In recognition of United Nations Day, the focus of this year’s International Film Festival at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo is on Asian and Pacific nations that may not be well known in the United States: Mynamar (Burma), West Papua, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. Each film will be introduced by a student who is either from the nation being featured or is knowledgeable about the topic exposed in the film. Admission is free.
Featured films
They Call it Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain
Monday, October 19 at 7 p.m.
University Classroom Building (UCB), room 127
Shot clandestinely over a two-year period by best-selling novelist and filmmaker Robert H. Lieberman, They Call it Myanmar: Lifting the Curtain provides a rare look at the second-most isolated country on the planet. It lifts the curtain to expose the everyday life in a country that has been held in the iron grip of a brutal military regime for 48 years. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film “defies the odds of creating a travelogue and, instead, delivers a compelling portrait…the definitive film on a country.”
Forgotten Bird of Paradise
Tuesday, October 20 at 5:30 p.m.
UCB 127
Acclaimed undercover documentary on the West Papua independence struggle. Directed by British filmmaker Dominic Brown, who traveled in West Papua without the knowledge or authority of the Indonesian authorities. The film provides a rare and moving insight into the ongoing struggle for freedom being fought by the West Papua people against Indonesian colonial rule.
The Road to Home
Tuesday, October 20 at 6 p.m.
UCB 127
Documentary about Benny Wenda, the Nobel Peace Prize nominated West Papuan independence leader, in his ongoing struggle to free his people from Indonesian colonial rule. Since his dramatic escape from an Indonesian prison in 2002, where he was held in isolation and tortured as a political prisoner, Wenda has been an unceasing crusader on the international scene.
The Act of Killing
Tuesday, October 20 at 7:30 p.m.
UCB 127
A documentary which challenges former Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their mass-killings in whichever cinematic genres they wish, including classic Hollywood crime scenarios and lavish musical numbers.
A Guerra de Beatriz
Thursday, October 22 at 7 p.m.
UCB 127
Sixteen years after Beatriz’s husband disappears during a brutal massacre by occupying Indonesian forces, she is troubled by his mysterious return: is he the young man she had lost or is he an impostor?
