The FIFDH (Film Festival and International Forum on Human Rights) was canceled, but Festival 2.0 still took place, thanks to the responsiveness of Isabelle Gattiker, its director, and all her teams. By streaming, on the Net, allowing the different juries to view the works selected in the different sections. Is this a good thing? Difficult to answer in the positive, as the decision to maintain an event in the context of alarming news does not necessarily make sense.
In this hybrid and confined form, the FIFDH probably had to row to interest internet users, even if a press release assures us that the program 2.0. brought together activists, artists, journalists and filmmakers for debates and interviews broadcast live on the internet. “Do not take away the only thing that remains to us: the possibility of testifying,” said on the stage of the Festival Abdul Aziz Muhamat, activist for refugees, winner of the 2019 Martin Ennals Prize.
“Public opinion must speak up. When we silence, it is our society that weakens us. ” The FIFDH has adopted the slogan of Agnès Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, who was present in Geneva for several debates. In the end, nearly 30 debates and interviews broadcast on the Net which, in ten days, generated more than 55,000 video views between YouTube and Facebook.
Communicated on Saturday, his prize list takes precedence over films that most of us did not take the time to see, as the streaming focus is still too restrictive for many reasons. Geneva Grand Prix with 10,000 francs, the political thriller “Colectiv”, by the Romanian Alexander Nanau, will soon be broadcast on the RTS. It deals with government corruption from a visibly new angle.
On the fictional side, “Maternal” by Mauro Delpero, an Argentinian production that we were able to discover in Locarno and which observes teenage mothers, received the Grand Prix fiction and human rights, also endowed with 10,000 francs. Among the countless other prizes, we are particularly pleased with the special mention obtained by “Under the skin” by Robin Harsch (read our editions of Friday March 13) within the jury of La Clairière, and this other special mention rewarding “Those who work ”by Romand Antoine Russbach, this time awarded by the Champ-Dollon jury.
But we are even more delighted to find the FIFDH in 2021, this time in real life, hoping that the pandemic that we are currently going through is ancient history. It will be from March 5 to 14, for a 19th edition that we want more abundant than ever.
Created: 03.15.2020, 21:35
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