20 June is World Refugee Day. As the asylum debate intensifies in the Netherlands and millions of people around the world are fleeing war and oppression, it is more important than ever to keep listening and seeing each other.

In the brand new Movies that Matter podcast we dive deep into the stories, people and human rights issues behind the films screened at our festival. In this first episode we share a conversation with Tommy Gulliksen, the director of the film Facing War, recorded live in The Hague at our 2025 festival. The conversation was moderated by Nicole Sprokel, former Senior Political Affairs Officer at Amnesty International Netherlands.

In Burkina Faso, a country grappling with conflict, displacement, and deep uncertainty, filmmaker and film festival organiser Abdoulaye Diallo has chosen the camera as his tool of resistance - and the film festival as a stage for hope. We spoke with him about his view on films in relation to human rights and how the Human Rights Film Network offers a sense of solidarity to other human rights film festival organizers.

What does war do to the people who didn't choose it - but end up in the middle of it? And how do you hold a shaky world order together before things really go wrong? During the Just Peace Festival 2025, in the run-up to the NATO summit in The Hague, Movies that Matter joins forces with PAARD, Flora Filmtheater and Theatre and Filmhuis Dakota with a specially curated film series under the title NATO Film Week, showing the complexity of war and keeping the peace. Four totally different films, with totally different perspectives, together paint one telling picture of these times.

Sarah Mpapuluu is the Festival Coordinator and Co-Founder behind the Under Our Skin International Film Festival on Human Rights in Kenya, which has been spotlighting powerful stories since receiving its first start-up grant from Movies that Matter in 2020. Now four editions in, the festival continues to grow as a platform for dialogue and change.

Missed a screening at the festival? Don't worry! Here are all the films that are now available to watch online.

On Wednesday 26 March, the Movies that Matter Festival announced the winners of its 17th edition during the award ceremony at Theater Aan het Spui in The Hague.

Choice stress during the festival? We’ll help you out! Especially for this edition, we have teamed up with Omroep HUMAN, the Dutch broadcasting organization, to create a film route centered around the theme of censorship.