The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights is organizing its second Travelling Festival devoted to the presentation of documentary films on the subject of human rights. From 31.03 until 02.04 the Festival was held in Bialystok, the largest city of NE Poland. (05-APR-04)
The Travelling Festival “Human Rights in Film” has been operating since 2003. Local NGOs, universities and community centres all around Poland cooperate with HFHR to organize their own Festivals, compiling the programmes from the list of films shown at Warsaw´s annual International Film Festival “Human Rights in Film” and organizing additional supporting events. There were 6 local Festivals in 2003 (organised in Lublin, Torun, Czestochowa, Kielce, Bialystok and Pila) and another 12 are scheduled for 2004.
The Festival is intended to be an attractive form of public education about human rights and their violations. Admission to all showings and supporting events is free – the whole Festival is organised as a non-for-profit project. The core programme always consists of documentaries and reportage, all of them being quality productions of superior artistic value.
The Festival in Bialystok is organised around 5 leading motives: human rights in court, security service, the Chechen Republic, violation of the rights of the child and victims of tradition. In addition, it features panel discussions (e.g. on the benefit of counsel), meetings with film directors and presentation of NGOs working in the area of human rights.
Apart from the general public, the Festival was be open to persons serving a term of imprisonment in the local prison.
