Posts Tagged ‘FIFDH’

Winners of the 2022 Geneva international film festival

March 16, 2022
Women's rights, ecology and torture scoop top FIFDH 2022 awards

Over ten days, the 20th International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights brought together artists, activists, journalists, and the public in Geneva for film and debate. After two pandemic-enforced digital editions, this year was also a chance for the festival to finally get back to some form of normality by meeting in person and welcoming back live audiences. The Grand Prize for Fiction was awarded to two films – Freda, by Haitian director Gessica Généus, and Vera Dreams of the Sea by Kosovan filmmaker Kaltrina Krasniqi.

Freda” Devastated by earthquakes, Haiti is a country buried under corruption, violence and colonial legacy. Freda lives with her mother and sister in Port-au-Prince and, at the age of 20, she refuses to give up and wants to believe in the future. But how can she stay when everything compels her to leave? Spotted in 2017 with The Sun Will Rise, Gessica Généus directs her debut feature film, shot in Creole and carried by extraordinary actresses. She tells the story of her country with love, sings its courage and celebrates the deep joy that persists despite the heartbreaking reality.

Vera Dreams of the Seatells the tale of a widow, forced to take on a ruthless rural patriarchy to claim an inheritance, for her, and her daughter and granddaughter. The film also won the Festival’s Youth Prize, an award Krasniqi told Euronews has particular significance. “You know, when you make a movie you think about audiences, of course, and then you think that people of a certain generation who resonate with issues but then getting a prize from youth meant quite a lot to me because that means the story resonates with other generations as well.”

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/02/15/fifdh-dedicates-its-20th-edition-to-pham-doan-trang-and-ida-leblanc/

White Torture directed by Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi won the festival’s Grand Reportages category. It focuses on psychological torture and its destructive effect on victims. Mohammadi is currently imprisoned in Iran. Her friend, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, is the film’s ambassador. Sitting down with Euronews, she said: “In my opinion, this film represents the state’s repression of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners in Iran. But at the same time, it represents resistance, because the repression continues, but the resistance of the people also continues.

https://fifdh.org/en/2022/film/157-freda

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/03/15/women-s-rights-ecology-and-torture-scoop-top-fifdh-2022-awards

see also: https://medyanews.net/two-awards-for-the-movie-about-yazidi-genocide-angels-of-sinjar-at-the-20th-genevas-international-film-festival/

FIFDH dedicates its 20th edition to Pham Doan Trang and Ida Leblanc

February 15, 2022

The Geneva Human Rights Film Festival of 2020 (FIFDH – The Festival) dedicates its 20th edition to human rights defenders Pham Doan Trang and Ida Leblanc

Journalist and blogger Pham Doan Trang has been in detention since October 2020 and was recently sentenced to 9 years in prison for “propaganda against the state”. The 43-year-old was accused by the Hanoi regime of “defaming the Vietnamese government and inventing fake news“. In one of the world’s most repressive countries towards civil society, where freedom of the press is non-existent, Pham Doan Trang – RSF 2019 Prize – has founded numerous independent media and publishing houses – including Nha Xuat Ban Tu Do or Law Magazine – and the NGO Green Trees, making her the target of a government that does not tolerate dissent. Despite intimidation, torture and repeated arrests, Pham Doan Trang is fighting to end systematic abuse of both human rights and freedom of the press in Vietnam. She won several awards including recently the Martin Ennals Award 2022. See: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/fe8bf320-1d78-11e8-aacf-35c4dd34b7ba

Trinidad and Tobago is home to more than 10,000 domestic workers, most of them without any social protection. Ida Leblanc fights daily for them to obtain rights similar to those of all workers, notably as General Secretary of the National Union of Domestic Employees (NUDE), which she founded. In 2011, the International Labour Organisation adopted the Convention on Domestic Workers thanks to Ida Leblanc’s active campaigning. Though the government of Trinidad and Tobago has never implemented the Convention, tireless Ida Leblanc remains undeterred.

She successfully campaigned for the decriminalisation of the Minimum Wage Act, giving unions the right to hear cases of non-compliance with the Act in the Labour Court. She has spearheaded many victories on behalf of low-income workers in cases of unfair dismissal, lay-offs and breaches of the Maternity Protection and Minimum Wage Acts.

