This year, once again, a number of Kristián statuettes will be awarded during the Prague International Film Festival – Febiofest. Czech actress Iva Janžurová will receive one at the festival’s closing ceremony. Moreover, Febiofest will run a special selection of her films. The festival’s new programming concept includes several new sections as well as two competitions.

Submit your application by February 28, 2020!

5/2/2020 - The award will be given for his commitment to defending basic human rights and to assure a fair trial to all citizens of Tajikistan. The ceremony will be held on March 5 at the opening of the One World Film Festival. The Homo Homini Award will be presented by Ukrainian director, former political prisoner and 2018 Sakharov Prize laureate Oleg Sentsov.

 “We lawyers are not responsible for the actions of our clients, we are just performing our duty. It is our duty, therefore it must be performed to the highest standard,” answered Yorov after a secret service officer asked him to be less active in defending the arrested members of Islamic Renaissance Party.

Mr. Yorov has been promoting human rights in Tajikistan for many years despite facing severe persecution as a result of his work. He did not hesitate to defend clients who were targeted by politically motivated charges, whose cases other lawyers were not willing to take. He publicly complained in an interview that one of his clients was being subjected to torture while in pre-trial detention. As a result of doing his job, this prominent lawyer lost both his property and his freedom. 

In 2015, Mr Yorov was one of few lawyers who agreed to represent 13 members of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), and was himself arrested on the same day the Supreme Court of Tajikistan labelled the IRPT a terrorist organization. Police raided both his home and legal office without a warrant. Yorov was detained and ultimately charged with forgery, fraud, “arousing national, racial, local or religious hostility” and extremism. 

Before his sentencing, Yorov read aloud an 11th century poem by a Persian poet: “Society is spoiled by a few ignorant people who believe themselves the wisest.” As a result, authorities charged him with contempt of court and he was sentenced to additional two years.

“I am, of course, thinking about my relatives and loved ones, but first and foremost I think about 8 million citizens of my country,” said Buzurgmher Yorov.

The reward will be presented to his brother, activist and lawyer Jamshed Yorov.

Since the 1990s, People in Need has presented the Homo Homini Award to people and groups who have significantly contributed to the defense of human rights, democracy, and the nonviolent resolution of political conflicts. Past laureates include Chinese literary critic and dissident Liu Xiaobo, Azerbaijani lawyer Intiqam Aliyev, or Nicaraguan farmer Francisca Ramírez.

For more information or if you are interested in arranging an interview with Jamshed Yorov, please contact:

Vesna Evans, Media Coordinator, Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, People in Need This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +420 773 776 501

GOEAST PORTRAIT FEATURES THE INNOVATIVE ROMANIAN CINEMA OF RADU JUDE // “FILM HERITAGE IN TRANSITION” IN FOCUS AT GOEAST SYMPOSIUM

Wiesbaden/Frankfurt, Germany, February 5 2020: For the 20th anniversary edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film (running from May 5 to 11, 2020) the festival team is excited to welcome Bucharest-born director Radu Jude to Wiesbaden. 

With his hybrid style combining elements of fiction film, documentary cinema and theatre, Jude is rightfully considered a pioneer of the "new" Romanian New Wave, one whose films are above all devoted to confronting the dark chapters in the history of Central Europe, and Romania in particular. The goEast PORTRAIT for 2020 will showcase a comprehensive retrospective of Jude's work. Jude's films have already been featured twice in goEast's Competition section, namely his fiction feature debut THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD (Cea mai fericitã fatã din lume, 2009) and the documentary THE DEAD NATION (Tara moartă, 2017). This year's PORTRAIT will present six feature-length and six short films by Radu Jude, including his most recent work UPPERCASE PRINT (Tipografic majuscul, 2020). In addition, the director will be on hand for an extensive workshop talk. 

Finally, Radu Jude will also be appearing for an audience talk at the Hessen State Theatre as part of a co-operation between goEast and the International May Festival Wiesbaden. You can find more information on this event and others from mid February at www.maifestspiele.de.

