The 2021 Human Rights Watch Film Festival celebrates 25 years with a digital edition featuring 10 powerful and uplifting new documentaries.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival
NAME OF FESTIVAL: Human Rights Watch Film Festival
SINCE: 2009
WHERE: New York, USA
WEBSITE: www.ff.hrw.org
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL: Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. We work tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep rooted change and fight to bring greater justice and security to people around the world. Through our Human Rights Watch Film Festival we bear witness to human rights violations and create a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference. The film festival brings to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to empathize and demand justice for all people.
Erika Cohn’s BELLY OF THE BEAST to World Premiere at Human Rights Watch Film Festival New York Digital Edition
Filmed over seven years, Erika Cohn’s ‘Belly of the Beast’ exposes modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival Launches Digital Edition
For the first time ever, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will expand beyond New York City and present a digital edition of its full slate of films.
Irish Abortion Rights Documentary THE 8TH to Premiere at Human Rights Watch Film Festival
The 8th from directors Lucy Kennedy, Maeve O’Boyle, and Aideen Kane tells the story of Irish women’s fight to overturn one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the world.
Kenyan Documentary I AM SAMUEL to U.S. Premiere at Human Rights Watch Film Festival NY Digital Edition
Kenyan director Pete Murimi’s documentary I am Samuel will have its U.S. premiere at 2020 Human Rights Watch Film Festival New York Digital Edition.
Eunice Lau Tackles Radicalization in Documentary ACCEPT THE CALL at Human Rights Watch Film Festival
In the new documentary film Accept the Call from Eunice Lau, a father seeks to understand why his son is accused of terrorism.
Jason DaSilva’s Multiple Sclerosis Documentary WHEN WE WALK to Premiere at Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Disability activist and filmmaker Jason DaSilva will premiere When We Walk the follow-up to his 2013 documentary When I Walk, at the 2019 Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival 30th Anniversary to Showcase 13 Timely and Provocative Films
The 30 Anniversary of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York City will showcase 13 timely and provocative films, from June 13 to 20, 2019.
THE SILENCE OF OTHERS To Have NY Premiere At Human Rights Watch Film Festival
The award-winning documentary The Silence of Others is a beautiful, cinematic, and poetic film about the people who are fighting for justice and a reckoning in Spain on crimes committed by the Franco regime
2018 Human Rights Watch Film Festival to Showcase 15 Films – 12 Directed by Women, Opens with ON HER SHOULDERS
This year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival will showcase 15 timely and provocative documentary and narrative works, screening June 14 to 21, 2018 in New York City.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival, London Will Feature 14 Award Winning Films, Opens with “Naila and the Uprising” | Trailers
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London from March 8 to 16, 2018, will feature 14 award-winning international documentary and feature films, half of them directed by women.
2017 Human Rights Watch Film Festival Announces Lineup of 21 Films, Opens with NOWHERE TO HIDE
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival returns to New York City June 9 to 18, 2017 with 21 topical and provocative feature documentaries and panel discussions that showcase courageous resilience in challenging times.
Toronto’s 14th Human Rights Watch Film Festival Unveils Lineup, Opening with A SYRIAN LOVE STORY
Toronto’s 14th annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival, presented by TIFF and Human Rights Watch, will feature an eight-film lineup that galvanizes an impassioned call for social change through extraordinary stories of struggle, survival and hope.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London Unveils Lineup, Opens with I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival will take place in London from March 6 to 17, 2017, featuring 16 award-winning international documentary feature films that grapple with the challenges of defending human rights around the world today.
Docs on Syrian Refugees, LGBT Rights on Lineup for Human Rights Watch Film Festival
The 27th Human Rights Watch Film Festival co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center will take place June 10 to 19, and showcase 18 topical and provocative feature films and three special interactive programs.
Docs on the Arab Spring, LGBT Issues, Women’s Rights and More Among 22 Films Featured in NYC’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Private Violence
The 25th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival will run from June 12 to 22, 2014 with a program of 22 films that bring human rights struggles to life through storytelling, and remind us that film can be a powerful source of change and inspiration. The festival is co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center.