She is the winner of this year’s Martine Anstett 2022 Prize, [see https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/696be661-30ac-4c6a-84d1-989aab323b65]

https://fifdh.org/en/the-festival/news/article/the-fifdh-dedicates-its-20th-edition-to-pham-doan-trang-and-ida-leblanc

For this year’s programme see: https://genevasolutions.news/peace-humanitarian/geneva-s-human-rights-film-festival-poised-for-emotional-return-to-the-big-screen
 

Isabelle Gattiker to leave Geneva Human Rights Film Festival

January 27, 2022
©Miguel Bueno / FIFDH

The soon coming 20th edition of the FIFDH will be the last one of General and Artistic Director, Isabelle Gattiker. After eight years at the head of the Festival she will leave her position at the end of April, to take up her new responsibilities as General Director of the Cantonal Office for Culture and Sport (OCCS) on 1 May 2022.
 

« I am leaving to take up an exciting professional challenge, but these years with the FIFDH will always hold a special place in my heart. It is an honour to have contributed to such an important Festival, and I did so with tremendous enthusiasm and passion. The Festival is in good hands, and I would like to thank the Board, my co-directors, our partners and the outstanding teams who have accompanied me every day along the way and made this adventure possible. The future of this unique event in the world can only be exceptional.» – Isabelle Gattiker


Isabelle Gattiker joined the FIFDH in 2013 as deputy director before taking over as director in 2015. Under her leadership, the Festival has grown considerably and developed a vast network of 170 partners in Switzerland and abroad. In eight years, the FIFDH has seen its attendance double; it has organised events in 85 venues in the Geneva region and has toured the world in 60 countries.


Isabelle Gattiker and the Festival team are currently working on the 20th edition of the FIFDH, which will take place from 4 to 13 March 2022, an anniversary edition that will celebrate the commitment of human rights activists and filmmakers. The full programme will be revealed on 15 February, 2022.

«We are proud and grateful for the tremendous work accomplished by Isabelle Gattiker as head of the Festival team. She was able to develop the Festival not only in size and presence but also in depth and legitimacy, transforming it into an international platform for the defence of human rights, yet firmly rooted in Geneva. We regret her departure but look forward to working with her in the interest of Geneva’s culture and its influence.» – Bruno Giussani, President of the FIFDH Foundation Board.

The FIFDH unveils the poster for its 20th edition!

https://fifdh.org/en/the-festival/news/article/isabelle-gattiker-directrice-generale-quittera-le-fifdh-apres-la-20e-edition

Geneva Film Festival: Grand Prize of Geneva to “Shadow Game”

March 16, 2021
KRO-NCRV Shadow Game Documentary Won Awards at Geneva Film Festival |  Currently

The 19th Geneva’s International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) has wrapped its first digital edition with the announcement of its winners. Running from 5 to 14 March, the event gathered nearly 45,000 people who watched the films, debates and various content available online. “While we regret not having been able to open this Festival to a physical audience, some of the experiments carried out this year will be perpetuated. We must pay tribute to the FIFDH team, which has been able to adapt to many challenges with increased energy,” mentioned general director Isabelle Gattiker.

Starting with the Creative Documentary Competition, the jury headed by Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, and featuring Lamia Maria Abillama, Yulia Mahr, and Arnaud Robert, bestowed the Grand Prize of Geneva valued at CHF 10,000 – offered by the city and state of Geneva – upon Shadow Game by Eefje Blankevoort and Els Van Driel. The jury’s statement mentions that the film “deals with a crucial issue in modern time: young migrants alone on their road, trying to cross boundaries and as they say: ‘playing their game’. With the use of videos and social media material produced by the teenagers themselves, it has innovative filmmaking, and it is pushing cinematic boundaries in many ways.

Shadow Game also picked the Youth Jury Prize, as it “brings to our attention the fact that we need not look far to find human rights’ violations. This confrontation makes it necessary to take greater responsibility at the sight of this injustice and to abandon the often-stereotypical image of migrants,” the jury stated.

The CHF 5,000 Gilda Vieira de Mello Prize in tribute to her son Sergio Vieira de Mello, went to Downstream to Kinshasa [+] by Dieudo Hamadi for its “powerful and brave character-orientated filmmaking, about reparations for forgotten communities who endured atrocities (the Six-Day War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2000). This film is haunting and shows such a rage of the protagonists seeking justice and reparations.” Once Upon a Time in Venezuela [+] by Anabel Rodríguez Ríos received a Special Mention by the jury as the director “approaches the protagonists in a very crude and yet subtle way, showing brilliantly the inextricable relation between industrial pollution, political and electoral constraints as well as citizens’ welfare.”

