Film Festival

Nepal Human Rights International Film Festival


Human rights, democracy, peace and justice are intertwined terms. A nation attributed with this chain of relationship assures the environment where people exercise their rights and duties without any hurdles, where there is existence of rule of law, peace and order and most importantly freedom of expression. Additionally the ultimate responsibility to respect, protect and promote fundamental human rights rests on state. But there is rampant violation of fundamental human rights. Given the situation, state should create an environment where people could exercise their rights freely.

Nepali society is characterized with cultural diversity but many communities are lagging behind. This happened due to less participation in decision making sectors, lack of opportunities and exclusion on equitable distribution of resources. As poor people do not have access in resources, their economic condition is miserable and economic prosperity accounts nothing.

Similarly, 14 % of dalit population lives in country. But the effective and meaningful participation has not been ensured in all sectors. Government has made some laws to ensure their participation but these are intended to assure quantitative representation rather it should be of capacity building. This is serious failure because without empowerment, mere participation counts nothing.

There are other serious concerns of other Madhesi and indigenous communities in Nepal, which the state should address. For that one needs to be patient because transformation of society is not possible overnight. One needs to think of explorative idea which changes society. Amongst others, an advocacy of human rights through film may be one. As Nepal has many stories of human rights violation the proposed project may contribute to bring those stories in camera and explore.

Therefore, owing these circumstances the Human Rights Film Center organized 4th Nepal Human Rights International Film Festival to promote and protect of human rights through film. It contributed in generating awareness at local level and developing strong mechanism to pressurize the state authority to protect, respect and fulfill fundamental human rights.

Film is one of the most powerful tools to advocate human rights, peace and justice in the society. This sort of movement has been well established in international arena. In the context of Nepal, documentaries and short films are being made on the issues of human rights. But issue of Human Rights has still to become one of the hot subjects for mainstream films, although few films have been made on this issue in the past couple of years.

So, there is need to raise the level of awareness about the human rights and their effective realization in Nepalese context. Film festival is the one of the platform for the debate and discussion about the social issues through the film and other outreach programs. Along with this joint campaign the Human Right Film Center strives for the promotion of human right through film and it is believed that execution of video advocacy is also an effective method. It increases the sense of awareness of human right among the people and effective to develop pressure on state to protect, respect and fulfill human rights.