18/02/2025 - The Genevan festival strives to give people hope, despite the troubling rise of extremism and the threat hanging over our fundamental rights

Unspooling between 7 and 16 March, the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) looks to be a place for coming together to reflect upon the world around us, a place to dream about shared utopias based on collective approaches. The themes of this year’s edition are, on the one hand, the worrying rise of extremism and, on the other, the global threat to our fundamental freedoms.

Amongst the various titles tackling these themes is Steve Pink’s The Last Republican, which is screening in a world premiere and which denounces Donald Trump’s involvement in the 2021 Capitol attack. To accompany the debate, the festival is organising a forum entitled "Where are the United States headed?", attended by writer Douglas Kennedy. Meanwhile, Hacking Hate [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Simon Klose and British movie Undercover: Exposing the Far Right by Havana Marking examine the relationship between social media and the rise in hate speech both within and outside of the virtual world. War and the humanitarian tragedies which ensue are at the centre of To Close Your Eyes and See Fire [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Nicola von Leffern and Jakob Carl Sauer, and Khartoum [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ibrahim “Snoopy” Ahmad, Tim…
film profile], which was directed by a collective of Sudanese and British filmmakers (Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad, Timeea Mohamed Ahmed and Philip Cox) and was selected in Sundance and the Berlinale.

Feminist struggles are another of the more dominant themes in this year’s edition, running through films such as Manas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marianna Brennand
film profile] by Marianna Brennand (the winner of Venice’s Giornate degli Autori line-up), Sugar Island [+see also:
film review
interview: Johanné Gómez Terrero
film profile] by Johanné Gómez Terrero and Norah by Tawfik Alzaidi, which take us to Amazonia, the Dominican Republic and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Three forums will kick off the debate on this topic: the first entitled "Sexist violence: enough with silence and shame", the second focusing on Afghan women, and the last tackling gender discrimination in sports competitions.

Light will also be shone on the devastating conflicts in the Near-East, thanks to the movies A State of Passion by Carol Mansour and Manu Khalidi, and The Bibi Files by Alexis Bloom. The connection between Switzerland and human rights issues, meanwhile, will be analysed and explained through UNRWA, 75 ans d’une histoire provisoire by Lyana Saleh and Nicolas Wadimoff, set for presentation in a world premiere.

Last but not least, as stressed in the press release, "the 23rd edition foregrounds a powerful idea: the transformation of indignation and anger into solidarity and kindness in the face of political, environmental and institutional upheaval". Films such as Germany’s The Tender Revolution [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Annelie Boros and Queer Camp by Chris Westendorp and Lucas van der Rhee follow directly along these lines.

In addition to the afore-mentioned movies, a number of European productions and co-productions are also selected in this year’s competitions. The fiction films competition will notably welcome Johanné Gómez Terrero’s co-production between the Dominican Republic and Spain, Sugar Island, as well as Santosh [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Sandhya Suri
film profile] by Anglo-Indian director Sandhya Suri, In the Land of Brothers [+see also:
film review
interview: Raha Amirfazli, Alireza Gha…
film profile] by Raha Amirfazli and Alireza Ghasemi, To a Land Unknown [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Mahdi Fleifel
film profile] by Mahdi Fleifel, April [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dea Kulumbegashvili
film profile] by the Georgian director of Ossetian origin Dea Kulumbegashvili and Cosmos by French-Swiss director Germinal Roaux.

On the documentary side, the competition will be welcoming the Swiss-Iraqi co-production Immortals [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Maja Tschumi, which is a feminist film following extraordinary characters, alongside Trains [+see also:
film review
interview: Maciej J Drygas
film profile] by Maciej J. Drygas, The Brink of Dreams [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir
film profile] by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, Soundtrack to a Coup d’État [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Johan Grimonprez
film profile] by Belgian artist and filmmaker Johan Grimonprez, and Writing Hawa [+see also:
film review
interview: Najiba Noori, Rasul Noori
film profile] by Najiba and Rasul Noori.

Last but not least, gracing the Focus Competition we’ll find Made in Ethiopia by Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan, Flowers of Ukraine [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Adelina Borets, and Scars of Growth [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Monika Grassl and Linda Osusky.

(Translated from French)