Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Amnesty president unfurls latest film festival

Community Campus to be location for human rights event


By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer

Last year, the Wood River High School began requiring its seniors to do a specialized project in order to graduate. The students have taken on everything from sushi making to car repair. The class of 2007 is showing even greater ingenuity by hosting fundraisers that combine education and community service.

Jack Van Paepeghem of Hailey will present the Sun Valley Human Rights Film Festival. The festival, sponsored by Amnesty International, of which Van Paepeghem is a member, Sotheby's, Hailey Coffee Co. and Oxfam, will feature the film "Black Gold."

Van Paepeghem came up with the idea of the Human Rights Film Festival last year. As a member of the Amnesty International Club at the Wood River High School he's been involved in community events such as a luminary lighting held to honor the first 1,000 service people who died in Iraq.

"I've been in the club all four years and president for the past two," he said. "For the project Mary Gervase is my mentor and Joel Zellers is my instructor."

Zellers, a teacher at Wood River High School is the Amnesty International club advisor, and Gervase is the co-founder of the Sun Valley Spiritual Film Festival held each fall.

A speaker at the film festival, Wolf Riehle, will discuss a dramatic incident he witnessed last summer while trekking in Tibet.

Made by English documentary filmmakers Nick and Marc Francis, "Black Gold," which has been screened at important film festivals around the globe, takes a look at the international coffee business from African farms to suburban malls and the ubiquitous Starbucks.

Coffee is the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil, despite the fact that coffee farmers are paid poverty wages. Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. The movie follows Tadesse Meskela on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy.

The film also examines the World Trade Organization, which it claims prevents the world's poorer countries from developing export trade, leaving them dependent on emergency relief.

Other films screened will include the 27-minute film "In Whose Interest" about post-World War II U.S. foreign policy and the nine-minute film "The Price of Youth," which is about the trafficking of Nepalese women to work as prostitutes in India.

To attend:

What: Sun Valley Human Rights Film Festival.

When: 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8.

Where: Community Campus, Hailey.

Cost: $5 entry, raffle prizes.




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