27/02/2024 - Buoyed this year by a co-directorial team, the Genevan festival will once again leverage the power of film to explore burning issues

Unspooling between 8 and 17 March, the 22nd edition of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) will be benefit from a new three-headed directorial team composed of the dynamic Leila Alonso Huarte and Laura Longobardi (editorial co-directors) in addition to Guillaume Noyé who’ll be taking over the role of operational and administrative director. As enthused by the three co-directors themselves, it’s a structural change which is perfectly in step with a socially engaged festival which is always looking to improve on itself.

Despite the highly troubling times we’re currently living through, the two editorial co-directors stress that the FIFDH doesn’t want to slide into unproductive gloom. On the contrary, it wants to try to find, in all this upheaval, an opportunity to reinvent itself and "to allow for the emergence of new perspectives". In this process, "the FIFDH is examining the role of images and of the representation of these changes, by gathering together all those who are thinking about collective solutions and who remind us of the need to act". Among these voices is that of Angela Davis, a leading figure in the fight for civil rights who will take part in a discussion in relation to a French film which has been selected in the Focus Competition, The Flag by Joseph Paris. Other guests at the Forum include Aminata Dramane Traoré, George Monbiot, Philippe Poutou, Claire Nouvian and Bernard Harcourt.

Numerous European productions and co-productions have been selected in the various competitions gracing the festival this year. These include world premières of An Unfinished Journey by Amie Williams and Aeyliya Husain, and Of Caravan and the Dogs by Askold Kurov and anonyme 1, both of which will feature in the Focus Competition. It’s impossible, in the current context, not to lend a voice to filmmakers who happen to be direct witnesses of the war in the Near East, including Anglo-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi with her movie The Teacher [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Fiction Competition) and the director hailing from Gaza and now living in Norway Mohamed Jabaly with Life Is Beautiful [+see also:
film review
film profile] (Creative Documentaries Competition).

On the subject of documentaries, the Competition is also set to showcase A Day, 365 Hours [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Eylem Kaftan, the two Swiss (co)productions God is a Woman [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrés Peyrot
film profile] by Andrés Peyrot and The Hearing [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Lisa Gerig, Where God Is Not [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mehran Tamadon
film profile] by Mehran Tamadon, and the two movies co-produced with the UK Name Me Lawand [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Edward Lovelace and The Walk [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Tamara Kotevska. And that’s without forgetting Photophobia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pe…
film profile] by Ivan Ostrochovsky and Pavol Pekarčik, and 1489 [+see also:
film review
interview: Shoghakat Vardanyan
film profile] by Shoghakat Vardanyan.

The Fiction Competition, meanwhile, will offer up Italy’s There Is Still Tomorrow [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Paola Cortellesi, the Italian-Swiss animation Nowhere [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Simone Massi, Green Border [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Agnieszka Holland, The Cage is Looking for a Bird [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Malika Musaeva
film profile] by Malika Musaeva, Goodbye Julia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mohamed Kordofani
film profile] by Mohamed Kordofani, The Settlers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Felipe Gálvez
film profile] by Felipe Gálvez and Omen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Baloji
film profile] by musician and artist Baloji.

Last but not least, the Focus Competition will boast international premières of Tax Wars by Hege Dehli and Xavier Harel, and Who If Not Us? The Fight for Democracy in Belarus by Juliane Tutein, as well as screening Another Body by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, Limits of Europe [+see also:
interview: Apolena Rychlíková
film profile] by Apolena Rychlíková, Total Trust [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Jialing Zhang, Searching for Nika by Stanislav Kapralov and Our Land, Our Freedom [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Meena Nanji and Zippy Kimundu.

(Translated from French)