After a one-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the Karama Beirut Human Rights Film Festival (KBHRFF) that is organized by Lebanese NGO “Art Factory 961” returned for its fifth edition 2021 under the theme “Occupy the Void”. Several Arab and international directors, actors/actresses and media personalities gathered at the Sunflower Theater in Beirut at the opening of the festival, held for the third time in collaboration with the UN Information Centre in Beirut.
This year’s edition was also supported by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation, “Taawon” NGO and the embassy of the Czech Republic in Lebanon.
The festival ran from 23 to 26 September and featured 21 films, including five long feature films and four long documentaries, three short feature films and three short documentaries, followed by Q&As.
Around 18 films were premiered for the first time in Lebanon. Those were produced in several countries, namely: Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Qatar, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany, Canada, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Australia.
As part of the festival, two free-of-charge master classes for students took place on ways to express revolution in cinema and citizens’ rights in dramatic writing.
KBHRFF is a film event that contributes, among other well-established and renowned human rights film festivals in the world, to spreading a cinema that denounces racism, hate discourse, discrimination and injustice. The 1st edition of KBHRFF was held in 2016 under the theme “The Others,” and aimed to raise awareness on the rights of refugees and minorities in Lebanon and the Arab World, while the 2nd edition in 2017 addressed the theme “New Identities” and focused on new identities conflict. The 3rd edition, held in 2018 under the motto “Free the Word,” aimed to support the freedom of expression that is liberated from traditional official models, while the fourth edition, held in 2019 under the theme “Talk to Her,” fell under the framework of the Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality.
