This archive report was first published on 15 October 2019.
The seventh edition of the Human Rights Watch Nairobi Film Festival will take place in Nairobi between October 15 and 18, 2019. The festival will showcase five films at various locations in the city, each followed by a panel discussion about human rights activism.
The festival's films document the struggles faced by activists in the region and elsewhere on the continent, who are pushing back against abuses by states and corporations, often at a personal cost. The festival aims to generate discussions around movement-building and government's responsibility to protect human rights defenders.
Co-presented with DOCUBOX, the festival also partners with Rift Valley Institute and Filmaid. The event is open to the public, with tickets available for free on Eventbrite.
"As we continue to document the harassment of activists by governments across Africa, this year's Nairobi festival spotlights the personal hardships that many activists endure as they lead the fight for a just society," said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
The festival will feature a range of films, including Rehad Desai's Everything Must Fall, which showcases how poor black South Africans challenged their exclusion from higher education. Other films include Søren Klovborg's Maid in Hell, which focuses on the struggles of East African migrant domestic workers in the Middle East, and Dead Donkeys Fear No Hyenas, a documentary by Joakim Demmer that follows activists protesting government-supported forced evictions of local landowners in Ethiopia.
Two short films, The Plight and Struggle for Family, will also be screened, shedding light on the struggle of refugee families from South Sudan to overcome the loss of loved ones and to integrate into new societies that are not always welcoming.
