The Human Rights Human Wrongs festival will take place from 3 to 7 February. All the movies fit one of four themes:
· Migration and human wrongs
· Worlds without witnesses
· Impunity vs. justice
· Big business – beyond the law?
The official opening is scheduled at 3 February 16.30-18.30.
The festival’s main guest is Maina Kiai, one of Kenya’s leading human rights lawyers.
According to the initiators, the festival’s films range from some of the most cinematically outstanding films that capture the world’s issues with a filmic quality equal to anything in the cinemas, to short films encompassing new approaches to reporting issues including stunningly beautiful shots, and more traditional television reports that have had particular effect in telling the stories that need to be told.
“We do not have the ambition of being a film festival that only screens only the newest and most heralded films around, but rather to show amazing, dramatic and wonderful films that can really tell us about human rights issues, and that stimulate debate”, – declares the Human Rights Human Wrongs website.
A possibility of organizing addition “minifestivals” by means of self-initiated screening some of the movies is also provided.
Check the film schedule here! Some examples below.
Burma VJ
Denmark 2009
90min
by Anders Østergaard
Film website
Film website Norway
Screening time:
1400
Wednesday 3rd Feb
The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching” (from the movie description on the festival website).
Burma VJ was called “this year’s most important film?” by the influential Norwegian daily Dagbladet, “daring, dramatic, painful – but above all an uplifting film… a monstrously strong film! This happened – and is happening – and incidentally from Oslo, via the TV-station Democractic Voice of Burma” (VG).
The film is followed by discussion “Burma: After the evidence – what next?”.
the Chechen Republic’s Missing Women
UK, 2009
22mins
BBC film Our World
by Nick Sturdee
Screening time:
1200 Friday 5th Feb
The war in the Chechen Republic is officially over, but the after-effects are still very much evident, especially for women. Men in uniform are everywhere, but no one is protecting the young women who are abducted and forced in to marriage, who simply disappear, and who are murdered and dumped by the road side. Natalia Estimerova was one of the few who the affected families trusted and who spoke out. She was murdered in July 09, three weeks after appearing in this film.
The Problem – Testimony of the Saharawi People
Spain, 2010
80min
Jordi Ferrer and Pablo Vidal
Film website
Screening time:
2000 Friday 5th Feb
The occupied territories of Western Sahara – separated from the rest of Africa by a nearly 3000km wall – is where the Saharawi people live under constant threat, unable to utter the names ‘Western Sahara, Polisario Front, or referendum’ so the situation is known as ‘The Problem’. This is the last colony in Africa – the film is from the places Morocco does not want the world to see. It reflects nearly five years of collecting evidence and testimonies from the victims of rape, torture and imprisonment.
The UN has recognised the rights of the people to have a referendum, but the priorities of the international community seem to be far away form this corner of the world. Will they pay attention only if the inhabitants commit acts of terrorism?
