BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM


‘33 Yaoum’ (33 Days) Lebanon/Qatar
Produced by Mai Masri, Mohammad Belhaj and Jean Chamoun  

Filmed during the massive Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, 33 Days follows the real-life stories of four people: A theatre director working with children who take shelter in a theatre after their homes are destroyed, a frontline journalist struggling to cover the war from a television station under fire, an aid worker coordinating emergency relief efforts for thousands of displaced people, and a news-desk director trying to cope not only with the war but with her new-born baby.


‘Ggeutnaji Anhmeun Jeon Jaeng’ (63 Years On) Republic of Korea
Produced by Kim Dong-won and Lee SeungGu

63 Years On focuses on Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.  During the war, an estimated 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia were abducted from their homes against their will or were recruited with offers of work in military factories and subsequently forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military.  The majority of these women came from Korea, and this film chronicles the survivors' persistent efforts to be recognised as WWII victims by Japan and international forums. 63 Years On tells the stories of five women - a Korean, a Chinese, two Filipinas and one Dutch -who reveal their experiences as survivors, including one elderly Korean woman, Kim Hak-sun, who by speaking of her ordeal on television, created an international groundswell to lobby the Japanese government for an official apology.


‘Tinar’ Islamic Republic of Iran
Produced by Mahdi Moniri

A child in the southern forests of Babol has to protect his flock without any help.  Desperately lonely, he endures harsh winters and physical hardships, while dreaming of a different future.


‘Kantata Takwa’ Indonesia
Produced by Setiawan Djody, Erros Djarot and Gotot Prakosa

Originally filmed in 1991 but completed only in 2008, this is a poetic film in which a number of Indonesian artists bear witness to events in the repressive Suharto New Order period. The film gives voice to the testimonies of the various performers who joined together in the group Kantata Takwa. Their big concert, initially held in the Senayan Stadium in Jakarta in April 1991 and banned after its second performance (in Surabaya), was a symbol of opposition to the government in that period, openly expressed at these concerts, through poetry and song.  After being held up for 18 years due to varying difficulties, including the economic crisis in Indonesia and its aftermath, the film was at last completed.


‘Rain of the Children’ New Zealand
Produced by Vincent Ward, Marg Slater and Tainui Stephens, Co-Produced by Kçro Nancy Tait and Catherine Fitzgerald

Vincent Ward weaves drama with documentary to unravel the extraordinary story of Puhi, the Tuhoe (Iwi tribal group, North Island, New Zealand) woman he filmed in 1978 for his early film In Spring One Plants Alone. In this new cinema feature he sets out to unravel the mystery that has haunted him for 30 years: Who was Puhi?