This year's selection

One World exists to expose abuses, encourage dignity, inspire solidarity, and foster mutual understanding. Our festival wants to be a concerned and critical look at the current state of the world and its transformations. As Joseph Pulitzer did, we believe that there is no crime that can continue outside the veil of secrecy, and we try to use the powerful medium of film to bring such things out in the open, to describe them, attack them, ridicule them, so that, sooner or later, public opinion will sweep them away. By screening documentaries from around globe, we also wish to open up the sensitivity inside the general public, which however receptive and curious it might be, can always be influenced by prejudices and stereotypes. We want to demonstrate that different perspectives and different voices are a legitimate and truthful aspect of the human adventure on Earth, to accept "otherness" as a chance instead of a threat.

But that does not mean that One World is a festival of politically correct films. The importance and power of documentary film does not reside solely in its content. We search for documentaries that reflect the present-day world in an original and creative way, without ideological mentoring on what we should think or do. We are eager to provide an inside look, but not simple answers. We look for films that reflect on important questions, like where did we come from as human beings, and where are we going? What mistakes do we make along the way? What sort of moral imperatives should we follow?

Feature-length documentaries are given a "heavy hand" during the final selection, but at the same time we try to present a wide range of genres. Among the films selected you will find TV documentaries, awareness-building programs produced by NGOs, short docs, and - for the first time at One World - social and human rights advertising spots. During the selection process, we don't differentiate between film and video; moreover, it is our intention to show both the possibilities and limitations of these different technologies. We also try to select films from a wide range of countries, to offer a perspective on global filmmaking.

During the several months' long process of film selection, we are continuously drafting main program topics, but we try to avoid defining them in advance. It is our intention to let the whole body of the submitted films create their own connections and to bring the final shape to One World topics. Undoubtedly, our own wish to highlight certain issues plays a certain role, and the final selection is also influenced by current affairs and the breaking news. But the last word is given to the films themselves - their quality, originality and uniqueness is given a decisive role in deciding under which titles the selected documentaries are grouped. From a total of 720 submitted documentaries, the following topics have emerged as 2002 One World highlights: In the Grip of War, Global Economy, In a Woman's Voice, Something about Terrorism, Down by Law, Legacy of the Past, Generation Next, The Others, Power of the Powerless, and Rituals and Traditions.

Those whose lives have been marked by dramatic historical events, particularly those who live under authoritarian rule, or who are trapped by war, or who live in the dire circumstances of abject poverty, know well that no one has the right to expect someone else to be a hero, basically because human beings are not born to be heroes. Ideologies from all backgrounds, old as well as new, try to persuade people that they should be ready to sacrifice themselves as martyrs, most often because those that wield power are in need of cannon fodder or enthusiastic and obedient executioners en masse. It is the sacred right of each and every person not to be a hero. It is our right to live out our lives as ordinary men and women doing the best we can. Yet it does happen from time to time, particularly in extreme circumstances, that someone will rise up and do something particularly brave, consistently and encouraging for others. The Ecce Homo program is dedicated to such individuals and to small groups who did not succumb to those more powerful. Ecce Homo is dedicated to simple, ordinary people who have exemplified bravery and who are no better or worse than we are.

For the first time within the framework of the festival program, we are screening several retrospectives. While watching the documentaries for this year's program, we were more and more persuaded that it is necessary to incorporate current production within the context of documentary history. It is our intention to stress the necessity to root current filmmaking within the body of a quite often neglected tradition.

We believe that documentary film, including those made on video, belong in cinema theatres. It is a completely different experience to sit in a dark theater, in the community of your fellow filmgoers, in a shared communion with those who have chosen to see the same program, than it is to sit at home and switch from one program to another by remote control. For sure, at least in democratic countries, TV helps us to be better informed, but in the cinema we are given a chance for insight. Last year's winner of One World's Best Film Award, the French filmmaker Agnes Varda, in many ways sums up how we feel about film: "I don't have any illusions about the power of film to change anything. But film does have the power to open people's eyes, and to draw their attention to things they maybe know exist but are not aware of."

Igor Blaževic

One World director