From Underground Desert Raves To Queer Gangs, HRAFF Leads The #Resistance

There's an impossible choice at the heart of Human Rights Arts & Film Festival (HRAFF) highlight Raving Iran. Tehran-based DJs Blade & Beard (Anoosh and Arash) are passionate about their love of Persian house music, but it's a forbidden love persecuted by the moral police that could see them imprisoned or worse.

Directed by Sue Meures, it contains iPhone footage of their wild underground parties. Pretty soon Anoosh and Arash's growing reputation lands the duo a gig at Zurich's Lethargy Techno festival. That's where the heart-breaking decision comes in.

"They're faced with the option of either returning home, living their lives and playing in secret, or they can live in Europe and pursue their creative freedoms but at the expense of their country, family, friends, relationships, everything that they've ever known," says HRAFF Program Director Lauren Valmadre. "The decision they make is going to change their future forever and it's a really exciting, thrilling film."

Now in its tenth year, resistance and resilience are at the heart of HRAFF's fascinating program, as are the very human responses of compassion and kindness. "We're seeing extraordinary individuals that represent all of these fantastic qualities in our films and hopefully there's something we can learn from and engage with in that," Valmadre adds.

The Sydney stretch of HRAFF opens with director Belinda Mason's Wagga Wagga-set doco Constance On The Edge. An Acholi woman from South Sudan, Constance Okot fled civil war with her children, losing almost everything in the process. Settling in regional Australia wasn't an easy transition, though her indomitable spirit in the face of frightening flashbacks and overwhelming linguistic and cultural differences is something to behold.

"Constance is an incredibly remarkable, resilient woman who has experienced unimaginable horror in her time and now faces new challenges in Wagga," Valmadre says. "She becomes a leader, not only to her family but also to her community."

Police brutality has been a recurring theme over the years at HRAFF, so Valmadre says it's refreshing to see that, though Okot's family do get into a bit of bother with the local constabulary, both parties sit down together to figure it out. 

"It's a really lovely example where police and the community could work together to try and better understand each other's situation," Valmadre notes. "Not just fearing the other, but trying to understand in a much more human way I suppose."

Last year's opening night film Chasing Asylum, directed by Eva Orner, exposed the terrible conditions of refugees held in detention centres on Manus and Nauru. Valmadre argues Constance On The Edge offers a better solution. "Constance shows there is absolute strength in diversity and that refugees can invigorate these communities. These people didn't want to leave their home. They were forced to. Then when they try and resettle in Australia they are faced with more inhumane treatment and it's absolutely devastating. It's really important these voices are heard in our festival. It's only a positive thing to be a more inclusive and dynamic society."

Love and understanding play a big role in Australian shorts package highlight Love Is Love, directed by Logan Mucha and Daniel Von Czarnecki. It tackles the notion of 'normality', celebrating LGBTQI families. "Family are the people who love and support you," Valmadre says, her voice wavering. "It's just such a loving, gentle film and I get so emotional thinking about it. In a time in Australia where we still don't have marriage equality, it's really important people see it."

Valmadre also recommends American doco Check It, by Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer. A rousing call-to-arms, it follows a group of gay and trans African-American young adults who, in the face of unrelenting violence on the streets of Washington DC, decided to fight back, forming their own gang.

"It's very vivacious and energetic," she says. "The protagonists Tray, Day Day and Skittles have formed a family of sorts when no one else is there to help or support them. They stand strong now, together, as a means of protection and survival."

While it might sound dark, as with all of the HRAFF line-up, there's a beacon of hope at its heart. "They have so much potential and so much energy, but it seemed that no one believed in them, except for a community leader called Mo who helps them channel their energies and their passion for fashion into something really productive, creative and possibly even a career," Valmadre says. "Their future doesn't have to be violence. It can be whatever they want it to be."