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[UNAFF]

1st UNAFF Traveling Film Festival Phnom Penh

Friday July 18 at 7pm:
* Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa
* On A Tightrope
(Orphans in western China learning the traditional Uyghur art of tightrope walking)

Saturday July 19 at 7pm:
* Sergio Vieira de Mello: En Route to Baghdad
* Post-film discussion

Films screen both nights at
Meta House
Street 264, #6, near St 19
(South of Wat Botum Pagoda)
www.meta-house.com/contact.php

Details:

Meta-House is excited to welcome the first UNAFF Traveling Film Festival Phnom Penh. Established 11 years ago at Stanford University, United Nations Association Film Festival screens social justice documentaries related to human rights, war, poverty, and the environment. We have selected three outstanding films for Meta House: one about e-waste, another about the Muslim minority in China, and a third about the life of United Nations official Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was Kofi Annan's special envoy to Iraq and was also part of the repatriation in Cambodia. A representative from the festival will be here to facilitate post-film discussions. For more information, check out unaff.org.


Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa, 23 minutes, Jim Puckett (precedes On a Tightrope)

If you have ever wondered what happens to a computer when you get rid of it, this is the film for you. It traces the computers from North America and Europe to West Africa, one of many regions that is on the receiving end of an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete discarded computers. If you are concerned about what could happen to Cambodia, please come and join us.

On a Tightrope, 60 minutes, Petr Lom

This poignant documentary about the Uyghur, Muslim minority in western China was the first film successfully made about the region. It screened at the Sundance Film Festival and tells the story of Uyghur children living at an orphanage who aspire to be daredevil tightrope walkers. Though their struggles and triumphs, we gain rare access to life as a minority in China, and to the aspirations of young people even in the most deprived environments.


Sergio Vieira de Mello: En Route to Baghdad, 56 minutes, Simone Duarte, Ane Soanes, Kristine Candeso

This film tells the story of one person's effort to make a difference as part of the United Nations, and is as much a story about the UN as it is about the man, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Anyone who was in Cambodia during UNTAC knows of Sergio, who oversaw the repatriation and later became Kofi Annan's special envoy to Iraq. This film traces his life, including his time in Mozambique, Cambodia and East Timor, as a metaphor for the evolving role of the United Nations. If you contemplate what role the UN should play, and whether one person can make a difference, this film is worth seeing.[/url]