Against the Looming Loss of Film Heritage – Surveying the Transitional Period at the goEast Symposium

For millions of individuals from Leipzig to Vladivostok, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in an era of all-encompassing systemic change. This year's goEast Symposium will take a look at the transitional period between 1985 and 1999: the cinema of these heady days was informed by mass lay-offs, the rise of organised crime and malaise, while also featuring great creative freedom and unhindered experimentation. Established structures for production and funding dissolved into thin air, forcing filmmakers to explore independent production options for the first time, while systematic archiving practices were abandoned. As a result, the film heritage of this era is at risk of being lost forever. Today we are still fortunate to find true screen treasures here, including aesthetic experiments, documentary films that dare to tackle taboo topics and fiction features exploring post-socialist narratives. For the Symposium, goEast is inviting international film scholars and researchers, cultural practitioners and filmmakers to gather in Wiesbaden to engage in a cinematic survey of the period in the scope of numerous lectures, panels and discussions. The goEast Symposium is made possible with the generous support of the Federal Foundation for the Study of Communist Dictatorship in East Germany.

The 20th edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film is scheduled to take place May 5-11 2020 in Wiesbaden, Germany.

The festival, hosted annually by DFF - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, has been presenting the artistry of Central and Eastern European filmmaking in all its diversity every year since its inception in 2001. Whether idiosyncratic auteur cinema or mainstream fare, fiction features or documentary films – the productions featured here are impressive works still largely unknown to Western audiences. In addition to the approximately 110 films of the official selection, a rich supporting programme once again invites guests to immerse themselves in the multifaceted cultures of our neighbours to the East.

Festival images are available for download at: Download

The full programme for the 20th anniversary edition of goEast – Festival of Central and Eastern European Film will be announced in mid April.

The international streaming service DAFilms presenting successful festival and documentary films online expands to Poland and Slovakia. Under the domains dafilms.pl and dafilms.sk, local viewers will find an expanded film catalogue which now includes national films and strong international titles which will only be accessible in these territories. The platforms in the new language versions were launched on February 3, 2020.

As the numbers of Polish and Slovak viewers of DAFilms have grown, we decided to enter these territories directly and to create specific regional platforms with a focus on local viewers which will respond to current topics in these countries. “We started building the DAFilms platform with Polish and Slovak films fifteen years ago, as pioneers in the field of online distribution. Since then, we have closely followed Polish and Slovak cinema and are very happy to be now able to use our experience and build film platforms directly for Polish and Slovak audiences,” says founder of DAFilms Nina Numankadić.

Making films accessible to local audiences

The launch of the language versions for Poland and Slovakia will make unique catalogues of films accessible to local viewers, offering quality works of local cinema online. The dafilms.sk domain will be the biggest streaming service in Slovakia providing local content. “The interest in local cinema is growing, especially in documentary film. However, many films are no longer available to viewers after their theatrical or television distribution. We believe that this will change with the launch of dafilms.sk,” says project manager of the Slovak platform Dorota Zacharová.

The current films accessible to Slovak viewers include the acclaimed documentary Válek by Patrik Lančarič, the provocative and innovative film The Last Self-Portrait by Marek Kuboš, and Theodor Kuhn’s fiction film By a Sharp Knife. The program further includes titles by established directors of “Generation 90” who received international acclaim, including Marko Škop, Peter Kerekes, Jaro Vojtek and Juraj Lehotský.

The Polish version offers successful local films such as The Prince and the Dybbuk, which brought the directing duo Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski the Polish Film Academy award for best documentary of 2018, and Call Me Tony by Klaudiusz Chrostowski, who received the award for best student documentary at Amsterdam’s prestigious IDFA. “Contemporary Polish documentary films garner success at international festivals, however, they are not accessible to Polish viewers. We would further like to offer exceptional international documentaries which only appear fragmentarily at film festival programs in Poland,” specifies project manager of dafilms.pl Mikołaj Góralik.

International catalogue accessible with subscription

Most of the films will be available for online streaming or legal download. Viewers can choose between a monthly and yearly subscription or a one-time fee for download. Subscribers to the national version will also get access to the international film catalogue at dafilms.com with 2000+ titles.