Get a grip on the issues of our time at the VERZIÓ International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. This year, 60 films from 25 countries will be shown, 40 of them for the first time in Hungary.
These are fresh, creative documentaries flown in from the farthest corners of the world, exploring gender identity, fanaticism, poverty, political oppression, racism and refugees. One shows how the lives of the inhabitants of the Romanian town that posed as a Kazakh village in the film Borat turned upside down after the filming. Another presents the tragedy of North Korean work camps, in song.
Yet another explores the daily life of opposition video journalists in Burma, who risk their lives to take the viewer right into the heat of the turmoil. Another explores the fate of three children, a Bedouin, a Druze and an Orthodox Jew, who received organ transplants from a Palestinian 12-year-old accidentally shot by an Israeli soldier. And another the survival strategies of the homeless in America. Many of these are world-famous contemporary documentaries.
There’s more! In cooperation with the international 20 Years of Democracy project, the festival also brings together Czech, Slovak, Polish, German and Hungarian films about the regime change of 1989. The Polish classic Holes in the Iron Curtain will also be shown. But you won’t just leave the cinema with a film playing in your mind – take part in the roundtable discussions and debates surrounding the films and their subjects, and make your mark on the world.
Don’t forget to vote for your favorite, either – the best film, by audience vote, receives the 1,500-Euro prize.
And more good news – the festival’s official languages are Hungarian and English, which means the films will be shown in their original language, with English subtitles. Hungarian translation will be available via headphones.
The Toldi Theater and Cirko-gejzír Film Theater present this fab festival, with patrons none other than filmmaker Miklós Jancsó and the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which monitors respect for human rights in Hungary.
Festival pass (available at the Toldi Theater): 4,000 HUF until Nov. 3, after that, 4,500 HUF. See one film for just 750 HUF.