Festival calendar

The International Film Festival WATCH DOCS. Human Rights in Film has been held annually in Warsaw in December since 2001. It combines high-class cinema, mainly documentaries, with public debate.It is a joint project of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights - Poland’s leading human rights organization, the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle – the largest interdisciplinary art center in Eastern Europe, and the Social Institute of Film – an organization specializing in promoting socially engaged cinema.WATCH DOCS is a competition festival with an international jury.

The Karama HRFF was established in June 2009, sensing the need for human rights dialogue and advocacy in the Arab region. Recent massive upheavals in the Arab region since the first edition (in 2010) have made it imperative to seek the exchange of expression, ideas, opinions and experiences on human rights issues across the region and the world. The festival’s core theme is human dignity (Karama is Arabic for dignity).

Ciné Droit Libre is a film festival committed to the cause of human rights and freedom of expression.

Ciné Droit Libre’s goal is to provide a platform for filmmakers and journalists around the world, especially for those whose works (films on human rights and freedom of the press) are censored or have broadcast difficulties.

Human Rights Film Center is an organization which works on human rights through film. Founded by a group of media professionals and filmmakers for promoting and protecting human rights in Nepal, we generate public debate and encourage changes in national policy by making film and organizing festival screening.

We believe film is the most powerful tool to advocate for human rights, justice and peace. Film provides a way to reach many people easily because it overcomes literacy boundaries. It appeals to the emotion of the audience and can inspire marginalized people into action.

FAST FORWARD Human Rights Film Festival Montenegro

MUSOC, the Social and Human Rights Film Exhibition, began in 2012. Since then, it takes place every January in many cities and towns in Asturias, Spain. The fiction, animation, and documentary films that are screened focus on human right issues around the world and raise awareness about social and human experiences that promote justice, equality and solidarity.

Censurados Film Festival is an itinerant film festival dedicated to freedom of expression and human rights that takes place since 2014 with the aim to give voice to those films that have been censored as well as to movies that are focused on human rights.

Vieques has a long history of fighting for the defense of human rights. The best lands on the island of Vieques were occupied by the United States Navy for more than 60 years and its residents, victims of constant displacement. For many decades the community fought to stop the bombings and the use of their territories for military practices by the United States Navy. Thanks to international support, religious alliances and a large civil disobedience movement, the Navy was expelled.

HUMAN International Documentary Film Festival is Oslo’s largest documentary film festival and a significant forum in the Norwegian capital’s cultural, academic and organizational life, which engages and encourages debates about human rights and other social issues of current interest. The festival is a unique meeting place where activists, experts, filmmakers, artists, students, NGOs, think tanks, and a general audience actively participate.

 The festival’s film program consists of more than 40 new Norwegian and International documentaries, categorized in three sections:

International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights brings together filmmakers, human rights defenders, policymakers, media and citizens around leading violations of human dignity - to promote and amplify strong voices and build public support for human rights. Each year in March, we show films and run a forum where all topics can be openly discussed, simultaneously with the UN Human Rights Council. Since 2003, we welcomed 233'000 festivalgoers, 60% under 35 years old.

One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival is the largest human rights film festival in the world. It is a major cultural event in the Czech Republic that attracts more than 120,000 viewers annually and takes place in over 30 towns in the Czech Republic.One World presents more than 110 documentary films from around the globe, focusing on social, political, environmental, media and human rights issues.

Movies that Matter screens and promotes films that draws our attention to human rights and situations in which these are at stake. The foundation's peak activity is the annual Movies that Matter Festival, taking place in The Hague, International City of Peace and Justice. The Movies that Matter Festival is the Netherlands' main platform for engaged cinema, with over seventy documentaries and feature films of inspired filmmakers being screened every year.

The ACT Human Rights Film Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado, showcases the best in human rights cinema from around the world. The festival convenes for one week every April on and off the campus of Colorado State University, uniting diverse audiences while inspiring them to awaken to human rights issues facing people around the world, to connect across the powerful medium of film and dialogue, and to transform their lives and communities. ACT is produced by the Department of Communication Studies housed within the College of Liberal Arts. ACT was founded in 2016.

The Festival of Human Rights Film is an initiative that is part of the San Sebastian, Space for the Culture of Peace project. The aim is to promote greater awareness, as well as encourage debate and provide greater information to citizens about human rights, by promoting, through the cinema and other cultural and artistic expressions, the values of solidarity, respect for life, peace, freedom and social justice, among other things.

Feature Films Official Selection

The annual Western Sahara International Film Festival (FiSahara) brings entertainment, culture and hope to the Western Sahara´s refugees, who have lived in exile for over three decades. The festival takes place every year in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Southwestern Algeria. FiSahara's activities include film screenings, audiovisual workshops, a traditional Sahrawi cultural fair, a camel race, concerts, a soccer match, roundtables and numerous other cultural activities.The festival is held in the Sahrawi refugee camps and lasts about five days.

Humans Fest is, in terms of audience, the most important human rights film festival in Spain and the largest audience film festival in its region. Its main event takes place every year in Valencia the second week of February but the whole year is full of activities not just in Valencia but in the whole region and there are some international screenings. Around 130 entities are attached to the festival and one of its most successful activities is the Resistances, weekly online screenings. 

Docudays UA is the only international human rights documentary film festival in Ukraine. It is a part of the international Human Rights Film Network. It takes place every year in Kyiv in the last week of March. After the end of the festival, Docudays UA traditionally presents the best films in Ukrainian regions during the Traveling Festival. Screenings and discussions of films with human rights experts last from October until December. Throughout the year, Docudays UA popularizes auteur documentary cinema in film theaters as a part of the DOCU/HIT project.