FRIDAY,  November 9, 6:00 PM
Syria: The Assads’ Twilight / France (2010)
Directors: Vincent De Cointet & Christophe Ayad
Running time: 52 minutes
Discussion with Suzan Boulad, activist and blogger from Mideast Youth; Tareq Samman, member of Building the Syrian State movement; and Professor Fred Lawson, Lynn T. White, Jr. Professor of Government at Mills College. Reception will follow.

A lively documentary history of Syria’s Assad regime, tracing its origin and influence, even as it clings to power in the face of the Arab Spring.

 – SATURDAY,  November 10, 4:45 PM
The Mexican Suitcase / Mexico, Spain (2011)
Director: Trisha Ziff
Running time: 90 minutes
Screening includes Q&A with Alex Donado, participant in the film

The story of the recovery of the 4,500 negative taken by photographers Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and David Seymour during the Spanish Civil War.  The film follow the journey of these negatives to Mexico – recovered seventy years later.  The Mexican Suitcase brings together three narratives: the suitcase, the exile story, and looks at how people in Spain today address their own past.

 

-SATURDAY,  November 10, 7:00 PM
Granito: How to Nail a Dictator / USA, Guatemala, Spain (2011)
Directors: Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís and Peter Kinoy
Running time: 90 minutes
Question & Answer session will follow the film, led by Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

As a young filmmaker in 1982, director Pamela Yates went to Guatemala to make a documentary about a hidden war.  In 2004 lawyers prosecuting an international genocide case asked Yates to comb through that historic film and its outtakes for possible evidence to be used against the same dictator, Ríos Montt, who spoke with her on camera three decades before.  Suddenly the old footage took on a second life.

The festival is co-sponsored by The Puffin Foundation, The Center for Constitutional Rights, San Francisco Veterans for Peace and Icarus Films.  With the support of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) and Courage to Resist.