Category Archives: Film Festivals

The 19th edition of Prague’s One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival kicks off today, Monday, March 6 and runs through Wednesday, March 15. Over 100 new and recent documentary features will screen at the event, with some highlights noted below:

Among the titles in the Czech Competition are: Zuzana Piussi’s CZECH ALLAH, on Czech society’s response to Islam and the migrant crisis; Tomáš Kudrna’s IDA’S IDEA, about a woman’s Roma children’s choir; and Eva Tomanová’s I WON’T SELL MY SOUL, which explores the controversy of child surrogacy in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, the International Competition includes such films as: Alexandre Dereims’ WE ARE HUMANITY (pictured), about the struggles of the indigenous people of a remote Indian Ocean island; Petr Lom’s BURMA STORYBOOK, on a Burmese dissident poet; and Marc Silver’s TO END A WAR, a candid look at the hardfought Colombian peace process. And the Right to Know competition features work like: Mina Keshavarz’s BRAVING THE WAVES, about an entrepreneurial Iranian woman as she faces off against local authorities; Roser Corella’s GRAB AND RUN, which explores the Kyrgyz custom of bride kidnapping; and Elina Hirvonen’s BOILING POINT, on the rise of fascistic nationalists in modern Finland.

The festival’s many noncompetitive strands explore the migrant crisis in Dreams of Europe, with films like Pia Lenz’s I’M OKAY, which looks at two foreign youth trying to adjust to life in Germany; normalcy and difference in Who is Normal Here?, in docs including Maria Teresa Larraín’s SHADOW GIRL, following the filmmaker back to her native Chile as she loses her eyesight; the role of family, in Family Happiness, through Jasna Krajinovic’s THE EMPTY ROOM, about the family of a radicalized Belgian Muslim; society and environment, in So-Called Civilzation, with films like Fredrik Oskarsson’s NUCLEAR NEIGHBOUR, which follows a young mother’s transformation into an anti-nuclear power activist; urban space, in Faces of the City, through Anders Eklund’s GAMING THE REAL WORLD, which explores a Swedish city’s use of Minecraft to encourage participatory urban planning; media in the Power of the Media; with Hans Busstra’s CYBERJIHAD, exploring virtual world techniques used by terrorist groups; and social upheaval in Journeys to Freedom, including Alistair Cole’s COLOURS OF THE ALPHABET, which looks at the problems resulting from schooling not being done in students’ native language.