Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

Human Rights Watch (HRW) International Film Festival is calling for films that focus on human rights and social issues like: equality, civil rights, children's rights, women's rights, international justice, HIV/AIDS, the environment, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender rights, health, the environment, war and conflict, freedom of expression, counterterrorism, gender, refugees, immigration, economic, social, and cultural rights, and more.

In selecting films for the festival, HRW concentrates equally on artistic merit and human rights content. The festival encourages filmmakers around the world to address human rights subject matter in their work and presents films and videos from both new and established international filmmakers. Each year, the festival's programming committee screens more than 500 films and videos to create a programme that represents a range of countries and issues. Once a film is nominated for a place in the programme, staff of the relevant division of HRW also view the work to confirm its accuracy in the portrayal of human rights concerns. Though the festival rules out films that contain unacceptable inaccuracies of fact, it states that it does not bar any films on the basis of a particular point of view.