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This year’s edition covers a broad range of themes and topics, but what shines through is the determination and courage of individuals to stand up for their freedom and rights. 

The festival presents 10 films screening in-person at the Barbican March 16 - 24 with in-depth Q&As with filmmakers, film participants, activists, and Human Rights Watch researchers following each screening; and the films will also be available digitally on our streaming platform across the UK and Ireland March 20 - 26. 

Opening Night of the festival is Delikado, which profiles three magnetic leader—a charismatic lawyer, an ex-illegal logger, and a fearless politician—as they fight to stop corporations and governments seeking to plunder the natural resources of the island of Palawan in the Philippines.  

The ongoing reverberations of colonialism take centre stage in two films in our program. Our Closing Night film, Theatre of Violence, raises complex questions around new forms of colonialism and definitions of justice in the landmark International Criminal Court trial of former Ugandan child soldier Daniel Ongwen. In No U-Turn, Nigerian filmmaker Ike Nnaebue takes us on a poetic and personal journey, engaging with those leaving their country, traveling north through Africa and beyond in search of work and opportunity to build a future, despite the known and unknown challenges lying ahead.

Body autonomy and self-autonomy is the focus of four films in this year’s program. Category: Woman, asks, “What happens when sexism and racism collide?”—introducing us to four women athletes from the Global South 70 / 90

stepping forward to challenge major international sports rules governing women athletes’ bodies. In I Didn’t See You There, filmmaker Reid Davenport reflects on the corrosive legacy of the “freak show” and the paradoxical spectacle yet invisibility of disability. Koromousso, Big Sister captures personal stories and deep moments of support in a small community of women from West Africa, as they confront social norms and embrace the inherent power in pleasure and love for their own bodies. Seven Winters in Tehran opens a window into the mass oppression and silencing of women in Iran, and the risks taken by those who defend and support them. 

Structural discrimination is the focus of two films in the program. If The Streets Were on Fire introduces BikeStormz; a movement of young bikers, which attempts to offer a safe and welcoming space for youth in London. However, new forms of conflict arise when police and “concerned citizens” threaten arrest for their very existence. Silent Love is a coming-of-age and a coming-out story. We meet Aga, 35, who is legally adopting her teenage brother, Milosz, after their mother’s death—a process that invites intense probing into her lifestyle. However, there’s something she can’t share in their conservative Polish village: her long-term relationship with her girlfriend Maja.

The festival also takes a close look at Ukraine with When Spring Came to Bucha, which poignantly captures how a small community continues with life amid trauma and loss, while war rages on close by.

This year’s program reflects the festival’s ethos of celebrating diversity of content and perspective. We strive to prioritise space in our films and conversations that follow for identities, viewpoints, forms of expertise and experiences either silenced or marginalised in the film industry, news, and media. 

We welcome you to join us in celebrating the power of individuals to make a difference at this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Human Rights Watch had the honor of screening the beautifully personal documentary, Daughter of a Lost Bird, at our New York and London film festivals, which shares the story of Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, who was adopted into a white family and raised with no knowledge of her Native American parentage. The film follows Kendra as she discovers her Native identity, finds her birth mother, April, also a Native adoptee, and returns to her Lummi homelands in Washington State.

This issue is in the news as the state of Texas and several families adopting Native American children are challenging a federal law  aimed at preventing Native American children from being separated from their extended families and their tribes.  The US Supreme Court heard arguments in November in a case, Brackeen vs. Haaland, that many Native people fear may have broader implications for tribal sovereignty and self-governance. The Supreme Court will issue a decision by June 30, 2023.

Kendra and April’s stories show the impact of US government actions to erase an entire culture, including the 1958 Indian Adoption Project, which removed Native children from their families and placed them in white homes in an effort to “kill the Indian and save the man.”

In 1978, Congress found that hundreds of thousands of Native American children had been taken from their homes, sometimes by force, and placed in institutions or with families that had no tribal connections. According to the National Indian Child Welfare Association, 35 percent of all Native children had been removed from their homes and 85 percent of them were sent to non-Indian homes.

