International Festival of Documentary Films �One World� launches

Luan Ibraj
Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms

08 December 2005

The 6th International �One World� Festival of Human Rights Documentary Films was opened on Monday, December 5, at the ABC1 Cinema in Pristina. The Festival is organized by the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms � CDHRF.

Pajazit Nushi, CDHRF Chairman, expressed the Centre's gratitude for the support it received from many local institutions.

"The young and old people of Kosovo have experineced the benefits of the strength of documenation of events that innocent citizens should not experience anywhere in the world", said Nushi

�Documentary method of presenting the forms of today�s reality in social, political, economic, military and other aspects of many citizens around the world made this CDHRF Festival to be the only film festival in the world that is dedicated to films of truth and films for the truth. This truth is now needed to all more than ever, just like it is needed to us in Kosovo�, added Nushi.

In Nushi�s view, it is precisely that prolonged situation in Kosovo that is the reason why the 129 films from 29 countries, participating in the Festival, have been so well accepted and have won the hearts of the citizens of Kosovo.

The Festival opened with a screening of Juliano Mer�s �Arna�s Children� (Israel/Palestina production) last year�s winner of the OneWorld Film Festival.

Arna Mer

Arna Mer (1929-1995) led, in the last years of her life, a small theatre group of Palestinian children on the West Bank. Her son Juliano, who directed the group, used his camera all those years to film the rehearsals and performances of the plays. The theatre closed a couple of years ago after the Israeli occupation. Back in Jenin he discovers, little by little, the tragic story of the theatre children who were so dear to him.

During the five days of the Festival, 30 documentaries which deal exclusively with human rights issues will be screened, five of them filmed in Kosova production.