Twenty documentaries and two fiction films will be featured, including 19 New York premieres and an unprecedented 16 features by women. The Human Rights Watch Film Festival is especially proud to be celebrating its 25th anniversary. What began as a series of films shown on a modest-sized television in a small New York City theater is now experienced on the big screen by over 100,000 passionate audience members in more than 20 cities worldwide.
London’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival Unveils 2014 Film Lineup
DANGEROUS ACTS STARRING THE UNSTABLE ELEMENTS OF BELARUS
The 18th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London will run from March 18 to 28, 2014 with a lineup of 20 award-winning documentary and feature films. The festival will take place at the Curzon Mayfair, Curzon Soho, Ritzy Brixton and for the first time at the Barbican. This year’s program is organized around five themes: Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring; Human Rights Defenders, Icons and Villains; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Rights; Migrants’ Rights and Women’s Rights and Children’s Rights.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival Heads to Toronto; Opens with THE SQUARE on Feb 27, Closes on March 6 with HIGHWAY OF TEARS
Matthew Smiley’s hard-hitting documentary HIGHWAY OF TEARS
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival returns for its 11th year in Toronto with eight films that the festival describes as bravely bearing witness to human rights violations in Canada and around the globe, and make an impassioned call for social change through their empowering stories of perseverance, resilience and hope. The Human Rights Watch Film Festival opens at Toronto International Film Festival TIFF Bell Lightbox on February 27 with THE SQUARE (2013), director Jehane Noujaim’s (Control Room) thrilling documentary chronicle of activism, unrest and revolution in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and closes on March 6 with the world premiere of Canadian director Matthew Smiley’s hard-hitting documentary HIGHWAY OF TEARS (2013).
Human Rights Watch Film Festival Returns to NYC, Opens with Documentary on Tim Hetherington on June 13
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival returns to New York from June 13 to 23, 2013 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center. Eighteen documentaries and two fiction films will be featured, including 15 New York premieres. The festival kicks off on June 13 with the HBO documentary Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival Returns to Toronto, Opens on February 26 with Putin’s Kiss

The 10th Human Rights Watch Film Festival with a 10-film lineup of “politically charged, inspiring and empowering stories covering themes of oppression, struggle and resilience” opens on February 26, 2013 at TIFF Bell Lightbox with Lise Birk Pedersen’s Putin’s Kiss (2012), a documentary/coming-of-age story about life in contemporary Russia as experienced by Masha Drokova, a middle-class youth activist and member of the anti-fascist group Nashi. The festival runs until March 7.
Highlights include a focus on women’s issues with Jeremy Teicher’s Tall as the Baobab Tree (2012), set in a rural African village poised at the outer edge of the modern world where a girl hatches a secret plan to rescue her 11-year-old sister from an arranged marriage, and Atiq Rahimi’s The Patience Stone (2012), a gripping film about a woman in an unnamed, war-torn Middle Eastern country who delivers an engrossing, liberating monologue to her comatose husband.
The full lineup of films:
Special Flight Among Lineup for 9th Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Toronto
The 9th Human Rights Watch Film Festival opens on February 29, 2012 in Toronto Canada at TIFF Bell Lightbox with Fernand Melgar’s documentary Special Flight, a portrait of the legal limbo that faces thousands of detainees in Switzerland’s Frambois detention centre as refugees anxiously await confirmation of their requests for asylum. The festival is a co-presentation between TIFF and Human Rights Watch, and will run until March 9. Festival highlights include Jon Shenk’s The Island […]
2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival Lineup Features 19 Films
Now in its 22nd year, the 2011 Human Rights Watch Film Festival returns to New York from June 16 to 30 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater. Nineteen of the best human rights themed films from 12 countries will be screened, 17 of them New York premieres. The Human Rights Watch Film Festival program this year is organized around four themes: Truth, Justice and Accountability; Times of Conflict and Responses to […]