THE APOLOGY RECEIVES US PREMIERE AT THE 2017 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL The Human Rights Watch Film Festival will be presented June 9-18, 2017 with 21 topical and provocative feature documentaries and panel discussions that showcase courageous resilience in challenging times. Now in its 28th edition, the festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center. The festival is particularly pleased to present the US premiere of Canadian filmmaker Tiffany Hsiung’s The Apology, which profiles three elderly "comfort women” who continue to demand accountability for their sexual exploitation by the Japanese army during World War II.    The Apology Tiffany Hsiung, 2016, 104 min., Bisaya, Mandarin, English, Japanese, Korean Grandma Gil in South Korea, Grandma Cao in China, and Grandma Adela in the Philippines were amongst thousands of girls and young women who were sexually exploited by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, many through kidnapping, coercion and sexual slavery. Some 70 years after their imprisonment, and after decades living in silence and shame about their past, the wounds are still fresh for these three former, now elderly, “comfort women.” Despite multiple formal apologies from the Japanese government issued since the early 1990s, there has been little justice; the courageous resolve of these women moves them to fight and seize their last chance to share first-hand accounts of the truth with their families and the world to ensure this horrific chapter of history is neither repeated nor forgotten. US Premiere Saturday, June 10, 7:00 pm - IFC Center (Q&A with director Tiffany Hsiung and Sarah Taylor, Advocate, Women's Rights division, HRW) Sunday, June 11, 8:30 pm - Film Society of Lincoln Center (Q&A with director Tiffany Hsiung and Sarah Taylor, Advocate, Women's Rights division, HRW)