The effect this had on these adoptees is made clear in the film - April states: “It's taken me a long time to believe I belong places. When someone says "You're Lummi" I can't wrap my mind around it. I don't know what that means.” The tribes saw these actions as a threat to their very existence, and Congress agreed, passing the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978.The law establishes minimum standards for the removal of Native American children from their families and establishes a preference that when Native American children are taken from their homes, they be placed with extended family members or with other Native families.

Through this one powerful story of a mother and daughter, Daughter of a Lost Bird is able to break down a complex set of issues and make them extraordinarily accessible and human to understand, and show what is at stake if the law is overturned.

Interested readers  can watch our Q&A here with filmmaker Brooke Pepion Swaney (Blackfeet/Salish), film participant Kendra Mylenchuk Potter (Lummi) and Terry Cross (Seneca), National Indian Child Welfare Association Founder & Senior Adviser. Moderated by Matika Wilbur (Swinomish & Tulalip) and Adrienne Keene (Cherokee), hosts of podcast "All My Relations." Recorded at the New York film festival in  May 2021.

As Kendra Mylnechuk Potter says in the film:“As I am slowly finding my own way through identity, realising that I am actually a perfect example of assimilation, a perfect example of ‘kill the Indian save the man’, and I am a saved man and a dead Indian - it's tragic. I just don't know how to be with that.”
 

We are proud to present the 33rd edition of the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival, running from May 20-26, 2022, in partnership with Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center. This year’s edition highlights activism, as we meet courageous individuals around the world standing up to powerful forces and demanding change.  

After over two years away we are thrilled to be back with a full program of in-person screenings at Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center, with in-depth discussions with filmmakers, film participants, activists, and Human Rights Watch researchers. We will continue to offer the opportunity to watch these 10 emboldening new films online across the US with a full digital edition of the festival.  

The festival opens with Rebellion, the exhilarating behind-the-scenes story of Extinction Rebellion (XR), following the group as it takes daring steps to draw attention to the climate emergency – and confront both internal tensions and the harmful power structures present in the climate movement itself. Closing the festival, The Janes showcases a group of brave and bold women, many speaking on the record for the first time, who built an underground, clandestine network in 1970s Chicago for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions.   

We meet courageous activists and brave individuals throughout the program. With stunning animation and powerful interviews, Eternal Spring tells the gripping story of brave members of a religious movement who protest their persecution by the Chinese government by hijacking the local TV station. In Delikado, three environmental defenders are tested like never before in their battle to save their home, Palawan, an island paradise in the Philippines from the illegal destruction of its forests, fisheries, and mountains. In Clarissa’s Battle we meet single mother and unstoppable activist Clarissa Doutherd, who works tirelessly to build a coalition of local parents in Oakland, California, to fight for local and federal childcare funding. With brave honesty a group of Kurdish and Yazidi women reveal the challenges they face in a male-dominated society in Up To G-Cup. 

The films at the festival could not be timelier. The New Greatness Case offers remarkable access to a group of young Russians entrapped by the secret service, resulting in unjust trials and prison sentences – echoing the intensified crackdown on dissent and free expression in Russia we see on the news every day. In Midwives, amid an environment of ever-increasing chaos and violence against the Muslim Rohingya population in Myanmar, two midwives, one Buddhist and one Muslim, work side by side in a makeshift clinic in western Myanmar, providing medical services to the Rohingya of Rakhine State. No U-Turn by celebrated Nigerian director Ike Nnaebue takes us on a journey with Nigerian citizens leaving their country, traveling north through Africa and beyond in search of work and opportunity to build a future, despite the known and unknown challenges lying ahead. 

Lastly, the one drama in this year’s festival, You Resemble Me, an impressive first feature by Dina Amer and executive-produced by Spike Lee, Spike Jonze, Riz Ahmed and Alma Har’el, explores the complex life of Hasna Aït Boulahcen, a survivor of abuse in France who sought support and opportunities to belong, but whose life was cut short by her radicalization.  

As always, the festival strives to prioritize space for identities, viewpoints, forms of expertise and experiences either silenced or marginalized in the film industry, news, and media. Seventy percent of this year’s filmmakers are women and seventy percent are filmmakers sharing a story about their own region. This program reflects the festival’s ethos of celebrating diversity of content and perspective. 

