Human Rights Festival Welcomes Special Guests
by Staff
(November 26, 2018 – Toronto, ON) Next month the Human Rights Film Festival will launch its 7th season, which this year coincides with the 70th anniversary of Human Rights Day worldwide. Committed to sharing important human rights stories through film and conversation, this year’s festival will also be fully accessible to attendees, with all screenings providing open captions or full subtitles, an active listener, an ASL interpreter and a relaxed screening environment.
“The films being presented at the festival are timely and beautifully told narratives driven by incredible guests who will help audiences envision a world that we should and deserve to be living in,” said Gilad Cohen, Human Rights Film Festival Founder and Executive Director. “While drawing attention to some of our world’s most pressing issues, we hope audiences are challenged and inspired by these stories.”
This year’s extraordinary guest lineup includes Transgender rights activist and retired army veteran Laila Ireland, who is the subject of the Festival’s opening film TransMilitary. The film’s director and executive producer, Gabe Silverman and Jamie Coughlin are also on the guest list. Other guests attending in support of their films include a profile of Major Monique Brown, a 16-year veteran of Baltimore’s police force and unlikely community ally, for the film Charm City; filmmakers Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink, along with human trafficking survivor Stephen Kwame Addo, who will be attending via Skype (The Rescue List); Former South Sudanese child soldier, hip hop artist and author of War Child: A Child Soldier’s Story, Emmanuel Jal; and Toronto musician Scott Jones, who was left paralyzed after falling victim to a homophobic attack (Love, Scott); among others.
The screening of TransMilitary will be a Toronto Premiere for the film, which is described as “an urgent documentary following four members of the US armed forces as they campaign to repeal the ban on transgender troops in the United States. Putting their careers and families on the line, they confront the top brass Pentagon officials, demanding fair and inclusive policies.”
The four-day festival lineup boasts 16 films including the Canadian Premiere of Charm City, the Canadian Premiere of A Year of Hope, as well as returning festival favourite The Distant Barking of Dogs.
Closing the Festival is the Canadian Premiere of The Rescue List, a moving documentary about survival and recovery. Along Lake Volta, Ghana, child trafficking is rampant as traffickers trick poverty-stricken families into selling their children into slavery. The film focuses on Stephen Kwame Addo, a survivor of child trafficking himself, who spends his days on the lake rescuing enslaved children from the “slave masters.”
The Human Rights Film Festival screens at Toronto’s Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema from December 7 to 10, 2018. Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online or at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. Click here for more information about the Human Rights Film Festival.
Also see: Our list of December Film Festivals.
