Human Rights Film Festival Award

The year 2007 saw the introduction of our Human Rights Film Festival Award recognising the human rights work and involvement of personalities from the film world. This year the Award goes to actress Pilar Bardem for her personal defence of human rights, democracy, peace, and her support and work in favour of the most disadvantaged causes and groups.

Previous winners of the Award are the producer Elías Querejeta, the filmmaker José Luis Borau, the Serbian director Goran Paskaljevic and the British documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto. All are united by their work to defend the rights of human beings in cinematic trajectories spanning several decades.

2012

The actress and helmer from Madrid, Iciar Bollain, has been working in film for almost three decades since her debut with Víctor Erice in The South (1983). Following her roles in movies like Malaventura (Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1989), El mejor de los tiempos (Felipe Vega, 1990), Sublet (Chus Gutiérrez, 1991), Tocando fondo (José Luis Cuerda, 1993), Jardines colgantes (Pablo Llorca, 1993) and Land and Freedom (Ken Loach, 1994), Iciar made her directorial debut in 1995 with Hi, are you alone?.

Since then, she has alternated her work as an actress with her career as a director, closely portraying the reality of today’s world through situations of immigration, violence or social conflict.

Titles like Flowers from Another World (1999), the tale of immigrants lost in the harsh Spanish countryside; Take My Eyes (2003), her biggest success, the terrible story of violence against women; Even the Rain (2010), to enjoy a special screening this year, on Bolivia’s “water war”; or the more recent Kathmandu, a Mirror in the Sky (2011), about the life of a Catalonian volunteer worker in Nepal. Always down to earth, with a keen eye on events around us, Iciar uses her films to try and make the world a little bit better every day.

2011

Kim Longinotto

2010

Goran Paskaljevic

2009

José Luis Borau

2008

Elías Querejeta

2007

Pilar Bardem