Acclaimed filmmaker and Respect Human Rights Film Festival Director, Seán Murray, highlights his top five films showing at the festival.

The third Respect Human Rights Film Festival will take place in Belfast from 4-7 October and will feature a range of films highlighting topical issues such as immigration, healthcare, homelessness, asylum seekers, LGBTQ rights, workers’ rights and environmental concerns.

As filmmakers in a post-conflict society we face many obstacles, but the increase in production of local films sees a welcome focus on issues that can be seen as difficult to talk about. Ahead of the opening gala, I have identified five of the best films and documentaries which are showing as part of the festival.

 

Blowback: The 9/11 Wars in Global Film

Saturday 5 October, An Cultúrlann, 4pm

What is the relationship between any given film and the culture which produces it? ‘Blowback: The 9/11 Wars in Global Film’ interrogates how cinema, and in particular the war film, plays a pivotal role in constructing how societies come to understand the wars in which they participate. This short film explores the representation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in world cinema. It argues that films function as resonant cultural artefacts that shape how the conflicts come to be understood and remembered by audiences at the time and those of generations to come.

 

Eminent Monsters

Sunday 6 October, An Cultúrlann, 6.30pm

Respect Human Rights Film Festival will close with this timely film by Stephen Bennett which traces the Western governments’ love affair with torture. This includes extraordinary first-hand testimony from Guantanamo Bay survivors and the Hooded Men. The Court of Appeal in Belfast recently ruled that interrogation techniques used against the Hooded Men during internment in Northern Ireland would be torture if deployed today. This film and the Q&A with two of the Hooden Men, Francis McGuigan and Liam Shannon will shine a further light on the shocking use of torture.

 

Are you Proud?

Sunday 6 October, James Connolly Visitor Centre, 3pm

The LGBTQ+ movement in the UK has fought bruising battles for equality. Directed by Ashley Joiner, ‘Are You Proud?’ brings together rare archive footage and interviews from across a spectrum of historical campaigns to celebrate the movement’s landmark achievements. While celebrating the incredible progress across the western world, this film reminds us of the progress and equality which our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in the North await and deserve.

Bosnia Herzegovina: The Cold Peace

Saturday 5 October, James Connolly Visitor Centre, 5pm

In November 1995, the Dayton Agreement brought the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina to an end, but it did not build a real peace. A quarter-century after the end of the 1992-1995 conflict, a filmmaker, a cooperator and a writer went looking for the conflict’s witnesses. However, despite hoping that the signing of the 1995 peace agreement would signal a new dawn and rebuild the country it instead became a country that was a prisoner of nationalism, corruption, poverty and hatred. This short film eloquently underlines the grief and neglect faced by the people of Bosnia Herzegovina.

 

A Dignified Death

Friday 4 October, An Cultúrlann, 6.30pm

The Opening Gala of the festival will screen this fascinating documentary which explores the sensitive topic of euthanasia. This can be a difficult area to discuss, but this documentary acutely portrays the human element and breaks many of the taboos associated with assisted suicide. The final journey of Eelco, a man with unbearable mental health suffering, and the emotional impact this decision has on his family left behind is incredibly poignant and striking.

 

Respect Human Rights Film Festival have curated a programme which encourages debate on many issues and promotes human rights across society while also demonstrating a real local passion for film. The full programme can be viewed here.