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THE VENEZUELAN FILM “HERMANO” WILL OPEN THE 9th HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL ON APRIL 8th

The Venezuelan film Hermano (2010), directed by Marcel Rasquin, will open the 9th San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre on April 8th.

For 8 days, the Victoria Eugenia will serve as the Festival’s main stage. Some forty titles will be screened including feature films and shorts competing for the event’s three awards: Audience Award for Best Feature Film; Youth Jury Award for Best Short Film and the Amnesty International Award for Best Feature Film.

Like every year, different activities will round off the Festival programme: five exhibitions, dance, theatre and music on different stages across the city will accompany the film programme.

Hermano, winner of the Golden Colon for Best Feature Film at the Huelva Latin American Film Festival, will open these days intended, through film and other arts, to raise awareness and understanding in spectators on violations of human rights across the planet. (Read more)

Twinning of the Human Rights Film Festival and FiSAHARA

San Sebastián and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic have gone one step further in their friendly relationship and their commitment to defend Human Rights with their new twinning, in this case, through film.

The mayor of San Sebastián, Odón Elorza, the minister of Culture of the SADR (Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), Mrs. Jadiya Hamdi, and the representant of CEAS (State Coordinator of Associations in Solidarity with the Sahara), Josu Ozcoz, have signed a twinning agreement between the San Sebastián Human Rights Film Festival and the FiSAHARA.

The objective of this agreement is the development of joint initiatives between both festivals with the aim of strengthening the relationship, support the cause of the Sahrawi people and make the international public aware of the Human Rights violations, in particular those suffered by the Sahrawi people in exile.

By virtue of this agreement, the San Sebastián Human Rights Film Festival will advise, disseminate and support FiSAHARA, not only in its programming and its communication platforms but it will facilitate the expositions, films and latest news related with the Western Sahara and it’s Festival so that they may be known worldwide.

That way, it will promote the only festival in the world which is held in a refugee camp, specifically in Tinduf (Algeria), through the Human Rights Film Network (HRFN). The San Sebastián Human Rights Film Festival, organized by the San Sebastián Town Hall’s Human Rights Area and Donostia Kultura, is the only human rights festival in Spain which belongs to this International Network which gathers the principle Human Right Film Festivals.

 

Poster for the 9th San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival

As in previous years, the poster for the 9th San Sebastian Human Rights Film Festival (8-15 April 2011) has been created by the Ytantos design studio. The photography, also as in recent editions of the Festival, is the work of Jotta (Sisustudio).

The picture on the poster shows the planet Earth squeezed like a lemon. A planet on which millions of human beings are exploited by the day, a planet the natural resources of which are also being exploited to the extent that some of them are starting to run out.

The blood of the Earth, of its inhabitants, its mountains and seas, flows from its entrails every day, leaving the surface a little drier with each drop.

Next year, the 9th edition of the San Sebastián Human Rights Film Festival will once again open its doors and its screen to continue “squeezing” the consciences of those who prefer to turn their eyes away from the countless human rights violations which occur the world over. The Festival therefore adds its efforts to the city’s intention that each and every one of the projects carried out in San Sebastian be guided by a common objective of fostering and promoting respect for human rights and the culture of peace.