Browse previous selections from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival

Bangla Surf Girls
Shobe, Aisha and Suma from are poised to make history as Bangladesh’s first women surfers in an international surf competition. But society and poverty pose major hurdles.

Belly of the Beast
When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal involuntary sterilizations in California’s women’s prison system, they take to the courtroom to wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections.

Boycott
In a country where voting rights are under attack, the ability to boycott, or “vote with your dollar,” has been an important and impactful way for citizens of the United States to bring about change.

Daughter of a Lost Bird
Kendra Mylnechuk Potter was adopted into a white family and raised with no knowledge of her Native American parentage.

Eternal Spring (長春)
When members of Falun Gong hack China's state TV to expose brutal repression - lives are changed forever. Award winning filmmaker Jason Loftus and celebrated comic book artist Daxiong tell the resilient story of those fighting for religious freedom.

Fruits of Labor
A Mexican-American teenage farmworker dreams of graduating high school, when ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family and force her to become her family's breadwinner. Fruits of Labor is a lyrical, coming-of-age documentary feature about adolescence, nature and the ancestors.

Judges Under Pressure
Democracy in Poland hanging by a fragile thread, as the government begins arresting judges whose rulings are not to their liking. In Judges Under Pressure the public and judges take to the streets.

Klabona Keepers
The Klabona Keepers is an intimate portrait of the dynamic Indigenous community that succeeded in protecting the remote Sacred Headwaters, known as the Klabona, in northwest British Columbia from industrial activities.

March For Dignity
This film follows a small group of brave LGBTI+ activists in Tbilisi, Georgia as they attempt to conduct the first Pride march in the country, where homosexuality remains highly stigmatized.

Midwives
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.

Mujer de Soldado (Soldier's Woman)
Mujer de Soldado is a deeply moving picture of female solidarity that finally provides space for the dignity of women's experiences that has long been denied.

Myanmar Diaries
Myanmar Diaries by the Myanmar Film Collective, an anonymous group of filmmakers, reveals the realities of life since February 1, 2021, when the country’s military overthrew the civilian government.