The Helsinki Foundation is making efforts to organize in Warsaw the second International Film Festival “Human Rights in Film”. On 29 June HFHR´s representative Darek Kowalski returned from New York, where he had watched about 50 films presented at various festivals by Human Rights Watch. (2 July 2002)
In December the HFHR is planning to organize the second edition of the ’”Human Rights in Film” international festival. The first edition of the festival was held on 14-16 December 2001. This year, however, the organizers would like to give the venture additional elements: two touring festivals that should take place on the territory of Poland as well as the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Moldova.
The goal of the organizers is to show the audience most interesting feature films and documentaries touching upon human rights issues. On 29 July HFHR’s representative Darek Kowalski returned from New York, where he had tried to get idea of what kind of films does the Human Rights Watch organization show at their festivals. “I have seen about 50 films there; four of them appealed to me very much. I would love to show these movies during our festivals”, said Darek Kowalski after his arrival in Warsaw.
Last year the “Human Rights in Film” festival in Warsaw was attended by both Polish people and foreigners. They could see almost 20 films presented on the premises of the Ujazdowski Castle, in the centre of the city. Most of the foreign viewers were citizens of the CIS countries who were at the same time participants of a seminar conducted by the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
