16/02/2026 - A space for exchange and engagement, the Genevan festival will organise resistance in the face of authoritarian abuses and the weakening of international law

Between 6 and 15 March, the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) will becomes the repository for the worries of an increasingly inward-looking world. Uniting activists, filmmakers, journalists and artists - including French actress and activist Adèle Haenel, Italian journalist and researcher Francesca Albanese and French filmmaker Claire Denis, who’ll be presenting her latest film The Fence [+see also:
film review
interview: Claire Denis
film profile] at the festival and to whom the Swiss Film Archive will be dedicating a retrospective - the gathering will open debate on the worrying rise of authoritarianism which is having a particularly direct impact on people from minority groups.

One particular film exploring this subject-matter is The Meloni Case, directed by French-Italian journalist Anna Bonalume and French director Jérémy Frey, and screening in a world premiere. As its title implies, the film examines the danger posed by the Italian Prime Minister, her Brothers of Italy party and her ideology vis-à-vis democracy and civil rights. Civil rights are also central to Laundry [+see also:
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film profile] by Zamo Mkhwanazi, which investigates the injustices of the apartheid regime in South Africa, and Julian [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Cato Kusters
film profile], Belgian director Cato Kusters’ first feature film, which revolves around people’s right to live their private lives as they see fit. The two works will take part in the Fiction Competition.

Abuses and the erosion of the world order are likewise at the heart of this year’s FIFDH, by way of two emblematic movies: the historical drama Palestine 36 [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Palestinian director and producer Annemarie Jacir, which is selected in the Fiction Competition, and Disunited Nations by French documentary maker Christophe Cotteret, which follows the everyday reality of Francesca Albanese, a UN special rapporteur for Palestine’s occupied territories. Screening in the Focus Competition, the film reports on the international community’s inaction in the face of the genocide unfolding in Gaza. The response to these authoritarian abuses and to the risk of democratic collapse notably comes in the form of projects such as French reporter Charles Villa’s documentary From GAZA with LOVE, which lends a voice to the children of Gaza.

Last but not least, the climate emergency broached through the prism of citizen-led action and other more intimate forms of engagement will notably be explored by Portuali (Focus Competition) by young Italian director Perla Sardella, which follows the struggles of dock workers in Genoa; Mailin by Argentina’s María Silvia Esteve, probing sexual abuse within the church; Black Water [+see also:
trailer
interview: Natxo Leuza
film profile] by Spain’s Natxo Leuza, and A Fox Under a Pink Moon by Iranian director Mehrdad Oskouuei and young Afghan artist Soraya Akhalaghi, who also toplines the film. These three titles are selected in the Creative Documentaries Competition, which will also showcase the poignant movie Molly vs the Machine by British director Marc Silver, while Traces by Ukrainian directors Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk is screening in the Focus Competition.

A significant number of European productions and co-productions have been selected in the festival’s various competitions this year, alongside the afore-mentioned films. The Fiction Competition will notably boast Lost Land [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Akio Fujimoto and Cotton Queen [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Sudanese-Russian director Suzannah Mirghani.

In terms of documentaries, the competition will notably platform Letters from Wolf Street [+see also:
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trailer
film profile] by Arjun Talwar, alongside Silver [+see also:
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film profile] by Polish director Natalia Koniarz.

Last but not least, the Focus line-up will further consist of French film Belleville nous verra toujours danser by Hugo Sobelman, Swiss works Elephants & Squirrels [+see also:
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film profile] by Gregor Brändli, Freedom – Shewit’s Destiny [+see also:
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film profile] by Anne-Frédérique Widmann and Solidarity by David Bernet, alongside Identidad by Florencia Santucho and Rodrigo Vázquez-Salessi, and The System by Joris Postema.

(Translated from French)