Extra

For 18 years, the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) has been searching the globe for exemplars of documentary cinema. In 1998, the Bay Area hosted only four film festivals—the UNAFF, the Mill Valley film Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival and Cinequest. Today there are 54 Bay Area screenfests but UNAFF remains unique in presenting 60 films over 11 days—"documentaries that will change your view of the world." Films about pollution, war, rebellion, restoration, redemption and renewal.

The theme of this year's UNAFF is "Running Out of Time," a reference to the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals—to eradicate poverty and hunger; promote social, economic and gender equality; improve healthcare; address racism; reduce violence; and protect the global environment. The festival's eclectic fare features films from Afghanistan, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Iraq, Libya, South Africa, Pakistan, Nepa, Nairobi and the US. (For the complete schedule, click here.) 

Despite the fact that the UN Charter was signed in 1945 at the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, most of UNAFF's 2015 screenings are happening in Palo Alto. 

The single evening of SF screenings is set for 7pm, October 19, at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center. The films to be show include Good Muslim Girls (the world debut of a seven-minute short exploring the world of two anonymous Iraqi women who challenge the prevailing dress codes at their university), The Sound Man (a 27-minute Ethiopia-Kenya-Somalia-Sudan-Rwanda-USA collaboration about a journalist who has spent 35 years recording the cacophony of riots and revolution across East Africa), and Finding Hillywood (a 58-minute tribute to Rwanda's pioneering film industry, which has managed to introduce movies to rural villages for the first time by deploying large, inflatable outdoor screens). Filmmaker Leah Warshawski will join a panel discussion after the screenings. 

UNAFF's 2015 collection showcases the work of 11 local filmmakers: Pratibha Parmar's Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth; Dave Iverson's Capturing Grace; David Collier's Free; Ken Schneider and Marcia Jarmel's Havana Curveball; Elizabeth Lo's Hotel 22; Jacob Kornbluth's Inequality for All; David Chai's A Knock on My Door; Chistopher Beaver's Racing to Zero: In Pursuit of Zero Waste; Abby Ginzberg's Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa; John Antonelli's Unfair Game: The Politics of Poaching; and Vanessa Warheit's animated, anti-gasoline short, Worse than Poop. 

At UNAFF's San Francisco press event, Christopher Beaver spoke about his experience producing a film about San Francisco's decision to become the nation's leading "zero-waste" city and is on track to cutting its pollution load by 40%. Beaver offered an example of the truth behind the power of a documentary to "change your view of the world." Back in January, Beaver learned of plans to construct a huge trash incinerator in Hilo, Hawaii. When he offered to fly to the islands and screen "Racing to Zero," local authorities were forced to hold a vote on whether he would be allowed to screen the film. The film was shown and, in a March vote, the incinerator plan was rejected. Beaver couldn't help smiling when he recalled the words of a local resident: "Your film literally changed Hawaiian history."