Amnesty film fest is here for the first time

Amnesty International Film Festival

Today through April 4

$6 admission, $3 for… Amnesty International Film Festival

Today through April 4

$6 admission, $3 for students

For times and locations, see www.amnestyusa.org/filmfest

Amnesty International is an organization known for its work to ensure that all people across the globe have their rights, as humans, protected.

As part of their human rights campaign, Amnesty International sponsors a film festival that screens annually in Los Angeles, Seattle and Salt Lake City. For the first time, the festival comes to Pittsburgh this year in conjunction with Amnesty International USA’s annual general meeting, being held this year Downtown at the William Penn hotel.

The Amnesty International Film Festival is committed to showcasing the best in new documentary and feature filmmaking related to human rights issues. Starting Friday, March 28, and running every day through April 4, the festival will feature 13 new films from around the world.

The festival opens with a screening of “State of Denial” from South Africa, a film dealing with struggles of South African citizens to cope with the AIDS epidemic, and a neglectful government. A discussion of the AIDS crisis will follow the screening.

A highlight of the festival promises to be “Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin,” a documentary chronicling the life of one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. Not only did Bayard Rustin work closely with Martin Luther King Jr., but the follower of Gandhi was also the organizer of one of the largest non-violent protests in American history. As an openly homosexual man, he was also one of the early champions of gay rights.

“Brother Outsider” will be shown Wednesday, April 2 at 7 p.m. in 120 David Lawrence Hall. Following the screening, a discussion will be held about the film with Bennett Singer, the film’s producer and director, and Ben Jealous, the director of Amnesty International’s U.S. Domestic Human Rights Program, among others.

The festival concludes Friday, April 4 with a showing of “The Execution of Wanda Jean” at 5:30 p.m. in the McConomy Auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University.

Unless otherwise noted, all the films are being screened at the Melwood Screening Room in North Oakland and begin at 8 p.m. General admission is $6, and $3 for students. For more information, go to www.amnestyusa.org/filmfest.