Opening of the Travelling Film Festival Docudays Ua 2009 (Human Rights Documentary Days)

2009-10-07

5 October saw the opening of the 6th Travelling Film Festival Docudays Ua 2009 (Human Rights Documentary Days).

The programme of the travelling festival 2009 is made up of the 6th International Docudays Ua Festival winners, as well as prize winners of the most famous international film festivals. The topics touched upon by filmmakers range from stupefying stories of people living in war zones or at the times of natural and other disasters to problems of gender equality, discrimination, children’s and disabled people’s rights violations. The highlights of the festival are stories of those who have conquered life circumstances, defended their rights and reached their goals.

This season’s new introduction is a special festival programme called “Documentaries against Injustice”, which consists of journalistic films on topical human rights problems in Ukraine, such as special projects “Stop Violence” and “A Right to Truth”.

The festival will encompass press conferences, seminars, discussions and meetings between viewers, directors, human rights activists and experts. By means of cinematography, the festival aims to draw the attention of Ukrainian society to the problems of an “ordinary” person, to promote the development of open dialogue on human rights and foster the attitude to human dignity as to the highest value. Big cities are not the only places where the festival’s film screenings and other events take place. This year, the festival has been held in more than 100 towns of 20 regions of the country.

A special focus of the festival has been documentaries on children’s rights dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on children’s right. This Docudays Ua initiative is carried out within the framework of the Global Children’s Rights Festival, which is sponsored by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (http://www.unicef.org/rightsite/).

Every year, the programme of the International Docudays Ua Festival (Human Rights Documentary Days) is enriched with plenty of films on topical children’s rights issues. This theme never fails to capture the attention of the best documentary film makers around the globe. Many films are brilliant examples of the world documentary cinema and have received the most prestigious awards of international film festivals of many countries around the world.

Film screenings will take place in Simferopol and 12 regions of Crimea. The festival will stay in Crimea until 20 October, but its journey around the cities and towns of Ukraine will continue until 22 December.

Based on the materials of http://www.docudays.org.ua/