In the Fiction Competition, the Grand Prize Fiction and Human Rights, valued at CHF 10,000 and offered by the Hélène and Victor Barbour Foundation, went to Veins of the World [+] by Byambasuren Davaa as it “points beyond itself, towards a formless totality, a shared human experience often forgotten and instantly remembered where the beauty and pain of a profoundly essential human longing is unearthed and laid bare,” according to the jury presided by American filmmaker Danielle Lessovitz, with Santiago Amigorena, Laïla Marrakchi and Philippe Cottier. The film also won the Youth Jury Prize.

The Special Mention went to Should the Wind Drop [+] by Nora Martirosyan, “an important film, especially in the current context where borders are moving and closing and where it is difficult to travel.”

Finally, in the Grand Reportage Competition, the CHF 5,000 Prize of OMCT (World Organisation Against Torture), went to Coded Bias by Shalini Kantayya which, according to the jury, “powerfully depicts the threats that artificial intelligence poses to our liberties, including by hardwiring into algorithms racist and sexist biases.” The Public Award went to Dear Future Children [+] by Franz Böhm, which received CHF 5,000 from the FIFDH.

https://www.baltimoregaylife.com/kro-ncrv-shadow-game-documentary-won-awards-at-geneva-film-festival-currently/

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/film-festival-in-geneva-showcases-youth-migrant-struggles-in-top-honours/46447346

https://www.cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/398837

2021 edition of Geneva film festival kicks off in virtual format

March 6, 2021
The FIFDH kicks off in virtual format for its 19th edition
  • Wolfgang Spindler  reported on 0 March 2021 that the 19th edition of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva has gone virtual. Usually every year some 40 000 visitors attend to watch and discuss films that focus on human rights violations. Around 300 filmmakers, human rights defenders and politicians from 25 countries across the globe used to be invited. But, this year, the festival has been forced to change and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants are now encouraged to click on ‘likes‘ instead of applauding, as physical presence is not possible.

Isabelle Gattiker is the FIFDH Festival Director. She said that the festival had to reinvent itself. They are proposing videos on demand, that she describes as not being able to replace real cinema theatres. But they have tried “to work on public participation despite the digital format”. Online audiences can comment and ask questions during the showings every evening from 8 pm (CET) from anywhere on the planet.

For the first time ever there will also be a public award, where the viewers can give a mark to the films they’ve watched. At the end of the festival, the film with the highest rating from the official selection will be awarded this prize.

Soltan Achilova This 19th edition is dedicated to Turkmenistan Photojournalist, Soltan Achilova. The 71-year-old was amongst this year’s finalists for the “Martin Ennals Award“, an annual prize known as “the Nobel prize for human rights defenders. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/02/23/soltan-achilova-has-issued-a-rare-rebuke-of-the-turkmen-president-on-youtube/

https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/05/the-fifdh-kicks-off-in-virtual-format-for-its-19th-edition

https://fifdh.org/en/program-2021

Utopia3, the new podcast with filmmakers, HRDs, researchers and writers

May 29, 2020

Discover utopia3, the new podcast in partnership with the FIFDH

Conversations with those who think, make and struggle for Human Rights every day, in their own way.

Activists, filmmakers, researchers and writers meet every year at the FIFDH in Geneva to debate the most pressing human rights issues. utopia3 invites them to express themselves on their background, their motivations and the meaning they give to the human rights of today and tomorrow.

The interviews are conducted by Davide Rodogno, Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and by David Brun-Lambert, cultural journalist.

Episode 1 – Joe Sacco

The legendary cartoonist and reporter Joe Sacco has been criss-crossing the planet for 30 years through his prodigious immersive graphic investigations, interweaving past and present, with a focus on the stigmas of war and its tragic consequences. In this first episode of utopia3, Joe Sacco talks about being rooted and uprooted, the genesis of a good story, the aftermath of colonialism and the recent protests around the globe.

Joe Sacco’s new book, Paying The Land, has just been published .

