The 8th International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival begins in Kyiv next week. From 25 to 31 March film showings will take place in the House of Cinema (6 Saksanska St) and the Goethe Institute (12/4 Voloska St).  As always, there will also be a range of seminars, master classes and other events.

The opening film this year is The Other Chelsea – A Story from Donetsk from the German Director Jakob Preuss. For the opening of the Festival on 25 March Jakob Preuss has invited three miners from Donetsk – the heroes of his film.

Presenters of the opening ceremony will be the well-known journalist couple Yehor Sobolyev and Marichka Padalko.

EMPTY CHAIR

Docudays UA has joined the EMPTY CHAIR international campaign in support of Liu Xiaobo, Chinese human rights activist and 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  Liu Xiaobo is serving a long term of imprisonment for his support of political reform and democratization in China.  An empty chair represented the Laureate at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in October 2010 in Oslo

As always there will be two panels of judges: one judging films on their professional merits, the second from their presentation of human rights issues. Since 2009 there has also been a student jury. By tradition, the viewers also choose the film they deem the best through an anonymous questionnaire.

For the second year a Special Prize will be awarded in memory of our friend and festival producer, Andriy Matrosov, The prize will be awarded by the Docudays UA team to the film expressing the most love.

All events and film showings are free of charge.

Join us also at the following Festival events:

25 March : A briefing with Director of the opening film, Jakob Preuss, as well as members of the creative film jury – Miroslav Janek from the Czech Republic; Uldis Sekulis from Latvia, Manon Loizeau from France; Marchin Koszalki from Poland and Alik Shpyliuk (Ukraine).

Venue: House of Cinema, Blue Hall at 18.00

26 March:  National Cartoon Competition Prize-giving Ceremony and the opening of the exhibition of artists producing cartoons. This year’s competition focused on the issues of infringements of freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and association in Ukraine

Venue: House of Cinema Lobby

26 March: Master Class “How to safeguard oneself against unlawful actions by the police”; run by the well-known human rights activists, Head of the UHHRU Board, Arkady Bushchenko and Head of the Cherkasy Human Rights Monitoring Centre, Volodymyr Batchaev

Venue: Blue Sitting Room at 11.00

Other events will include:

A Retrospective Screening of the films by Miroslav Janek;

A special viewing of the view “Murders in Numbers in Putin’s Land” by Manon Loizeau and meeting with its author;

Presentation of the last two films by one of the most striking representatives of contemporary Polish documentary film, Marcin Koszalki and an exclusive chance to engage in discussion with the author;

Special guest, the Russian Director Pavel Kostomarov will present the Ukrainian premier viewing of the films “I love you” and “Together”.

Workshop by Dragon Forum Academy & Docudays UA: From concept to viewer. Development of the documentary project. Training programmes 2011—2012 for documentary directors and producers in Poland and Ukraine, and the project market in Kraków.

See http://docudays.org.ua/2010/en/index.php  for more information