Movies that Matter Festival, the Netherlands-based human rights film festival, unveiled March 11 its line-up for 2024. Running 22 to 30 March, MtM will present over 80 films in the Dutch city of The Hague, recognised as an international city of peace and justice, and in cities across the Netherlands.
The festival will open with Photophobia by Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík, which follows two children and their families as they take shelter in Ukraine’s Kharkiv metro station from the terrifying war raging outside. The documentary, which premiered in Venice in 2023, is part of the Grand Jury Documentary Award, the festival’s international non-fiction competition.
Photophobia also screens as part of the special programme Take on Freedom, which features six films “about the indomitable desire for freedom – and the work it takes to achieve it,” organisers write. As part of the programme, the festival will welcome Canadian-Palestinian doctor and four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Izzeldin Abuelaish, the protagonist of Tal Barda’s I Shall Not Hate.
In partnership with IDFA, the Movies that Matter Festival will host a special one-off screening of Berlinale Documentary Award winner No Other Land by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, followed by a conversation with the filmmakers.
Levan Akin’s recent Berlinale entry Crossing will close the festival, and Turkey will take centre stage as the country-in-focus through a selection of films, panels and exhibitions. Agnieszka Holland’s The Green Border and Tatami by Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir Ebrahimi are among the eight titles screening as part of the festival’s competition for fiction films, the Grand Jury Fiction Award.
The Movies that Matter Festival also features three thematic competitions: the Activist Competition, featuring eight documentaries about the work of human rights activists; Camera Justitia, which focuses on “the importance of the rule of law and the fight against impunity”; and Dutch Movies Matter celebrating films from the Netherlands that broaden views on human rights. Seventeen international shorts will compete in the Shorts Competition and a student jury from Leiden University will pick their Students’ Choice.
A total of eight films will celebrate their world premiere at the festival this year, including When I Close My Eyes by Pieter van Huystee; I Am the River, the River Is Me by Petr Lom (Myanmar Diaries); and Homefront by Anna Ilchenko and Anna Yutchenko.
Industry Days
During the Movies that Matter Industry Days (23 – 28 March) the festival will present a line-up of workshops, panel discussions, pitches of impact plans and masterclasses on film and human rights. The event includes Cinema Without Borders, a five-day workshop and networking programme for film festival professionals from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe; the Meet the Activist programme in which the eight activists will discuss their work; and the Take on Film & Impact programme, for which ten projects have been selected for a coaching trajectory ahead of a pitching session in front of a panel of impact producers, distributors, sales agents, NGOs and other organisations.
A particular highlight of this year’s panels is ‘Filmmaking in Times of Crisis’, during which filmmakers Pavol Pekarçik (Slovakia, Photophobia), Elaheh Nobakht (Iran, Dream’s Gate) and Basel Adra (Palestine) and Yuval Abraham (Israel) of No Other Land will share their perspectives on how to maintain a creative voice as a filmmaker in times of war and censorship.
