The organizers of the Verzió film festival have selected 12 symbolic works from the 64 films screened last autumn for online viewing from 14 February to 27 March, and at select cinemas, through Re:Verzió. During these six weeks, you can watch one of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, Writing with Fire, a documentary about the reporters of India’s only Dalit women-led newspaper, who fearlessly fight for justice and righteousness. And in case you missed them in the autumn, you can also watch Arica, the winner of Verzió’s Best Human Rights Film Award, as well as the Special Mention winner Brotherhood. The film Courage follows the brave fight and peaceful resistance of its three protagonists over the course of protests organized during Belarussian presidential elections, and presents contemporary Belarus from a subjective perspective. Rami Farah’s documentary Our Memory Belongs to Us, focuses on three Syrian activists whose meeting, almost 10 years after the Syrian revolution, offers a unique insight into the complexity of the Syrian situation and shows how a peaceful revolution can turn into a savage war.
Those preferring lighter topics will enjoy features such as 100UP, which shows the lives of people over the age of one hundred, from all over the world. The protagonists of this documentary manage to set joyous goals for themselves, despite the unstoppable passage of time, giving viewers a glimpse at one of the keys to their longevity. The film Four Seasons in a Day explores feelings around Brexit through scenes shot on a ferry carrying commuters between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Crossing the tumultuous sea brings numerous associations to the travelers’ minds, while the actual border is deep under the water, somewhere far below the ferry, together with Finn, everyone’s favorite dolphin. You can rewatch Taming the Garden, the story of a billionaire politician’s exceptionally destructive hobby, and of the needs and values of Georgian society today. The documentary Hey! Teachers! gives a glimpse into a Russian secondary school in a small town, where two recently-graduated teachers from Moscow go to teach. They experiment with a new, creative and interactive teaching method, challenging the current rules and hierarchy of the school.
Out of the Hungarian titles, Alexa Bakony’s Colors of Tobi, which won the Best Hungarian Film Award at last year’s Verzió, can also be screened. The film is about Éva and her 16-year-old child, who recently came out as a transgender youth. You can watch This Cannot Be Atoned For, by László Halász, a film introducing Vilmos, who spent twenty years in prison for homicide. After being diagnosed with cancer, Vilmos decides it’s time he faced his past. Kata Oláh’s film My Digital Nomad was the most viewed film of last year’s Verzió. Those interested in a mother’s perspective of trying to understand digital work schedules and a cosmopolitan lifestyle can now rent this documentary from the online video library of Verzió: festival.verzio.org.
The films available at the Verzió website are all works that cannot be watched anywhere else in Hungary. All ticket sale proceeds will be used to develop the School Verzió and UniVerzió programs, which support the educational use of documentaries. Our free high school and university programs have reached over 25,000 young people in the past 18 years.
Learn more about Re:Verzió here.
The 19th Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will be held in November 2022. We are accepting submissions for films in three categories until 31 May 2022. For more information about the application process, click here.
