Presentation

The San Sebastian City Council and this Mayor’s Office are firmly committed to the task of converting our city into a place of meeting and freedom, where diversity is a source of wealth and peace is the most solid link between all citizens.

Organised by Donostia Kultura and the Department of Youth, Education, Cooperation and Human Rights, the Human Rights Film Festival is one of the most important initiatives on the programme “San Sebastián, Space for a Culture of Peace”, an endeavour to construct a framework of coexistence based on respect for all human rights. 

The 5th San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival will take place from 16-23 March at the Teatro Principal. However, one new feature underlining the importance of this solidary film event is that it will also partly take place in the recently reopened Victoria Eugenia Antzokia.

This Festival will look, among other subjects, at children’s rights, reconciliation, the right to die with dignity, sexual identity, access to water, the immense problems suffered by the African continent or dictatorships and repression, all in the shape of feature films and documentaries which are often premiere previews or are coming to our city after having garnered success at prestigious international festivals.

In addition to the Official Selection of Feature Films, spaces on Africa, Latin America and the “A Second Chance” and “Movie Classics” seasons open new perspectives for the coming together of cinema and human rights. 

The Festival also includes screenings for educational centres due to our belief that educating children and youths on the subject of human rights is a priority for an Educating City such as San Sebastian, a member of the International Educating Cities Network.

An international selection of short films will permit youths to increase their participation in the Festival as part of the jury granting the Youth Award for Best Short Film.

As always, our intention is to make the question of human rights visible in the city’s public spaces. Thus, while the Festival is on, there will be an open-air exhibition entitled “Millennium Gates”, giving a clear-cut, attractive explanation of the 8 Goals of the UN “Millennium Campaign”. The exhibition “The Sign of Abuse” will make us more aware of the horror of child abuse through drawings of boys and girls who have suffered it.  

There will be photography, music, and even dance, brought to us once again by the Verdini Dantza Taldea, who will give us a preview of its performance Argira. And words as always: directors, film stars and experts in the subjects at hand will follow the screenings with discussions open to the attending film audience.

We would like to thank the Spanish Secretariat of State for Cooperation, and its Secretary, Leire Pajín, the Spanish International Cooperation Agency (AECI), belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its financial backing, the European Commission, the Nantes Spanish Film Festival, the Mexican Human Rights Academy Human Rights Film Festival and associations and NGOs for their enthusiastic collaboration, without which this Festival would not be possible.    

Every year the Festival grows in events and prestige thanks to its warm acceptance by the public in a humanitarian, film-loving city.

Our aim is to keep on working to ensure that this Festival continues to make San Sebastian a city with close links to the cinema and committed to peace and human rights.

ODON ELORZA GONZALEZ
Mayor of San Sebastian