The effectiveness of the first Cairo Human Rights Film Festival, a sidebar of the 32nd Cairo International Film Festival, which comes to a close on Nov. 28, is questioned in the Middle East Times:
"'We are looking to reach people who are not used to receiving information through art and this will hopefully educate about human rights,' [American Islamic Congress' Dalia] Zaida said. 'First and foremost, the festival aims at education and getting people aware of human rights.'
"'The goal is to highlight international human rights issues and build understanding between cultures,' Zaida added. 'Most of the films focus on issues outside Egypt and the Arab world that will expose the Egyptian audience to issues not often heard about in the news.'
"'What issues are they talking about and who are the Egyptians that are going to go to these films that are not already agreeing with the sentiments of the subject matter?' asked Joe Fahim, arts and culture editor of The Daily News Egypt.
***
Paul MacInnes, for his part, analyzes the effectiveness — or lack thereof — of the Cairo International Film Festival in "Pyramid selling: the Cairo film festival shows a country divided" in The Guardian:
"'I think that all films are political,' says Susan Sarandon in a tone that suggests she's expressed such sentiments before. 'The ones that reinforce stereotypes are just as political as those that do not. The good news and bad news is that Hollywood is not political.'
"Sarandon is in Cairo and this should be a gimme. One of Hollywood's most famous liberals railing against the iniquities of her industry to a group of North African Muslims, it would appear speaker and audience are ideally matched. But Sarandon is having a tough time, railed at in Arabic by a series of circumlocutory questioners, she is accused of being a representative of the very yankee empire she thinks she spends her life railing against. A grand insistence that 'art will definitely conquer power in the end' doesn't really help to calm matters."
Amazonas Film Festival and the Environment in THE GUARDIAN
Penélope Cruz, Kristin Scott Thomas, Clint Eastwood at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2009
MARY AND MAX to Open Sundance 2009
Sundance, Prop. 8, and Boycotts
Danny Boyle, GOMORRAH, WALTZ WITH BASHIR: AFI FEST 2008
THE WRESTLER, EVERLASTING MOMENTS, LA RABIA: AFI FEST 2008
Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche, Bill Plympton: AFI FEST 2008
THE DESERT WITHIN, TWO-LEGGED HORSE, Documentary Shorts: AFI FEST 2008
ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, THE BROTHERS BLOOM: AFI FEST 2008
POUNDCAKE, WITCHHUNT, KASSIM THE DREAM, OF ALL THE THINGS: AFI FEST 2008
Film Festivals are always important. What's the use? Opening minds to other cultures and other ways of seeing the world.
Even if only one mind is opened, that can make a hell of a difference.
Actually, film festivals ARE important even if not many people to the films themselves. All you need is to change or open a few minds to see results spread all over the place.