HIFF Announces the 2013 Conflict & Resolution Award and Film Slate

Plot for Peace, directed by Carlos Agullo and Mandy Jacobson, wins the 2013 Brizzolara Family Foundation Award. Honorable Mention goes to Jehane Noujaim‘s The Square.

The Hamptons International Film Festival is proud to announce the five feature films that will screen in the Conflict and Resolution program at HIFF 2013. These films tell stories set in Israel, Uganda, South Africa, Lebanon and Egypt, offering audiences unique—and, at times, hopeful—insights into issues that affect our global community.

“Fourteen years ago, HIFF created strong signature programs and partnerships to showcase films that engage viewers in world affairs,” said Anne Chaisson, Executive Director. “We are honored to partner with and grateful to… the Brizzolara Family Foundation for their continued support of our efforts to bring these unique and groundbreaking films the attention that they richly deserve.”

HIFF is proud to announce the recipient of the Brizzolara Family Foundation $5,000 cash award: Carlos Agullo and Mandy Jacobson’s Plot For Peace. Additionally, for the first time HIFF is awarding an Honorable Mention to Jehane Noujaim’s The Square, with a $2,000 cash award.

The Conflict and Resolution panel will follow the screening of Plot for Peace on October 13. Panelists include: Jean-Yves Ollivier, subject of Plot for Peace; Stephen Smith, writer and Duke University adjunct professor of African Studies and Cultural Anthropology; Michael Ledeen, political analyst; Coralie Charriol Paul, president of React to Film; Jehane Noujaim, director of The Square; and Sharon Waxman, Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of The Wrap, who will moderate.

Please note: tickets to the 10/13 screening will provide access to both film and panel.

Films of Conflict and Resolution

Ana Arabia

Ana Arabia

ANA ARABIA (Israel/France)

US Premiere
Director: Amos Gitai

Beautifully and masterfully shot in one 81-minute take, Ana Arabia follows Yael, a young journalist, as she meets a family of Jews and Arabs in a forgotten shanty enclave on the “border” between Jaffa and Bat Yam in Israel. Originally sent to interview Yussuf, the Muslim widower of a Jewish woman, Yael becomes engrossed in the man’s personal stories and the endangered, fragile balance of their physical space, orchard included. Renowned filmmaker Amos Gitai captures lyrical moments of connection and revelation while depicting a sublime metaphor of coexistence.
Tickets: Ana Arabia

God Loves Uganda

God Loves Uganda

GOD LOVES UGANDA (USA)

Director: Roger Ross Williams

Through vérité interviews and hidden camera footage, God Loves Uganda takes viewers inside the evangelical movement in Uganda, where American missionaries have been credited with both creating schools and hospitals, and promoting dangerous religious bigotry. The film, deftly directed by Academy Award® winning documentarian Roger Ross Williams (Music By Prudence), follows evangelical leaders in America and Uganda along with politicians and missionaries as they attempt the task of eliminating “sexual sin” and converting Ugandans to fundamentalist Christianity. Shocking, horrifying, touching, and enlightening, the film raises complex issues about religion, sexuality, and their uneasy intersection.
Tickets: God Loves Uganda

Plot For Peace

Plot For Peace

PLOT FOR PEACE (South Africa)

North American Premiere
Directors: Carlos Agulló and Mandy Jacobson

A true story of intrigue, Plot For Peace traces the behind-the-scenes diplomatic maneuverings to release Nelson Mandela from jail in South Africa in the 1980s. For the first time, heads of state, generals, diplomats, master spies and anti-apartheid fighters reveal how Africa’s front line states helped end apartheid. One man stood at the center of the whirlwind, a mysterious French businessman dubbed “Monsieur Jacques.” Jean-Ives Ollivier, a native of Algeria, gained the trust of the leaders and diplomats in the region as well as abroad, and director Carlos Agulló and Mandy Jacobson gives us exclusive insight to this fascinating, determined and enigmatic man.
Tickets: Plot for Peace

Sleepless Nights

Sleepless Nights

SLEEPLESS NIGHTS (Palestine/Lebanon)

East Coast Premiere
Director: Eliane Raheb

Eliane Raheb’s directorial debut is an incisive look at the psychological aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War. Assaad Shaftari was a high-ranking intelligence officer for an extreme right Christian faction during the war, and Maryam Saiidi is a mother still relentlessly seeking answers as to why her son, a student and Communist Party member, disappeared. Not only does Raheb bring their stories together, she instigates meetings between the two. We witness a soldier’s attempts at atonement and a mother’s rage, and learn that even after 30 years, Lebanon is a country not completely healed from its past.
Tickets: Sleepless Nights

The Square

The Square

THE SQUARE (Egypt/USA)

Director: Jehane Noujaim

“As long as there’s a camera, the revolution will continue,” says one of the young subjects of The Square. It does continue, and two years of struggle (right until the summer of 2013) are shown through the eyes of a group of protesters from all walks of society that first came together in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. The documentary follows these unlikely companions as they face violence, religious oppression, the assumptions of their elders, and the gap between their expectations and the reality of trying to change the country they will inherit.
Tickets: The Square

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