5th International Film Festival “Human Rights in Film” organised by Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights took place in Warsaw between December 9th and 17th, 2005. This year’s festival program, just as in previous years, consisted of documentary films and reportages. The main themes were Bielarus, Ukraine, Russia; human rights defenders; Sub-saharan Africa; the right to fair trial; Bosnia: 10 years after Srebrenica; Iraq; Kurds; the right to work and genocide.

This year Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights awarded the Polish documentary filmmaker Maciej Drygas for exceptional achievements in portraying human rights in film. His documentary art is a triumph in the search for truth with a veritable moral passion and profound sensitivity along with rare technical perfection. The film “Hear My Cry,” about Ryszard Siwiec’s self-immolation, has been awarded the Felix Prize. In “The State of Weightlessness,” Drygas paints the pieces of the Soviet shattered dream to conquer space, in “The Voice of Hope” he pays homage to the Radio Free Europe’s Polish Service, and in his most recent “A Day in the People’s Republic of Poland” he presents a grotesque and grim picture of everyday life in the totalitarian state. In all of his films, Drygas is an emotional, albeit not effusive defender of the individual lost against the powers that threaten him, especially that of totalitarian rule.

For the first time this year The Audience Award was presented. The audience decided to award the film “Children from Leningradski” by Andrzej Celinski and Hanna Polak.

The festival was accompanied by screening of documentaries from Andrzej Wajda’s School, screening of “A breath of Pina Bausch” by Huseyin Karebey and Nick Danziger Photography Exhibition: “Caught in the Crossfire”.

http://www.hfhrpol.waw.pl/festival2005/en/index.php