press releases

One World

The 7th Annual International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Prague, Czech Republic, 27 April - 5 May, 2005

Held under the auspices of Václav Havel, Minister of Culture Pavel Dostál and the Lord Mayor of Prague Pavel Bém

One World 2005

The 7th One World human rights documentary film festival, organized by People in Need, will take place from April 27th to May 5th in Prague and from April 28th to May 14th in 13 cities around the Czech Republic: Brno, České Budějovice, Hradec Králové, Liberec, Mělník, Olomouc, Opava, Ostrava, Pardubice, Plzeň, Rožnov, Tábor, Ústí nad Labem.

As in past years, the festival is being held under the auspices of former president Václav Havel, Czech Minister of Culture Pavel Dostál and Mayor of Prague Pavel Bém. Regional screenings are being held under the auspices of mayors of 13 cities and governors of 11 regions.

One World 2005 will present 120 films and videos from all around the world, chosen from among 850 entries. Screenings will be followed by debates with festival guests, representatives of non-governmental organizations, journalists, academics and experts on given themes.

Festival Venues

The festival center will be located in the Minor Theatre, which will act as a screening venue, host guest and press services, a videoteque, 24-hour Internet access for the festival guests, and offers a café-bar. In addition to Minor, the festival will also take place in the Světozor cinema (two venues), Lucerna, the City Library (two venues), cinema Mat and cinema Ponrepo.

Juries and Awards

The Main competition includes 15 recently made full-length documentaries. As usual, the main competition section will offer gripping stories, powerful testimonies, charismatic personalities, outstanding filmmaking and intriguing reflections on the challenges of our time. Films in this category compete for the Minister of Culture Award for the best film and the Best Director Award. Members of the Grand Jury are acclaimed personalities in the world of documentary film. In 2005 they will be Don Edkins (Republic of South Africa), Nikolaus Geyrhalter (Austria), Anna Glogowski (France), Alena Műllerová (Czech Republic), and Anand Patwardhan (India).

The Short Forms competition consists of documentaries as well as experimental and animated films. This category will include 15 short films (up to 35 minutes) competing for the Mayor of Prague Award for the best short film. Jury members will be organizers and programmers of prestigious international documentary festivals: Claas Danielsen (Germany, Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival), Tine Fischer (Denmark, CPH:DOX), Jukka-Pekka Laakso (Finland, Tampere Short Film Festival), Tiina Lokk (Estonia, Black Nights Film Festival) and Ilana Tsur (Israel, Docaviv International Film Festival).

As in previous years, the Right-to-Know category will offer 17 investigative reports on current affairs, human rights, global issues, inside stories, and in-depth coverage audiences usually do not find on TV. These films will compete for the Rudolf Vrba Award. Jury members include: social field-worker Jarmila Kuchárová (Czech Republic), human rights activist Gheorghe Briceag (Moldova), political activist Mirvari Gahramanova (Azerbaijan), Hanna Khodas (All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH) and chair of human rights center Viasna Ales Bialiatski (Belarus).

The Visegrad Award

In order to raise the visibility of documentaries from the region, One World in cooperation with its partners in Poland (The Cracow Film Festival), Hungary (Hungarian Filmweek) and Slovakia (One World Bratislava) has initiated the establishment of the Visegrad Award. National juries established by each of above mentioned festivals will choose one recently released documentary from their country (made since January 2004), and each winner will be awarded 1,000 EURO. Filmmakers will be obliged to use money to translate and / or subtitle their films into English. The Visegrad Award is supported by the International Visegrad Fund.

The first Visegrad Award was given at the 44th Cracow Film Festival to the Polish filmmaker Piotr Szczepański for the film “Generacja SKOD.” At the last edition of the Hungarian Filmweek, that took place from February 2-8, the next Visegrad Award was given to a Hungarian filmmaker Dezső Zsigmond for the film “Snail Fortress.”
Winners of the Czech and Slovak Visegrad Awards will be handed over during the opening evening of the 7th edition of the One World festival. The Slovak winner is Love Thy Neighbor by Dušan Hudec. The Czech winner is God´s Stone Quarry by Břetislav Rychlík. The One World festival will also screen all four visegrad award-winning films in a special section during its latest edition.

Festival Program

One World 2005 includes three competition categories. The Grand Jury selects the best film and the best director from the Main competition, the Mayor of Prague Jury selects the best film from the Short Forms competition consisting of documentary and animation and the Rudolf Vrba Jury selects the best film from the Right-to-Know category.

The non-competition program will present 73 documentaries that are organized in following thematic sections: In a Woman’s Voice; Film and Women (retrospective); About Love (documentaries from new EU member states); Generation Next; Docs for Kids; Right to Tradition; Choice of Les Film d´Ici; HIV/AIDS: Global Challenge; North Korean: Ever Lasting?; Iraq in the Spotlight; Fragments of Bosnia, African Shadows, Made in China and Jury member films.