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Tonight, with long applause for the screening of documentary "Long Night's Journey into Day", began the fourth annual United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) in the Cubberley Auditorium at Stanford University's Education School.

"I am very much moved by the power of this film," said Stephen T. Magagnini, a viewer and also a senior writer of local newspaper, after watching this first documentary of this year's UNAFF.

"The stories are shocking and the pictures and music is moving," said another viewer.

Long Night's Journey Into Day studies South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up by the post-apartheid, democratic government to consider amnesty for perpetrators of crimes committed under apartheid's reign through four emotional stories. The film begins with the story about Amy Biehl, a Fulbright scholar and also a Stanford graduate, who was murdered during a 1993 riot in South Africa, just before the nation's first democratic election. The filmmakers accompanied Biehl's parents as they attended the hearings in South Africa and testified in support of the Commission's goals, stating, to the surprise of many, that they would not oppose amnesty for the four young black South Africans who were convicted for her murder. The other three stories in the film similarly depict the complexity of finding truth of the lives deprived in apartheid and reaching forgiveness.

"It's tremendous work to choose these fore stories form 7000 similar case," said producer and director Frances Reid after the showing, "and it took us $700,000 and two and a half years to finish the film, during that time, we flew to South Africa seven times."

"Among the 31 documentaries that will be presented this time, Long Night's Journey Into Day is surely one of the most powerful." Jasmina Bojic, the founder and executive director of UNAFF, said. She also mentioned that this documentary has received Sundance Grand Jury Award. But Bolic soon added, "in fact, for us, it's not the most important thing to present films which has been awarded; for us, it's very important to present the topics."

Under the general theme "Dialogue Among Civilizations", this year's festival will particularly focus on three topics: agenda and women issues, war and peace and immigration issues in refugees, and environmental issues and health and disable people, which will be showed respectively on this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thirty-one documentaries made by international filmmakers will be presented, which from Afghanistan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Cuba, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Slovakia, Turkey, Vietnam, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zimbabwe.

Bolic is very pleased that the festival is growing tremendously and catch more and more attention in the past four years. "In 1998, we had only 42 films submitted; this year, we have 162," said Bolic, "And we are extremely proud to receive the national Earl W. Eames Award March this year."

Among this year's films, one about three women fleeting Taliban could be very eye-catching. The timely documentary, " Where Women are Banned", is talking about the tearing away of women's freedom and the human rights abuses inflicted on women by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Stories show clearly that for these women, there was no option but to flee and seek refuge in another country. The women in this film unveil a chilling and dark tale, after which nobody could question the validity of their plight. This film will be shown at 9:15 p.m. Friday in the Anenberg Auditorium at Stanford University's Cummings Art Building.

As Bolic said, "Today, more than ever, we have been painfully reminded of the world around us and our exposure to its unresolved problems. There's no easy answer for those questions, but the first step to any answer is learning. So we just want to bring outstanding filmmakers to help us to learn about the issues happening around the world." The festival will last four days, from tonight to this Sunday. For a full schedule of films and to purchase tickets, go to www.unaff.org/2001/