The special RIGHTS NOW! prize is an award given to creative documentaries which explore and analyse the modern world and make a significant contribution to the discussion around human dignity, freedom, and equality. Nine films from all festival programmes are nominated for it.
The winners in the RIGHTS NOW! nomination have been determined by
Masi-Mustafa Nayyem, Ukrainian lawyer serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, public figure and human rights advocate;
Dagmar Ostřanská, cultural manager and founder of the Sofia DocuMental International Human Rights Film Festival; and
Kujtim Çashku, filmmaker, Executive Director of the International Human Rights Film Festival in Albania, and Head of the Assembly of the Albanian Helsinki Union.
MAIN PRIZE
Iron Butterflies / Roman Liubyi / Ukraine, Germany / 2023 / 84’
Iron Butterflies shows artistic sharp approaches, with a very rich cinematic language, that invite the audience in an interactive dialogue and réflexion, into a scene of a war crime of 2014 related to the Malaysian Airlines Flight shot down by Russian forces in the east of Ukraine. Beyond that, the film analyzes the importance of the truth to our days of the Ukrainian war by underlying that every war crime wherever and whenever it happens can never be hidden in time, place or space.
SPECIAL MENTION
The Killing of a Journalist / Matt Sarnecki / Denmark, Czech Republic, USA / 2022 / 100’
Documentary The Killing of a Journalist is about the investigation of the murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kušnírová. It describes in detail the work of fellow journalists who have collected 70 terabytes of data and are dedicated to their analysis and search for the truth. We realize how fragile democracy is not only in today's Slovakia.
Here is the list of films nominated for RIGHTS NOW! Award:
- Twice Colonized, dir. Lin Alluna (Denmark, Greenland, Canada)
- The Etilaat Roz, dir. Abbas Rezaie (Afghanistan)
- Seeds of Hunger: Ukraine 1933, dir. Guillaume Ribot (France)
- A Silent Story, dir. Anders Skovbjerg Jepsen (Denmark, Sweden)
- Seven Winters in Tehran, dir. Steffi Niederzoll (Germany, France)
- 20 Days In Mariupol, dir. Mstyslav Chernov (Ukraine)
- Iron Butterflies, dir. Roman Liubyi (Ukraine, Germany)
- The Killing of a Journalist, dir. Matt Sarnecki (Denmark, Czech Republic, USA)
- The Trial, dir. Ulises de la Orden (Argentina, Italy, France, Norway)