We welcome you to join us in celebrating the power of individuals to make a difference at the 2022 Human Rights Watch Film Festival.   

- The HRWFF Team 

Written by Shazia Khawaja, Together Films

Since 2012, the UK’s “hostile environment policy” for refugees has resulted in unnecessary obstacles for  those seeking asylum; people often fleeing from persecution and violence as they try to rebuild their lives in the UK. In Anna Konik’s Silence Heard Loud we hear first hand from seven refugees on their experience of finding home again and trying to become a part of a new UK community. The film is being screened online as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival from now until March 25. We heard from some of Silence Heard Loud’s subjects about their experiences and hopes for the film.  

What did the experience of telling your story in the film SILENCE HEARD LOUD mean to you?  

Nirmala Madushani: “I feel liberated to tell my story as a woman of colour so that our society can learn how difficult it is to be a woman from a marginalised group and to be a victim of domestic violence. Telling my story was so important to me as it really proved that I was treated differently even when my life was in danger only because I was a coloured immigrant woman. There wasn't any law to protect me or other immigrant domestic violence victims for a long time. Therefore, so many vulnerable immigrant women were not able to leave their abusive environment.  When some victims left and reported to the authorities, they then became Home Office deportation targets. Unfortunately, I also got caught up in this situation.  I felt that I was just a number for the Home Office and became one of the victims of a politically motivated witch hunt as a result of the hostile environment policies.  After what I experienced, I wanted to stand against social inequality and injustice.  I wanted to give a voice to my experience so other people can learn how social inequality has a negative effect on under-privileged people in society.  I hope by telling my story this will also encourage women to leave abusive relationships and rebuild their lives.  After all, we should never be victims forever.  We should always move forward to freedom.  “     

What do you hope audiences who watch SILENCE HEARD LOUD at the HRWFF London will take away from the film?  

Michael Darko: “The main point I hope that the audiences who watch SILENCE HEARD LOUD will take away is that no human person leaves the comfort of their home and loved ones to become a refugee. Our silence of abuse, trauma and shame is at times a helpful armour to put on to save face, be accepted and liked by others and most importantly, to not scare white Europeans. The unconscious fear of the other, which continues to navigate the human relations between white Europeans towards brown, black and non-white people, must be first acknowledged and valued so that we can do away the myths and dehumanisation which will facilitate the environment to affect meaningful change. The unconscious fear of the other is also a heavy armour for the white European who fears to lose what it means to be a white European, culture etc. The amour of silence restricts people from speaking openly about their fears of the other, as they can be seen as racist or be made a centre of focus for everyone to point fingers at and project every negative thought about the other onto this individual. In doing so, the rest can satisfy themselves to think they are good people. I firmly believe that there are no good or bad people; we are all simply people, capable of good and bad. If we are both able to put down our armour, we will realise that there is no other….” 

Njideka Obi: “Silence Heard Loud is a paradox where compassion, caring, emotional sharing, and deep communication are all drowned out within the sound of silence resulting in considerable amount of distress. It is about the inability of people to communicate, not in terms of plain language, or international issues, but rather spiritually and emotionally. The premise of my thought is that only by understanding how migrants themselves experience forced migration, their perspectives, and their needs, will governments, policy makers, practitioners, and the members of the public be able to get involved to determine how best the policies should be reformed to ensure fairness, inclusion, effectiveness, equity, and sustainability.    

I’m keen to share my lived experience of migration and the UK border controls with a wider audience and a public-facing blog documenting it is a good chance. The aim primarily is about advancing our knowledge and understanding of the world we live in with reference to the forced migrants. Participating in this project offered a vital chance for me to bring a unique insight into the plight of migrants to the notice of the audience.  

While I see what is going on with this often-neglected group in our society, where they feel hemmed in by a humanly fabricated existence that keeps them from experiencing the rest of the world; that keeps their focus on what is close at hand rather than reaching out and expanding their horizons. I find no way to communicate this truth to others but through mediums like this. 

Silence has a voice: a continuous, high-pitched inner sound like white noise in the background. It is a sound that is beginningless and endless. This project is intended to contribute to not only academic knowledge and debate, but to have relevance and illuminate the role migration plays in our society, revitalising ways we think about migration and more accurately reflecting the reality of inclusive lived experience and therefore more effective in addressing it.  

