The Movies that Matter Festival will take place from 25 to 30 March 2011 at Filmhuis Den Haag and Theater aan het Spui in The Hague. This year’s edition features more than seventy human rights movies and documentaries as well as an elaborate programme consisting of debates, talk shows with the participation of international guests, expositions and live music performances.

The Movies that Matter Festival comprises of two main sections. ‘A Matter of ACT’ contains documentaries about human rights defenders, while ‘Camera Justitia’ sheds light on the human rights and justice theme using films about international law and transitional justice and the fight against impunity.

The A Matter of ACT 2011 program includes a diverse selection of documentaries about ten brave men and women from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

MOVIES THAT MATTER FILM FESTIVAL 2011 NOMINEES

UNJUST

Josefina Bergsten

Three men from three Asian countries: Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. They were a thorn in the side of their authorities. Without explanation, they are killed by the secret police. The perpetrators are still at large. Unjust follow the remaining three, brave women, including the widow of the Indonesian Munir, in their ongoing struggle for justice.

RUSSIAN LESSONS

Andrei Nekrasov / Olga Konskaya

Personal investigation into the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008 by activist filmmakers Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya. They filmed at the front lines and compare their images with the official version of the Russian government, which was taken over uncritically by the Western media.

SARABAH

Maria Luisa Gambale / Gloria Bremer (World premiere)

You are not just as a woman successful in the male-dominated Senegalese rap scene. Sister Fa succeeded. As a child himself circumcised, put the Queen of Hip-Hop now in order to save this suffering Senegalese girls. In the documentary Sarabah she returned to her native village with music education and the fight to continue with this ancient tradition.

THE JUNGLE RADIO

Susanne Jäger (Dutch premiere)

The Jungle Radio takes us deep into the jungles of Nicaragua where the feminist Yamileth Chavarria has established a radio station with a unique mission: to challenge the widespread domestic violence against women and children. Threatened several times already, do not hesitate to men who are guilty of abuse in the pillory nailing.

CAMEROON: COMING OUT OF THE NKUTA

Celine Metzger

Since 1972 there is a maximum penalty of five years on homosexuality in Cameroon. This conflicts with the Constitution, human rights lawyer finds Alice Nkom. She is tireless in her country for homosexuals.

NERO’S GUESTS

Deepa Bhatia

In the last ten years committed more than 200 000 farmers in India committed suicide. A tragedy caused by grinding poverty. But neither the authorities nor the media pick it up. Nero’s Guests Palagummi Sainath journalist who follows the plight of the poor peasants picking up.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI – LADY OF NO FEAR

Bonne Anne Gyrithe

Portrait of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi since 1988 leader of the nonviolent movement for human rights and democracy in Burma. The documentary Lady of No Fear focuses on her personal life and the immense sacrifices herself imposes its goal.

BUDRUS

Julia Bacha
The Palestinian Ayed Morrar connects Fatah and Hamas members and Israelis in their peaceful struggle against the destruction of his village Budrus by the Israeli separation wall. Without wallowing in misery or to romanticize the peace, let Budrus seeing the success of this peace-maker in the Palestinian community.

A SMALL ACT

Jennifer Arnold
How a small act can have great consequences. Hilde Back then sponsored a Kenyan child, she had not expected anything from him to hear. But years later, this child, now a graduate of Harvard and human rights lawyer for the United Nations in search of his benefactor. Inspired by Back he himself supports rural children in Kenya.

THE DEVIL OPERATION

Stephanie Boyd
A documentary discovers while filming protests by farmers against a Peruvian American mining company who pollutes land, that a dirty game is played. The local priest Marco Arana is committed to the farmers. The Devil Operation can be viewed as a political thriller.

A Matter of ACT awards two Amnesty International prizes: a Golden Butterfly for one of the human rights activists and a Golden Butterfly for the director of the best documentary film. The jury, presided by activist Bianca Jagger, is further composed of Frans Huijnen (president of the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission), Iraqi filmmaker Mohammed Al Daradji and American documentary maker Pamela Yates

CAMERA JUSTITIA

The festival’s main programme, Camera Justitia is concerned with human rights and justice and consists of seven films and ensuing debates on international law, justice and tackling impunity. The work of courts and commissions for truth and reconciliation across the world is through the eyes of victims, perpetrators and judges from Colombia to Congo. With its international criminal court and tribunals, The Hague has a solid reputation as an international city of peace and justice.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, will lead a master class in the afternoon of Friday, 25 March to give students an idea of the professional challenges he is faced with. That same evening, Camera Justitia kicks off with the documentary Prosecutor, a portrait of Moreno-Ocampo.

The Camera Justitia Award, also known as the Silver Butterfly, and the €3,000 prize that goes with it, is awarded to the director of the film that portrays an urgent human rights issue with the highest degree of expressiveness and humanity. The jury for the Camera Justitia Award will be presided by lawyer Lousewies van der Laan, human rights lawyer Alice Nkom from Cameroon and documentary filmmaker John Appel. For the films that will contend for this year’s Camera Justitia Award, go here

On Wednesday, 30 March, the closing night of the Movies that Matter Festival, Lousewies van der Laan will hand out the Camera Justitia Award to the winning director.