Verzio is an International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival organized by Blinken OSA in cooperation with Verzio Film Foundation since 2004. In 2017, Verzio had its 14th edition. On November 14-19, 2017 within the festival framework 111 screenings, 32 Q&As, 4 round table discussions, 12 free student screenings, 3 master classes, 2 conferences, 1 production workshop and 7 concerts took place, making this edition the largest ever in the history of the festival. All together about 8,000 visitors attended the programs of 14th Verzio Film Festival in Budapest which included two conferences, debates and concerts. On November 23-26, 2017 Verzio+ screenings took place in Pécs and Szeged, a selection of 22 films which drew 477 viewers.
Within the framework of Verzio14 close to 1,000 high school students visited free morning screenings this year, setting an absolute record in the history of Student Verzio. In 2017 we offered films on food waste (Taste the Waste), information rights (Pre-Crime), refugees (The Wait), environment and recycling (Plastic China), volunteering (#doinggood), transgender children (Girl-Hearted) and living with Down Syndrome (Daniel). The screenings were followed by moderated discussions.
Approximately 90.000 viewers over the last 14 years, and the 11% growth in visitors’ numbers compared to 2016, demonstrate the great potential that documentary film holds as a community-building and educational resource. Verzio became a forum promoting human rights and critical visual thinking in Hungary and continues to play an important educational and cultural role.
Verzio 14 program structure
International Panorama – a selection of 18 films showcasing creative documentaries on human rights from last years.
Hungarian Panorama 12 recent Hungarian documentaries on social and political matters.
ZOOM IN Student Film Competition 12 films selected from a pool of 65 diploma and debut works from 28 countries.
War & Peace 2.0: Refugee perspectives introduced films that depict human stories from war-torn Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Congo. This section was presented in cooperation with UNHCR Regional Representation for Central Europe and followed by panel discussions organized in cooperation with the Hungarian Helsinki Committee.
Your Own City – Housing Rights screened films that addressed a global issue of housing selected in cooperation with Budapest Architecture Film Days organized by KÉK Contemporary Architecture Center (curator Gabor Fehér).
Photofilm: Sampling the Archives focused on exploring the relationship between still and moving images. The conference and film series were curated by Gusztáv Hámos, Katja Pratschke and Thomas Tode, representing the Concrete Narrative Society e.V.
Retrospective: Riga Poetic School - The Beginning of the Poetic Tradition of Latvian Documentary Cinema Latvian documentary cinema experienced a revival with the appearance of new movements in filmmaking in the 1960s. This retrospective program was curated by Zane Balcus, director of the Riga Film Museum and supported by the Latvian Embassy in Hungary.
1917 – Spectrum of Communism section comprised a two-day symposium with additional film screenings at Blinken OSA Archive addressing the artistic and intellectual legacy of 1917, and the dynamics of left-wing political thought and artistic practice in a transnational context.
Verzio’s Explore Impact is a collaborative project of five documentary festivals – One World (Czech Republic), Watchdocs (Poland), Verzio (Hungary), Docudays UA (Ukraine) and CineDOC-Tbilisi (Georgia) – investigating the ways of studying and enhancing documentary films’ potential for promoting democratic values and human rights - have joined forces to implement a large scale project exploring documentary film’s potential for bringing about social change. Explore Impact activities at 14th Verzio IHRDFF included competition for Impact Award, 3 master classes on successful impact campaigns led by filmmakers, and round table discussions with filmmakers and festival organizers on how to run effective documentary campaigns.
FESTIVAL AWARDS
Audience Award, 1000 EUR: The Trial (Askold Kurov, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, 2017) is a film about the Kafkaesque trial of the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov.
Impact Award awarded by the Student Jury, 1000 EUR: Jackson (director Maisie Crow, USA, 2016) presents the complex issue of access to reproductive healthcare and the social atmosphere of the American South. Jury statement: “We believe this film has the potential to move individual opinion on a deeply controversial issue. In telling a local story, this film reflects debates on the rights of women everywhere.”
Special Mentions awarded by the Student Jury, 500 EUR:
Mr Gay Syria (director Ayse toprak, France, Germany, Turkey, 2017) Jury statement: “This film deserves a special mention for putting the spotlight on a community that is largely unknown, threatened and misunderstood.”
The Wait (Emil Langballe, Denmark, 2016) Jury statement: “This film deserves a special mention for reminding us that those who seek asylum are every bit as human as we are.”
Best Student Film awarded by the International Jury, 1000 EUR: Urban Cowboys (director Pawel Ziemilski, Poland, 2016)
The Verzio DocLab workshop was organized for the 3rd year in cooperation with the CEU Visual Studies Platform. The workshop is a platform for filmmakers interested in documentary and human rights that supports story development and post-production. The paricipants make a short film, a documentary essay or to edit a scene or episode from a feature-length documentary in the making with the help of an international team of filmmakers, editors, and human rights experts. 6 short films were realized during the workshop, the films are available on Verzio’s Youtube channel.
Partners and sponsors: Vera & Donald Blinken OSA Archives, Open Society Foundations, Central European University, Visegrad Fund, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, UNHCR, Goethe Institute, Royal Norwegian Embassy, Embassy of Switzerland, Austrian Cultural Forum, Embassy of Denmark, Institute Français, Embassy of Latvia, Finnagora, Flemish Representation in Hungary, Budapest Film, Toldi Klub, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Visual Studies Platform and HRSI at CEU, Human Rights Film Network, CineDoc Tbilisi, One World Prague, DocuDays UA, Watchdocs Warsaw, Amnesty International, A Város Mindenkiért, TASZ
Media partners: Magyar Narancs, HVG, 444, Funzine, JCDecaux, Filmvilág
Venues: Trafó House of Contemporary Art, Blinken OSA Archive, Central European University, Toldi Mozi, Művész Mozi, Kino Café Mozi, Grand Café Mozi in Szeged, Apolló Mozi in Pécs
The full catalogue can be viewed HERE.
Additional events organized by Verzio team in 2017:
February 18 - April 20, 2017 – Surveillance Film Series. Accompanying program of WATCHED! Surveillance art & photography exhibition in C/O photo gallery, Berlin
February 6 - March 29, 2017 – Re-Verzio. A selection of highlighs from Verzio 13 screened at Blinken OSA as well as Bem Cinema, Gólya Presszó
May-September 2017 – a pilot project of the year-round student program. Free screenings in high-schools, preparing educational toolkits for teachers for independent screenings.
In 2018, Verzio offers the following films for school screenings: Thule Tuvalu, Sonita, The Punk Syndrome, Our School, Tititá, #doinggood, and The Wait. Additional educational materials will be published and made available online in spring 2018.
Verzio 15 is scheduled for November 6-11, 2018 in Budapest and November 16-18, 2018 in Pécs and Szeged.