Human Rights Watch Film Festival Review: Midwives

The documentary “Midwives” is streaming online this week at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. I reviewed the film for CinemaDailyUS.com - head over there to read my review.

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Spotlight: Daughter of a Lost Bird

Daughter of a Lost Bird
Directed by Brooke Pepion Swaney
Screening Information

Identity can be a complicated thing for any person, and for someone who belongs to multiple communities, it can be all the more challenging. There are often conflicting values and aspects of different cultures, and someone may find resonance in contradictory notions that speak to various parts of themselves. Adoption often involves transplanting someone from one type of existence to another, and, try as they may to ensure a preservation of a child’s birth heritage, those new parents cannot fully replicate the experience of growing up in a place that speaks to who they are. This documentary offers a mesmerizing and enlightening examination of how new relationships and people can inform the trajectory of a person’s whole life.

This film spotlights Kendra, who is only now as an adult connecting to her Native American background after being raised by loving white parents. Her self-exploration is compounded by meeting her birth mother April, who was also adopted. Kendra’s desire to belong and connect clashes with her lack of knowledge about a culture she doesn’t actually know much about, and watching her work through that with April is enormously rewarding. The focus on the 1958 Indian Adoption Project that sought to actively remove Native children from their families is particularly unsettling, and this film serves as compelling and irrefutable evidence that harm has been inflicted by such policies that, throughout this country’s history, have been all too common and enthusiastically endorsed.

B+

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Spotlight: A Once and Future Peace

A Once and Future Peace
Directed by Eric Daniel Metzgar
Screening Information

There are multiple functions of the prison system, and the primary aim is to keep those deemed dangerous or likely to commit crimes away from society. Yet the time spent behind bars can have long-lasting implications on a person’s psyche and behavior, and simply removing them from normal life may not actually create a more well-rounded and better-prepared person to reenter civilization upon release, if such a fate is even a possibility. Ensuring that steps are taken to teach those serving time about the values they should emphasize in order to enrich their lives and acknowledge the consequences of their actions are rarely the priority of prison programs, but this film highlights how a Seattle-based community utilizes the framework of Indigenous peace-making circles to do just that.

This documentary makes use of creative cinematic techniques to showcase its topic, including animation to shield its characters’ identities and imagine moments of conversation that may not have happened exactly as they do onscreen for audiences to better unpack them. It offers a compelling portrait of a teenager, given the name Andy, who is facing both felony changes and doubts from his family about his desire for any sort of rehabilitation, and a former gang leader, Saroeum, actively working to keep others from following his path and instead confront their own instincts and futures. It serves as a productive and affecting case study for the power of conversation and the weight of treating everyone as if they have untapped potential if given the right attention and proper approach.

B+

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Spotlight: 200 Meters

200 Meters
Directed by Ameen Nayfeh
Screening Information

Distance is an often subjective concept, dependent almost entirely on the ease of travel between points and the freedom of movement. If a person is able to get back and forth to see friends or relatives without any difficulty, the time it takes or the miles in between may not matter. But when people are not free to move as they wish and must take extraordinary measures to reach even an incredibly close destination, any type of separation can be unbearable. Such distance invariably affects relationships and shapes a person’s attitude towards the world and particularly towards the people or entity they blame for its existence.

This film is the only narrative selection among the ten films showing as part of this year’s festival, and surely one that has attracted more attention given the violence and unrest in Israel and Gaza in recent weeks. This story of a Palestinian man, Mustafa (Ali Suliman), who lives in a village only 200 meters from his wife Salwa (Lana Zreik) and their children on the other side of the West Bank barrier wall, is one that focuses primarily on one man and what he is willing to do for his family. While it clearly advocates for Palestinian self-determination and the rights of citizens who cannot move freely, it goes beyond casting the Israeli government and military as the only bad actors, showcasing how many seize on opportunity to take advantage of others in a miserable situation. Mustafa’s humanity is what shines through most in this thought-provoking and affecting drama.

B

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Spotlight: Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not
Directed by Olivier Bernier
Screening Information

The notion of equality in America is, unfortunately, becoming less and less defensible as even those who still cling to the idea of its existence have their eyes opened to how those who look different are not in fact given the same opportunities. Appearance is merely one aspect of discrimination, as expectations are often set for all to perform at the same level, failing to take into account disabilities or other conditions and setting up no realistic alternatives for accommodation. While some options do exist, there are far too many cases in which minimal effort is taken to reach an acceptable solution. In this documentary made by two parents, they chronicle their own journey through the process of finding a suitable path for their three-year-old son Emilio.

This film does an enormously effective job of translating a struggle many face for acceptance into a relatable story of advocacy and endurance. Using the power of the camera that they have, Olivier Bernier and his wife Hilda share every step of their story, recording conversations with education representatives and social workers to fully capture the arduous steps that even they must take to assure some basic level of opportunity for their son that isn’t merely determining that he must be separated from any experience of mainstream learning. While some filmmakers may caution against becoming part of your own film, their involvement and passion in it is what makes it unforgettable.

B+

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Spotlight: Bajo Fuego

Bajo Fuego
Directed by Sjoerd van Grootheest and Irene Vélez-Torres
Screening Information

It is much simpler to identify problems that to actually conceive of solutions. The United States has seen this with the current state of systemic racism and how law enforcement has evolved in a way that disproportionately targets people of color. Outside of this country, other issues are prominent with equally unresolved complexities. In Colombia, widespread drug usage led to a proclamation by President Juan Manuel Santos that peace would be created by the eradication of the substances which had led to long-raging conflicts. Yet the missing piece is the large population of farmers for whom the coca crop represented their entire livelihoods.

This film’s title translates to “under siege,” and documents the continually tumultuous situations in which these families of farmers have found themselves through no fault of their own, threatened by war and now by other armed groups seeking to make sense of an uncertain new society, one that has found no place for those who have been told they can no longer do what they have done for generations. In addition to a searing and affecting portrait of individuals who have been affected by this, this film offers an indictment of sweeping promises that fail to take into account the shortcomings of future guarantees that will cause irreparable harm until a permanent solution can be conceived and fully implemented.

B+

Human Rights Watch Film Festival Spotlight: Apart

Apart
Directed by Jennifer Redfearn
Screening Information

The idea of being separated from one’s children is a very difficult concept, one that can affect relationships tremendously and alter the trajectories of the lives of all involved. A proven inability to proper care for someone can result in the removal of that privilege, something many might argue should not be the role of government or law enforcement since no one can truly know or understand the bond between a parent and a child other than those two people. This heartfelt, poignant documentary focuses on three mothers, Tomika, Lydia, and Amanda, who have been incarcerated as a result of their opioid use and are preparing for release and the opportunity to be reunited with their families.

This film takes a distinctly personal approach to a nationwide issue, addressing both the prevalence of addictive drugs and the problematic nature of the system created to temper it that ends up punishing people in a far more lasting way than they perhaps deserve. It doesn’t pretend to offer easy, neat solutions, but instead shows the very real process of rehabilitation and the extraordinary work being done by Malika, an advocate who herself was once incarcerated, to help others cope and develop as they begin their re-entry into the world. It should be challenging for anyone to watch this film and not reexamine their own beliefs about what accountability and self-development are supposed to look like, and how the unintended consequences of criminal justice can be far-reaching and irreversible.

B+