DITSHWANELO HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL 2006

23-30 MARCH 2006 GRAND PALM STARDUST CINEMA

DITSHWANELO – The Botswana Centre for Human Rights is pleased to announce its 6th Annual Human Rights Film Festival. This year it will be held from 23-30 March 2006, one week before the beginning of the Maitisong Festival. All the films will be screened at The Grand Palm Hotel, Stardust Cinema.

The film festival is part of our awareness-raising and education about human rights. Our mission includes the promotion of human rights aimed at developing a human rights culture in Botswana . We are also committed to working towards an educated, informed, moral and tolerant Nation by 2016. DITSHWANELO believes that:

“human rights education, training and public information are essential for the promotion and achievement of stable and harmonious relations among the communities and for fostering mutual understanding, tolerance and peace”

Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action for the United Nation Decade for Human Rights Education.

This is the 6 th Human Rights Film Festival hosted by DITSHWANELO. The Festival will be officially opened by Honourable Minister Pheto, Minister of Labour and Home Affairs on Thursday 23 March 2006 at 7.00 p.m. We are privileged to host the Director of one of the films, Mr Pululu Makela (A Shadow of Hope). He shall make a brief presentation before the film and engage in a question and answer session after the screening.

The themes covered in the films include indigenous peoples in Southern Africa (The Return of Sara Baartman to South Africa in 2002 after she had been taken to England and France and exhibited as a freak in the 1800s); Violence Against Women (in Pakistan and South Africa); Genocide in Africa (the genocide of the Herero by the Germans; the role of the Church in the Genocide in Rwanda); War and its effects (the life of a refugee in present-day South Africa; and bombings in Iraq and Southern Lebanon); the Rivonia Trial of Nelson Mandela; a film about youth culture and HIV/AIDS and films about resistance through music in Angola and Mozambique.

Tickets cost P25 per day and are on sale at Maitisong and Riverwalk (near the Information Office). Tickets will also be on sale at the Stardust Cinema just before the screening of films. The proceeds of the ticket sales will go towards the work of DITSHWANELO. Please contact us for information about the films.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors. We have received donations in cash and kind from the following: The Grand Palm Hotel Casino Resort, Red Stone Film and Television, The Swedish Embassy, The British High Commission, The US Embassy, Riverwalk Mall, Shell Oil Botswana , British Airways, UB Basarwa Research Programme, Maitisong, Maru a Pula School , Friends of DITSHWANELO and donations from individuals.

20 March 2006

Gaborone