AARON SKUBBY—In a world that grows more chaotic every day, it’s important to recognize the struggles felt by individuals across the globe. Denison’s 15th annual Human Rights Film Festival, organized and hosted by the international studies department, encourages the Denison community to do just that.
The films screened at this festival and the ones of years past work to shed light on human right’s issues and abuses around the world, and so students passionate about such issues or interested in learning more would be well-served to attend the festival.
Dr. Taku Suzuki, Department Chair, explained that Dr. Isis Nusair, international studies professor, originally brought the film festival to campus. “She has worked with human rights organizations before, and I think it started as her passion project so to speak,” he explained.
Suzuki discussed how the films are selected, “We select the films from the organization Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. They have recent years’ notable human rights related documentary film selections.
We choose four films from that selection, and international studies Student fellows are part of the selection committee,” he said. Megan Tehua added that the process “used to be a lot more prescribed… but now we specifically buy the rights through the library.”
Suzuki explained what he sees as the value in holding the Human Rights Film Festival.
“The most important part is that students can learn about the ongoing human rights situations around the world. We have films coming from South Africa, Israel, Venezuela, and the United States. So all those different parts of the world and issues pertaining to human rights violations and protection are available in the films.” He stressed that students can learn “in a very visceral way” through the films.
The four films being shown this year are “Everything Must Fall”, a film on South African student protests, Advocate, about an Israeli attorney defending Palestinians in court, “Está Todo Bien,” a film on Venezuela’s health crisis during economic collapse, and “Accept The Call”, which is about a father and son’s journey after the son is charged for attempting to join a terrorist group.
The films will be shown each Thursday at 7:00 p.m. from February 6 through February 27 in Talbott Hall 210. Each week, an international studies Fellow will write a review of the weeks film.
This week, Allyson Krupa ‘21 has written a review of the first film, “Everything Must Fall”, which can be seen further down on this page.
Make sure to see the fellows’ reviews in each issue of The Denisonian for a sneak peak at the upcoming films, which will be shown in Talbott 210 at 7:00 p.m. every Thursday throughout the month of February.