Barbados International Film Festival 2008

The Day After Peace charts the remarkable 10-year journey taken by award winning filmmaker Jeremy Gilley to establish a day of Peace on September 21st. During the course of his mission the camera follows Gilley as he galvanizes the countries of the world to recognize this as an official day of ceasefire and non-violence.

Poverty is not an accident. 1492 marks the birth of modern times when the conquistadors violently extracted gold and other natural resources. Since then, our economic system has been financed by the poor by forcing them to give up their land and access to natural resources, then through unfair trade, debt repayment and unjust taxes on labor and consumption. Semaine de la Critique, Cannes, France, May 2008 , Western Europe PREMIERE

Every year since his first visit to Kiev in 1992, London neurosurgeon Dr. Henry Marsh has returned to the Ukraine to perform pro bono operations, train surgeons and recycle desperately needed tools and implements. The situation in the cash-strapped country continues to be dire, and misdiagnosis is rife. It makes for heartbreaking work. For many of the patients he sees it’s too late to make a difference. For others, he must weigh the risks of brain surgery--with inferior equipment (a cordless handyman drill)--against the consequences of doing nothing. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, Marsh is haunted by an operation he performed on a young girl that went catastrophically wrong...

This film follows 25 year old William Francome's investigation into the arrest of Mumia Abu Jamal, famed death-row prisoner and award-winning Black Panther journalist. Francome, born on the day of Mumia's 1981 arrest, engages intellectuals, writers and musicians in an effort to expose the truth about justice in America for black activists in general and Mumia in particular. The energetic, poeticand deeply moving interviews of Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Mos Def,Snoop Dogg and Steve Earle raise questions about the repercussions and damage of racial injustice not only to those targeted, but to the American culture itself. And most pointedly the film asks, what does it signify that Americans are still determined to put to death potential leaders and powerful political voices of the African-American culture?

The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Namibia's Himba - two of Earth's oldest cattle cultures - are in the midst of upheaval. Emerging from a century of "white man conservation" that turned their land into game reserves and fueled resentment towards wildlife, they are now vying for a piece of the wildlife-tourism pie. Charting the collision of ancient ways and Western expectations, MILKING THE RHINO tells intimate, hopeful and heartbreaking stories of people facing deep cultural change.

A compelling documentary about a displaced people who survived a terrible physical and mental journey from many West African countries. They triumphed against the odds to produce generations of strong and healthy children. Children who studied in chattel houses by candles and oil lamps to pass examinations. They returned from foreign universities as doctors, lawyers, entered politics to lift their people up.

Trench Town, Jamaica, is the most famous ghetto in the World. Immortalised by Bob Marley it is now one of the most dangerous places on the planet. This film examines how the people survive in such extreme circumstances. It is a moving testimony to the silent majority of people who live there.

The act of triage is the ultimate humanitarian nightmare. Racing against time with limited resources, relief workers make split-second decisions: who gets treatment, who gets food, who lives, who dies., Leaving his young family behind in Toronto, Canada – where he's a university professor and doctor – Orbinski returns to Africa, revisiting the past and engaging with the present. He hopes that here, in the place where he witnessed humanity literally torn apart, he can rediscover the true heart of humanitarianism.. He refuses to turn away when confronting troubling memories or realizing disturbing truths and, in the most unlikely of places, he finds where bonds of solidarity are forged, and human spirits somehow remain unbroken.