Thus reads the opening epigraph in Lynn Hershman Leeson's film Strange Culture that opens the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival this Friday, June 15th in New York. It's a lovely sentiment for our era of unremitting pessimism. When one realizes that Hope is not only the belief that events can turn out for the best, but a 45-year old woman who died prematurely of natural causes in her sleep, chills travel up and down one's spine.

The film chronicles Steve...