The next episodes of utopia3

  • 1st June: Perla Joe Maalouli, Lebanese Activist
  • 5th June: Yves Daccord, Former Director of the ICRC
  • 12th June: Burhan Sönmez, Writer
  • 19th June: Alaa Salah, Figure of the Sudanese Revolution
  • 26th June: Ilse and Femke Van Velzen, Filmmakers, and Ruth Hopkins, Investigative Journalist
  • 3rd July: Lauren Anders Brown, Filmmaker, and Ayanda Dlamini, Feminist Activist from Eswatini
  • 10th July: Andy Cohen, Filmmaker

Subscribe to utopia3 on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Podcast or Ausha.

Follow utopia3 on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

utopia3 is recorded at The Spot Podcast Factory studio in Geneva, in collaboration with the FIFDH. The series is produced by David Brun-Lambert and Davide Rodogno (editorial directors), Martial Mingam (art director), Julie Noyelle (coordinator) and Julien Babel (artwork).

Geneva Human Rights film festival went ahead via livestream: the winners

March 20, 2020
Geneva Human Rights film festival goes ahead via livestream amid Covid-19 outbreak
The 18th edition of the Geneva International Film Festival on Human Rights has revealed its prizewinners, despite the exceptional conditions caused by the new coronavirus pandemic. This year’s festival took place online [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/03/03/another-covid-19-casualty-the-2020-human-rights-film-festival-of-geneva-fifdh/]. Whilst the public could not attend screenings and debates, they could follow them on Livestream on the festival website, Facebook or YouTube. (All the debates and lectures can be found on the festival website.)

The Jury also watched the films from a distance and announced the winners online:

The winner of the Grand Geneva Award for the Creative Documentary Competition was the film Colectiv by Bucharest-born filmmaker, Alexander Nanau. “Colectiv is a spectacular political thriller that details of a team of sports journalists who investigate the collective nightclub fire in Romania and, in doing so, uncover high-level government corruption in the Ministry of Health itself,” said President of the Jury Pamela Yates.

The Gilda Vieira de Mello Award for Peace and Reconciliation went to the film ‘Radio Silence‘ by Juliana Fanjul. “At the centre of this documentary is the figure of Carmen Aristegui. This fighter, this Mexican journalist, inspires us so much with her courage, a courage which in my eyes resonates strongly with the whole festival team who decided, despite the very complicated coronavirus situation, not to give up and to set up a 2.0 program to try to continue to communicate the messages of fight and defence that our films carry,” said the films director, Juliana Fanjul.

The Grand Prize for Fiction and Human Rights was awarded to the film Maternal by Maura Delpero. In a country where abortion is not yet legal, Delpero’s first fiction film deals with a significant social issue by setting it in a convent- a place where pregnant and often underage girls cohabit with women who will never be mothers.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/17/geneva-human-rights-film-festival-goes-ahead-via-livestream-amid-covid-19-outbreak

News from the human rights film front (2019)

March 20, 2019

The HRW festival in London is still running (https://ff.hrw.org/london) but others have finished and here is a selection of the wining films:

ONE WORLD FESTIVAL

The film Heart of Stone has taken the Best Film prize at this year’s edition of the One World festival of human rights documentaries in Prague. The winning documentary is about an Afghan refugee in France. The Best Director award went to Denmark’s Mads Brugger, maker of Cold Case Hammarskjold.

——-

The 2019 FIFDH [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/01/20/17th-edition-of-the-geneva-international-film-festival-and-forum-on-human-rights-from-8-to-17-march-2019/]. The awards list is as follows (extract):

Grand Prize of Geneva

Endowed with CHF 10,000 – Offered by the City and State of Geneva: Delphine et Carole, Insoumuses, by Callisto McNulty Learn more

Gilda Vieira de Mello Prize in tribute to her son Sergio Vieira de Mello

Endowed with CHF 5,000 – Offered by the Barbara Hendricks Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation: On her Shoulders, by Alexandria Bombach Learn more

Youth Jury Prize

Endowed with CHF 500 – Offered by Peace Brigades International (PBI): Still Recording, by Ghiath Ayoub and Saeed Al Batal Learn more

Endowed with CHF 500 – Offered by the Eduki Foundation: Carmen y Lola  by Arantxa Echevarría Learn more

Grand Prize for Fiction

Endowed with CHF 10,000 – Offered by the Hélène and Victor Barbour Foundation: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by Chiwetel Ejiofor Learn more

Prize of OMCT

Endowed with CHF 5,000 – Offered by the World Organization Against Torture: Congo Lucha, by Marlène Rabaud Learn more

