HUMAN RIGHTS


The following films from the multiple Media That Matters Film Festival collections explore the issue of human rights. For even more films on this issue, visit MediaRights.org.

Ashray

Affected or infected, the children of Ashray in Bombay live together as one family, despite their HIV status.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

By-Standing: The Beginning of an American Lifetime

Kelly Tsai speaks truth to power as she raises her voice against war and complacency.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

CopWatch

Fed up with police brutality, the organization “Copwatch” decided to keep an eye on big brother. This short film shows how peaceful observation of police behavior can change the way a neighborhood and a police force deal with one another.
Official selection of the third annual festival

Day of Remembrance

Sixty years have passed between Pearl Harbor and September 11th, but have things really changed for Arab and Muslim Americans?
Official selection of the fourth annual festival

Esmeraldas: Petroleum and Poverty

Esmeraldas documents the intense human suffering that occurred when a Texaco oil refinery exploded and destroyed an Afro-Ecuadorian community.
Official selection of the third annual festival

Face to Face: Stories from the Aftermath of Infamy

Sixty years have passed between Pearl Harbor and September 11th, but have things really changed? An interactive online documentary explores what it means to be an American with the face of the enemy.
Official selection of the third annual festival

Grace

Three women’s lives share an unwanted and violent thread.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

I Promise Africa

While making a documentary about orphans, a filmmaker preserves the voices of a generation that will soon be silenced.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival

I'm Not a Boy

Julie Joyce is not a boy. As a transgendered youth, she just wants what all young people want – to have a positive space to live and grow.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

In the Morning

When a young Turkish woman is raped, there is nothing honorable about revenge.
Official selection of the sixth annual festival

Massacre at Murambi

Does the way we respond to the genocide in Rwanda predict our response to Darfur?
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

No Escape, Prison Rape

When Rodney Hulin set fire to a trashcan, he never imagined he would end up in adult prison, serially raped and brutally beaten.
Official selection of the third annual festival

Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border

What happens when people cross the line? Vigilantes take the law into their own hands on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

Sonic Memorial Project

An interactive audio landscape where oral stories, ambient sounds, voicemails and archival recordings collectively tell the rich history of the Twin Towers and the events of 9/11.
Official selection of the third annual festival

Sovereign Nation / Sovereign Neighbor

The Narragansett tribe defends its sovereignty only to encounter violent resistance and entrenched misunderstanding from their home state of Rhode Island.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

Still Standing

Ms. Gertrude returns to what remains of her New Orleans home and fights to rebuild what she can in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

System Failure

Physical abuse, sexual harassment, inadequate education for incarcerated youth – if a society can be graded by how it treats its prisoners, then the state of California gets an “F.”
Official selection of the fifth annual festival

The Apollos

Meet the trailblazing students who, over twenty years ago, fought to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday.
Official selection of the seventh annual festival

The Children of Birmingham

Baltimore youth tell the story of their 1960s counterparts who fought for civil rights.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival

We Were Humans

This multimedia animation asks what would happen if the billions of dollars of yearly military spending were directed towards education and world hunger.
Official selection of the third annual festival

World On Fire

$5,000 could cover the cost of hair and make-up for one day on set in LA or pay for one year’s schooling for 145 girls in Afghanistan. Sarah McLachlan does the math and encourages you to join her.
Official selection of the fifth annual festival

iThemba

The Sinikithemba Choir turns stage into soapbox, singing and speaking for 5 million HIV+ South Africans.
Official selection of the fourth annual festival

BROWSE FILMS BY ISSUE

"It's great to be side by side so many great pieces that have so much to say. It's a very powerful statement about what media can do."
—Rebecca Yenawine, Instructor and Producer The Children of Birmingham

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