and gets the audience talking

We saw enemies coming together and standing side by side for the same cause. We identified with the people of San Francisco when a deadly virus claimed the lives of thousands in a once carefree community. We sympathized with the victims of displacement.