HUMAN RIGHTS Traveling film fest returns for a fresh run By Ian Donnis

As someone who had appreciated seeing Human Rights Watch’s annual Traveling Film Festival in Boston, SueEllen Kroll was disappointed when she learned that the festival didn’t come to Providence. Taking up the challenge, Kroll contacted the human rights organization last year and succeeded in bringing the collection of films to the Cable Car Cinema and Columbus Theatre. As a result, cineastes with a social conscience were able to see such works as War Photographer, a documentary about James Nachtwey, which thoughtfully explored the tension between covering suffering in faraway places and exploiting it.

This year’s version of HRW’s Traveling Film Festival, which runs from November 5-12 at the Cable Car and Columbus, promises to offer similar food for thought. The films to be screened include Welcome to Hadassah Hospital, an examination of the people who treat those affected by, and sometimes involved in, suicide attacks in Israel; Scenes From an Endless War, billed as a humorous, experimental look at militarism, globalization, and "the war against terrorism"; and Smoke Screens, a documentary about second-hand smoke in Providence restaurants. Other selections take on women’s rights in Palestine, violence in Colombia, and the aftermath of apartheid in South Africa, and dictatorship in Chile. Admission for each film is $4, and a complete schedule can be found at www.dutchmoney.com/hrwprovff/.

Kroll, who works part-time at Preserve Rhode Island and serves as program coordinator for Action Speaks 2003 at AS220, says she was motivated to bring the HRW festival to Providence by the general lack of understanding about the consequences of US foreign policy. Despite the somewhat cobbled-together effort — covering the balance of film fees for the fest, after a passel of small business sponsors came on board, depended on door receipts — "It went really well last year," she says. "Some shows came close to selling out." Those with less attendance, such as one in which Indonesian émigrés were gratified to see a film about their homeland, also offered a certain satisfaction. And even for an activist like Kroll, some of the screenings — such as one in which a Rwandan man, who used to fly a decoy plane for a prominent leader targeted for assassination, turned up in the audience — offered an eye-opening reminder of the challenges facing refugees.

This time around, Baha Sadr, an Iranian native who works at the International Institute in Providence, will offer narration and live folk music for the local premiere of Home Is Calling . . ., his film about revisiting the old country, at the Columbus on Thursday, November 6. Also, Seth Tobocman, a Jewish-American artist who has used comic books to detail the plight of Israelis and Palestinians, is slated to talk after the November 9 screening at the Cable Car of Welcome to Hadassah Hospital.