The 18th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London is taking place until 28th March, 2014 with a programme of 20 award-winning documentary and feature films. The festival will take place at top London cinemas Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Ritzy Brixton and for the first time this year, the Barbican.
The programme includes ten UK premieres and three exclusive previews organised around five themes: Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring; Human Rights Defenders, Icons and Villains; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Rights; Migrants’ Rights and Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights.
“This year’s programme demonstrates the risks filmmakers take to capture the stories behind the headlines, and our centrepiece film, the E-Team, reveals the tenacity and heroic efforts of human rights activists to bring war crimes to the world’s attention,” said John Biaggi, Human Rights Watch festival director.
The Opening Night event tonight, 20th March at the Curzon Soho will be the UK premiere of Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus attended by the director Madeleine Sackler. The Belarus Free Theatre is an acclaimed troupe that defies Europe’s last remaining dictatorship. With smuggled footage and uncensored interviews, Sackler’s film conveys not only the group’s great emotional, financial, and artistic risks but also their risk of censorship, imprisonment, and exile.
The festival will close on 28 March at the Ritzy with the UK premiere of Return to Homs, winner of the World Cinema Jury Prize, Documentary, Sundance Film Festival 2014.
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