Because most people have no real in-depth understanding of the meaning of the plight of refugees, they seem incapable of doing anything to change it. Knowledge and awareness will empower the audience to fully engage in supporting the call on the government to "create more safe routes" for refugee families from a camp or conflict/war zone (e.g., Ukraine) to come directly to the UK. To walk beside them as they rebuild their lives and help them integrate in the light of love and belief of a better kind of humanity. This is a way of (lifting up voices) who are more typically thought of as vulnerable and passive victims and might help to bring the ‘invisible’ forced migrant into view.” 

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Silence Heard Loud is screening virtually as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival until March 25th. You can also tune in to a replay of our live conversation following the opening night screening here.  

We do not want cost to be a barrier to watching these films, free tickets are available on a first come, first serve basis. Email filmticket@hrw.org for a free ticket code to any screening.  

We are proud to present the 26th edition of the London Human Rights Watch Film Festival, running from March 17-25, 2022, in partnership with Barbican Cinema. This year’s edition highlights the ability to create change, as we meet courageous individuals on both sides of the lens, and experience what happens when, little by little, solidarity turns into a resounding voice that the powers that be can’t ignore. 

Even during the global pandemic, communities—from journalists in Myanmar, Latinx community members in Texas, and young girls in Bangladesh, to judges in Poland and asylum seekers in the UK—are coming together and making a difference.. We are living through unprecedented times, and the films in this year’s line-up speak directly to many issues we currently face.  

This year’s festival will present three in-person Q&A screenings—Opening Night, Centrepiece, and Closing Night—in the beautiful Screen 1 at the Barbican, as well as a full digital edition of 10 emboldening new films from around the world, available across the UK, featuring in-depth discussions with filmmakers, film participants, activists, and Human Rights Watch researchers. 

The festival opens with Silence Heard Loud, a poetic film that weaves the intersecting stories of asylum seekers in the UK fighting to preserve their dreams and dignity as they navigate the British immigration system. In our Closing Night film, Bangla Surf Girls, we meet three Bangladeshi teenagers who must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to chase their dream of becoming Bangladesh’s first women surfers to compete internationally. 

Freedom of expression and threats to democracy are the focus of five films in our program. In Boycott, the Centrepiece of this year’s festival, filmmaker Julia Bacha pulls back the curtain on the architects of anti-boycott laws in 33 states of the US that are designed to curtail freedom of speech and penalise individuals undertaking boycotts to create social change. With stunning animation and powerful interviews, Eternal Spring boldly reveals the persecution of religious movements and political dissent by the Chinese government. A group of anonymous filmmakers, the “Myanmar Film Collective,” bring us Myanmar Diaries, which intimately reveals what life is like inside their country after the military overthrew the civilian government just over a year ago. Judges Under Pressure provides a clarion call to the growing vulnerability of judicial independence through the stories of several Polish judges under threat of being fired or arrested by Poland’s right-wing ruling party. And On The Divide chronicles three people with diverse perspectives who are connected to the only remaining abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas along the US-Mexico border. 

The impact of trauma on families, and the importance of cultural connection are explored in this year’s edition. In Tacheles—The Heart of the Matter, we are introduced to Yaar, a young Jewish Berliner who attempts to process and overcome intergenerational trauma by developing a video game set in 1940’s Germany based on his grandmother’s experience, where he enables Jews to defend themselves and Nazis to act humanely. You Resemble Me, the one drama in this year’s festival, explores the complex life of Hasna Aït Boulahcen, a refugee and survivor of abuse in France who sought support and opportunities to belong but whose life was cut short by radicalisation. In the emotionally resonant Daughter of a Lost Bird, we meet Kendra, who was adopted into a white family as a child, as she finds her birth mother and discovers her native identity and the purposeful erasure of cultural identity for Native communities in the United States. 

This year’s program of 10 films reflects the festival’s ethos of celebrating representation, and diversity of content and perspective. We strive to prioritise space for identities, viewpoints, and forms of expertise and experiences either silenced or marginalised in the film industry, news, and media. 

