Patois: New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival kicked off Thursday, March 11, and runs through March 21. This year’s festival features an impressive 11 days of programming that will not only include films that address social justice issues and celebrate successes in the global struggle for human rights, but breath-taking performances as well as workshops and speakers that offer concrete solutions to some of today’s most pressing justice issues.
This year’s festival is particularly significant because of the historical and cultural ties between New Orleans and Haiti and the latter’s struggles since being hit with a devastating earthquake earlier this year.
All programs and events are $8 and day passes are $10.
The festival’s first event was Patois Pour Haiti, a benefit concert for the rural hospital organization Partners in Health, that took place Thursday in the Faubourg Marigny. Patois further underscored its solidarity with Haiti with two special programs at Warren Easton Senior High. On Saturday, March 13, a dynamic teach-in “Haiti: Revolution, Reconstruction, Restitution” featuring video reports from Haiti’s Ciné Institute on the earthquake and how to support a Haitian-led reconstruction was held. On Saturday March 20, New Orleans’ own Fyre Youth Squad will host “Haiti is Home: We are Haiti,” a powerful evening of story, music, and dance that explores the myriad of historical and cultural connections between Haiti and the Crescent City
“Freedom Riders,” the opening film of the Seventh Annual festival, is a groundbreaking documentary on the 1961 bus rides of Black and white people through the segregated U.S. South. The film, co-presented by Junebug Productions, was presented on Friday, March 12, followed by a distinguished panel of local Civil Rights Movement veterans.
Patois offers the world premiere of two films this year. “Operation Small Axe” documents the history of police terrorism and occupation in Oakland, Ca., through the murder of Oscar Grant by a transportation officer on January 1, 2009. It will be followed by activists from Oakland and New Orleans in a discussion of community responses to state violence.
Crepe Covered Sidewalks is a riveting and intimate documentary of singer/actress Reneé Wilson’s return home to the devastation and desolation of New Orleans’ altered landscape after Hurricane Katrina.
This year’s festival films include two Academy Award-nominated documentaries and one Official Selection from Festival de Cannes. “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” the Academy Award-nominated documentary of the government insider who took plans of the Vietnam War public, made its New Orleans premiere on Sunday March 14, at 7 p.m. The film was co-presented by the ACLU of Louisiana.
“Burma VJ,” the incredible Academy Award-nominated document of how media makers risked their lives to report on Burma’s police state in late 2008, will be shown on Tuesday, March 16, at 7 p.m.
On Friday March 19, Patois bring the New Orleans premiere of Salt of This Sea, the beautiful story of two Palestinians who steal a taste of freedom in their own land. The film was an Official Selection in Competition at the Festival de Cannes. Lead actress and Tony Award-winning Def Jam poet Suheir Hammad will be present for the film.
Suheir Hammad was also the headliner at “Breaking Poetry,” a dynamic evening of poetry and singing held at Warren Easton Senior High on Saturday, March 13, at 7 p.m. and includes local Def Jam poet Sunni Patterson, New Orleans literary giant Kalamu ya Salaam, and Michaela Harrison.
For a full schedule and description of all the films, performances and events, trailers of festival films, venue information, visit patoisfilmfest.org.
This article was originally published in the March 15, 2010 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper
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