Let’s watch some films from around the world. San Francisco has no shortage of film festivals to enjoy:

It’s the 10th United Nations Film Festival with pre-festival screenings starting today and the festival running thru October 28th. If you are unfamiliar with this festival, read an excerpt from their website

UNAFF celebrates the power of films dealing with human rights,environmental survival, women’s issues, protection of refugees, homelessness,racism, disease control, universal education, war and peace. Documentaries oftenelicit a very personal, emotional response that encourages dialogue and action humanizing global and local problems. To further this goal, UNAFF hosts academics and filmmakers from around the world to discuss the topics in thefilms with the audience, groups and individuals who are often separated by geography, ethnicity and economic constraints.
Over three hundred sixty submissions from all over the world have been carefully reviewed for the tenth annual UNAFF. The jury has selected 32 films to be presented at this year’s festival. The documentaries selected showcase topics from Afghanistan, Bolivia,Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Cuba, France, Haiti, Kenya, Kosovo, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Iran, Israel, Italy, Lesotho, Macedonia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Sudan, Uganda, the UK, Ukraine, the US, Vietnam and Zambia.

I’m looking forward to see Gypsy Caravan!

Also starting this week is the 11th annual Arab Film Festival
Running until October 28th, you’ll have a chance to see shorts and features that in the words of the festival:

The mission of the Arab Film Festival (AFF) is to enhance public understanding of Arab culture and to provide alternative representations of Arabs that contradict the stereotypical images frequently encountered in the American mass
media. The Arab Film Festival screens films from and about the Arab World that provide realistic perspectives on Arab people, culture, art, history and politics.

There’s no shortage of interesting activities to do here in San Francisco… just not enough time for them all!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 3:26 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.