Movies that Matter celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year. For two decades, we have harnessed the power of film to raise awareness of human rights and social justice, and to spark dialogue around these issues. From 20 to 28 March 2026, we warmly welcome you to the festival in The Hague.

On Friday 20 March the documentary American Doctor by Poh Si Teng opens the Movies that Matter Festival 2026 in The Hague

When three American doctors – Palestinian, Jewish and Zoroastrian – enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to make a difference. As the world watches a besieged and heavily bombed Gaza grapple with a humanitarian catastrophe, a collapsing healthcare system, and an unprecedented civilian death toll, American Doctor tells a deeply humanitarian story from which we must not look away.

Since late 2024, the Movies that Matter Festival has held the prestigious status of an Academy Award®–qualifying festival. The winner of the Grand Jury Documentary Competition will therefore be eligible next year for consideration for an Oscar® nomination for Best Documentary Feature Film.

From the festival’s full film programme, eight documentaries have been selected for the competition: All About The Money, American Doctor, Kikuyu Land, MARIINKA, Soldier’s Bones, Traces, Sentient and Silenced.

During the festival, three films will also be screened that are currently nominated for an Oscar®: Cutting Through the Rocks, Mr. Nobody Against Putin and The Alabama Solution.

Together with The Hague music venue PAARD, we present Films that Make Noise: a series of striking protest films in which the connection between music and social change takes center stage. This Friday, it’s time for the second film in the series: Raving Iran (2017).

Arash and Anoosh dream of a career as techno DJs, but in Iran that is virtually impossible. So they play at illegal parties and try to sell their album “under the counter” at record shops. After an arrest, their hopes for the future seem to fade—until an invitation to perform at a major dance festival in Switzerland offers new possibilities.

After the screening, moderator Jesse Evers will host a discussion with the audience and Iranian-Dutch producer, rapper, and artist Kourosh. The film will be screened with English subtitles.

In the near future in Spain, the Government aims to replace judges with an Artificial Intelligence software, pledging to effectively automate and depoliticise the justice system. Carmen Costa, a distinguished judge, has been invited to assess this new procedure.

The film can still be seen in Amsterdam, Arnhem, Deventer, Gouda en Middelburg.