——-

And there is an award-winning Bahamian film “Cargo” which is being shown in cinemas: At the age of 9, Bahamian writer/director Kareem Mortimer saw haunting images of the bloated bodies of Haitian would-be migrants washed up on a beach. Apparently they were trapped and locked in the hold of a ship by a smuggler who did not have the decency to set them free. It was this experience that inspired him to make the drama/thriller feature film Cargo. The film previously debuted in Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Curacao, Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, Suriname and St Lucia and will be released in the Trinidad, US and Canada in the summer. It has won five awards: Best Feature, Silicon Valley African Film Festival; Bahamian Icon Award; Best Film, Haiti International Film Festival, Los Angeles; Trident Award, Barbados Independent Film Festival; and Amnesty International Human Rights Prize for Film, TT Film Festival in 2017.
The poster for the film Cargo.

——-

https://www.radio.cz/en/section/news/french-doc-heart-of-stone-takes-top-prize-at-one-world-festival

https://fifdh.org/en/edition-2019/news/article/le-palmares-integral-du-fifdh-2019-349874

https://newsday.co.tt/2019/03/18/award-winning-bahamian-film-cargo-for-tt/

 

17th edition of the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights: from 8 to 17 March 2019

January 20, 2019

With a poster created from a photography by Zuko Wonderfull Sikhafungana, filmmaker and theatre director from South Africa, the 17th edition of the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) will take place from 8 to 17 March 2019 in more than 60 locations of the Greater Geneva and French-speaking Switzerland. The programme for this edition will be unveiled on Thursday, 14 February. The online ticketing will be open the same day.

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/03/19/awards-given-at-the-16th-human-rights-film-festival-in-geneva/

https://fifdh.org/en/the-festival

Human Rights Films: call for action or entertainment?

March 20, 2018

The 1972 photo of a young girl running naked in Trang Bang screaming in pain from the effects of napalm had a profound influence on the public’s perception of the horrors of the Vietnam War. The 2015 photo of a three-year-old refugee boy drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in Turkey also had a profound influence of the public’s perception, this time on the desperate plight of millions of refugees. The images of Phan Thi Kim Phuc and Aylan Kurdi are iconic representations. Both capture larger stories; both images express powerful narratives. 

Visualization is story telling in another form. ……Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s introduced the notion that the medium of communication – movies for instance – change how a message is perceived. Directors can alter time sequences; background music can play directly to our emotions. We have entered new forms of communication that are just beginning to be understood.
The recent Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights was a significant event; 61 films shown in 57 venues in the Swiss Romand and Grand Genève, 28 debates and discussions with important figures such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Catalonian leader Carles Puidgemont as well as a human rights film tour organized by Swiss embassies in 45 countries.
…The images were shocking, almost numbing. We in the theatre became more than viewers, we became indirect witnesses through the lens of the film.
Several directors participated in debates following the presentations. They all expressed hope that the revelations shown on the screen would encourage reaction from the audience beyond the theatre. The purpose of the film, many argued, was to move the attendees and future viewers from watchers – i.e., indirect witnesses – to activists. The films, according to their creators, were calls to action.
McLuhan is most pertinent here. Watching a movie, any movie, is passive/emotional. The director leads us through what he or she wants us to see and feel. We are being literally directed. At a human rights film festival, we are directed, made aware, and called to action. The message of the medium is more than just perception; it is a motivation to do something. But the screen is just a screen, and a silver screen at that. The films were expertly produced. Most were technologically impressive. The cruelty and crudeness of human suffering were presented with all that modernity could offer.
It is the contrast between the rawness of grave breaches of human dignity and the sophistication of the current cinema that somehow reduced the power of the message. If, according to McLuhan, the medium is the message, then the films themselves – with all their slick professionalism – somehow played against a call to action. The excellence of the films was in contradiction to the cruelty and chaos of what they were showing.
.. Human rights activists are turning to visualization to appeal to larger and larger audiences. Visualization is today’s most powerful means of communication and it is becoming more and more sophisticated. The object of human rights’ film makers is to get the message out to the largest audience in an appealing way. The written era of Gutenberg is no longer hot. It is easier to teach students World War II by viewing Saving Private Ryan than to have them read weighty tomes of historical documentation.
If the message of human rights’ films is to witness human rights violations and call to action, professional presentations may be counter-productive. Movies are fundamentally entertainment; however instructive they may be. But when it comes to human rights and their violations, there should be as little entertainment as possible.