Verzio 5 International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival finished November 9th, 2008. 57 excellent works have been screened to more than 3000 interested viewers.

The 1500 euro Audience Award went to Masha Novikova's film, Anna, 7 Years on the Frontline.

Verzio Film Foundation offered a 100.000 HUF Special award for the most provocative and most viewed film this year, Eszter Hajdu's The Fidesz Jew, the Mother with No Sense of Nation and Mediation.

Thank you all and congratulations to the winners.
Verzio team

The 5th VERZIO Doc Film Fest in Budapest!

Toldi Cinema / Cirko Gejzir Cinema
November 4-9, 2008

Verzio is celebrating its fifth anniversary and offers you an extended program to enjoy documentary cinema highlights during the 5-days marathon. With your support and interest we grew a lot in these five years – in number of screenings, venues, films, but most importantly in friends of documentaries. To celebrate the occasion, we are happy to present to you new features of this year’s program.

This year Verzio International Panorama includes 30 outstanding films from 26 countries, out of them 29 Hungarian premiers. Hungarian documentary panorama is expanded this year to include 11 strong films, from premier to award-winners. 5 classical works of documentary cinema add a historical dimension to the contemporary program, marking the roots of the most powerful traditions in today’s documentary – direct cinema, cinema verite, and investigative documentary. Jean Rouch, Errol Morris, Gyula Gazdag, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Robert Drew are renowned Masters whose time-defying works nevertheless are rarities on the big screens. A historical panorama “Fragments of Chinese History” opens up a range of disturbing, provocative, underexplored yet vital questions, which continuously affects not only contemporary Chinese society but the world at large. DOK Leipzig is our guest at the Festival Crossroad this year. Our joint program includes visually powerful and thematically diverse award-winning films from the recent years.

In the long five years of its short life, Verzio established a tradition of a human rights documentary film festival in Budapest, and (we hope!) contributed to instilling a taste for watching good documentaries in movie halls. It is inspiring that a number of the films from our past programs were acquired by the distribution networks and television channels in Hungary. We hope that this year films will be seen by large international audiences during Verzio as well as will have a long life in cinemas afterwards. Join us November 4-9, 2008. You are a welcome guest at a 5-day Verzio birthday party!

Oksana Sarkisova
Program Director