The Embassy of Belgium in Luxembourg has announced that the embassies of Belgium, France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom in Luxembourg have joint efforts to organise a two-day festival dedicated to universal human rights.
On the occasion of Human Rights Day (10 December) and under the high patronage of Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the five EU countries which are currently members of the UN Security Council, as well as Luxembourg (as the host-country of the five embassies), will hold a film festival on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 December 2019.
Organised in partnership with the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg and with the support of the non-profit organisation Stand Speak Rise Up, the five embassies and Luxembourg's Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs will address the on-going human rights violations across the globe through fiction or documentaries, creating a forum for discussion on these challenges and the role of multilateralism in helping to address them.
The two-day festival will start on 10 December 2019, to coincide with Human Rights Day.
Programme
Tuesday 10 December
16:30 Un tramway à Jerusalem (France)
18:30 Of Fathers and Sons (Germany)
20:30 The Distant Barking of Dogs (Poland)
Wednesday 11 December
18:30 I Am Not Who They Think I Am (UK); Zero Impunity (Luxembourg)
20:30 Insyriated (Belgium)
Special Guests: Belgian Ambassador Jean-Louis Six, French Ambassador Bruno Perdu, German Ambassador Heinrich Kreft, Polish Ambassador Piotr Wojtczak, British Ambassador John Marshall, Sylvie Lucas, Ambassador and Secretary-General in Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Bénédicte Frankinet, Ambassador of Belgium to the United Nations between 2013 and 2016. Other special guests include Santa Falasca, Head of the International Center for Transitional Justice works (ICTJ) Brussels and The Hague, Simon Lereng Wilmont, director of "The Distant Barking of Dogs", Philippe van Leeuw, director of "Insyriated", and the directors, Nicolas Blies and Stéphane Hueber-Blies, and producer, Marion Guth, of "Zero Impunity".
A number of films will be screened for the first time in Luxembourg, including "Un tramway à Jérusalem", which was presented at the Venice Film Festival in September 2018 and hit cinemas in 2019, "The Distant Barking of Dogs" (world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2017) and "I Am Not Who They Think I Am". The latter forms part of a broad research project initated by the ICTJ in Uganda in 2015 highlighting why urgent redress is essential to restoring the rights of female victims of sexual violence during conflict and securing a future for their children born as a consequence of war.
The film festival, which is in line with the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations in 2020, is open to the public and tickets cost €2.40 or €3.70.
