Magazine

Project officer Tess shares the ins and outs of our international work, which supports human rights film festivals worldwide through funding, workshops, advice and an extensive network.

The film screenings of Total Trust in our On Tour programme for the month of November have ended. However, the film’s interpretation of the dangers of surveillance technology and the violation of privacy is more relevant than ever.

The Human Rights Film Network (HRFN), comprised of around 50 human rights film festivals from around the world, joins major international human rights and humanitarian organizations, as well as cultural and film collectives and millions of voices around the world, is urgently calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire on all parts and the protection of all civilians in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

How can a film screening serve as a dialogue starter to introduce students to certain topics? Karlijn talks about her experiences as project coordinator of the education team.

As long as our festival exists, we have been seeing and showing films about Israel and Palestine. To better understand the events of the past few weeks, it is important to know the context and history. To provide some insight into this, we have made a selection of films that were previously shown at our festival and that can still be viewed online.

During the festival in The Hague, we interviewed Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, the Oscar-nominated directors of Writing With Fire. We discussed their documentary's journey over its one-year festival circuit and how it subsequently reached its intended audience worldwide.

The Territory exposes the devastating impact of deforestation while spotlighting the courageous efforts of environmental defenders. In an interview with director Alex Pritz, we delve into the film's vital role in raising awareness and galvanizing action against environmental destruction.

Vivian Anderson, protagonist in the Activist documentary On These Grounds, was visiting Amsterdam for the Black Achievement Month and swung by our office for an interview. We talked about her work as activist and how the film brought a local initiative to the world stage.

Movies that Matter works year-round for human rights films and festivals in countries where these rights are under pressure. This article illustrates the importance of this commitment with the recent news of Mohammad Rasoulof’s travel ban.

Hicham Falah is the director of human rights film festival FIDADOC, Morocco's oldest documentary festival. We spoke with him about his travelling project, called Triq Cinima ('The Road of Cinema'), which received a start-up grant from Movies that Matter in 2021.