The 7th Karama Beirut Human Rights Film Festival
The 7th Karama Beirut Human Rights Film Festival was held under the title “Hold on“, emphasizing the need to “adhere to the fundamentals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and on diversity and inclusion of marginalized groups”. Despite the clarity of the texts of this international charter, its “true understanding and practice are subject to much misinterpretations and various obstacles, which leads to the practical deprivation of these rights”.
The festival, in its 7th session (October 5-8, 2023), screened 13 films from several countries, “in an attempt to restore clarity to the practice of human rights, which means preserving human dignity and diversity everywhere, as a founding principle of human rights in our (Arab) countries”. The films are fictional and documentary, translated into English and Arabic, and their topics include diversity, inclusion of marginalized groups, workers’ and refugees’ rights, women’s rights, war, migration, and slavery.
As in every session, several post-screening discussions were organized with the participation of guest directors; and a training workshop was organized on “Refuting common media myths and fallacies about people with disabilities”, which was recorded visually and aurally, and it is noteworthy that “Lebanese students benefited from it”.
Among the participating films: “Goldfishes“, winner of the Arab Network for Human Rights Films – ANHAR Award for the best human rights film for the year 2022, and the film “Under the Fig Trees” by Tunisian Erige Sehiri, “Heroic Bodies” by Sudanese Sara Suleiman, “Anxious in Beirut” by Lebanese Zakariya Jaber, “Borderline” by the French Antoine Bonzon and Benoit Bizard in cooperation with the ANHAR network and the Karama Human Rights Films Festival in Jordan.
