Out of Focus

Human Rights Film Festival Promo

The University of San Francisco is hosting its 9th annual Human Rights Film Festival. The festival is coordinated by an amazing Latin Americana and Media studies professor Susana Kaiser. The festival is this weekend- March 31, April 1, and April 2 and all the films are shown for free. I have been wanting to submit a film to this festival my whole undergrad career and this year I finally got to do it. When I went abroad last spring to Rome Italy I knew I wanted to use my schools film program to make a film about immigrants in Italy. The combination of my International Film-making class and my Human Rights in Rome class created the perfect structure to make this documentary.

My 15min short documentary, Nice Country, showcases the beautiful sites of Rome, but it also shows that among the ancient Roman ruins also lies many struggles that plague immigrants and refugees in Italy. Current Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has an extreme anti-immigration policy and this film displays the stigma immigrants and refugees feel from Italian citizens and the hardships they face in order to survive. Star, an Afghan refugee was forced to flee Afghanistan because of death threats he received from the Taliban. He is forced to sleep outside in a train station while he works effortlessly to obtain a visa. Nella, a Romanian immigrant, chooses to leave her country in search of better educational opportunities in Italy. Her initial plan was to finish school and move back to Romania, but the expensive Italian lifestyle forced her to quit school and work full time to support herself. The strength in both characters is inspiring and it compels viewers to reflect on the basic luxury of citizenship and of the option to live somewhere where you feel at home with your loved ones.

Attached is a promo video I made for the festival that showcases mine and 2 other student films, Enjoy!

To get more information about the festival and to see what films are playing go to our website: http://www.usfca.edu/artsci/hrff/

                                                                                             Robinson, Elle