About

In recognition of the power of film to campaign human rights and stimulate a broad constituency of young people concerned about human rights protection and promotion, the Institute of Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation (IDCT), School of Arts and Sciences at the Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon in partnership with the United Nations Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, Middle East and World Vision, Beirut office has organized the first edition of the Beirut Human Rights Film Festival - BHRFF.  The Festival is made possible by a generous grant from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Beirut, and financial contribution by World Vision and the Lebanese American University.

The BHRFF human rights film festival is a pioneer programme in the Middle East with overall goal to promote human rights, peace and justice. BHRFF will become a leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and animated films, where the human rights concerns are perceived through talented, motivated and encouraged young people. In selecting films, the panel of judges equally distinguishes artistic merit and human rights content. In the light of youth to youth approach, human rights will be advocated through powerful stories, screened to schools, universities and general public during the last week of October 2008. The festival will be followed by a wide-national awareness campaign, where selected films will be distributed to schools, universities and other organizations along with the supplementary educational material.

The principle objective of the festival is to empower youth, stimulate positive changes and responses to human rights violations through the film and supportive activities. In the year 2008 the festival has national coverage and Lebanon is considered as pilot project. In 2009 and the following years other countries in the Middle East will be invited to participate. University students from the region will be invited to produce a short film within the specifically assigned human rights concerns.