We welcome you to join us in celebrating the power of individuals to make a difference at this year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival.  

- The HRWFF Team

Written by Fred Abrahams, Associate Director for Program at Human Rights Watch, Originally posted to HRW.org

Controversy swirled last week around the award-winning film Sabaya, which covers the dramatic rescue of abused Yezidi women abducted and enslaved by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. At the heart of the issue is how to obtain informed consent from film subjects who witnessed or suffered horrible abuse and may not be in a situation, or state of mind, to clearly assess risks.

The New York Times reported last week that some of the women in Sabaya say they never agreed to be in the film. Three of the Yezidi survivors said they did not understand they would be in a film or that it could be seen in Iraq, their homeland. A doctor in the film reportedly told the director, Hogir Hirori, that she did not want to appear.

The Stockholm-based Hirori and the film’s producer, Antonio Russo Merenda, vehemently dispute the claims, saying they “received written, verbal or filmed consent from everyone who appears in our film.”

Exactly who agreed to what and how remains unclear, but one conclusion shines bright: The issue of informed consent for documentary films deserves scrutiny and clearer industry standards, especially for subjects who are in vulnerable or at-risk situations.

Informed consent requires telling a person exactly how their information or image will be used, ensuring that they understand what they are agreeing to, and that they are not consenting under pressure or duress. When the subjects recently survived serious abuse, such as sexual slavery or being held in locked camps, two of the crimes covered in Sabaya, the question of if, and when, they are able to make an informed choice has to form part of the calculation.

Informed consent is also not a one-time event. Especially for abuse survivors, a person has the right to change their mind and should be provided with a simple and reliable way to communicate that wish. These standards apply equally around the world.

The documentary film industry should use the discussion around Sabaya to clarify what it considers acceptable practice on informed consent, and how festivals, distributors, and others will vet films to ensure they respect the safety and dignity of survivors.

Best practices for working with survivors of sexual violence in conflict can be found in the draft Murad Code, a global code of conduct driven by Nadia Murad, the Yezidi Nobel Peace Prize laureate who survived ISIS enslavement.

Film industry professionals should heed the code’s pledge: “We will be careful not to make choices for them.”

Check out a power-packed recorded conversation with filmmaker Alba Sotorra Clua, Kurdish Feminist Activist Sevinaz Evdike and Letta Tayler, Associate Director, Crisis and Conflict, HRW and Maya Foa, Joint Executive Director, Reprieve, moderated by Azadeh Moaveni, Author of Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS, and Director of the Gender and Conflict Project, International Crisis Group.

"Countries have a responsibility to keep people safe from harm. As an activist and a staff member of Human Rights Watch, I applaud countries for wanting to keep their people safe, and attacks by Isis are reprehensible. Nobody is saying 'Let's make the world less safe." However, I think it is more dangerous to keep these women and their children in these camps - and the men in their prisons - where they are basically rotting and abandoned by their countries: Women are breaking out, and they are paying traffickers, and most of them just want to get home and rebuild their lives. But the more they are abandoned and ignored by their countries, the more they will become vulnerable - or start thinking twice, about whether or not to join Isis, and the same for their children who know they are abandoned by their home countries." - Letta Tayler, HRW (Excerpt from live discussion.) 

About THE RETURN: LIFE AFTER ISIS: Hoda Muthana and Shamima Begum made world headlines after leaving their homes in the US and UK as teenagers to join the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The Return: Life After ISIS is a unique portrait of a group of Western women who pledged their lives to ISIS, but now want to return home to restart their lives. While facing hostile journalists and governments who have left them de-facto stateless, the women confront their truths and try to heal from their trauma in a locked camp in northeast Syria, with the help of Kurdish women’s rights activists. With its rare access to Roj camp, this film is a sensitive portrayal of just a few of the 63,000 women and children held, in dire conditions with no due process, as ISIS suspects and family members in northeast Syria by a Kurdish-led armed group.

“This film cuts through the stereotypes about Western women who joined ISIS and makes a compelling case for bringing them home. In the process, it reveals an unusual sisterhood between these women and a Kurdish social worker who helps them even though ISIS sought to destroy her community.” – Letta Tayler, associate director, Crisis and Conflict Division, Human Rights Watch