Human Rights Arts and Film Festival 2013
Forty years after Vietnam, the first fully televised war, does film still have the power to spur us into action?
Overview
In 2007, a wave of albino murders swept across Tanzania. Their slaughter was at the command of witch doctors, who believe that albino limbs deliver prosperity and good luck. Horrified, British filmmaker Harry Freeland flew to Tanzania, where he spent spent six years following Josephat Torner, an albino who had left his family home and was travelling from village to village, risking his life to confront superstition.
The resulting documentary, In the Shadow of the Sun, will open the Sydney leg of the sixth Human Rights Arts and Film Festival on May 28. Having spent a fortnight in Melbourne, the event will stop here for three days before continuing on its national tour.
Jamie Meltzer's Informant, a portrait of fanatical humanitarian-turned-FBI bedfellow Brandon Darby, will screen on May 29, and Alex Meillier's Alias Ruby Blade will round out proceedings on May 30. It's the story of Australian activist Kirsty Sword, who left for East Timor to make documentaries and found herself working as an underground operative for the imprisoned Xanana Gusmao.