Human Rights Film Festival moves online to adapt to COVID-19

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The Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival is taking place on Blackboard for three days beginning today.

The documentaries featured in this year’s festival, which centers around the theme of “Futures,” include “Coded Bias” by Shalini Kantayya, “Landfall” by Cecilia Aldarondo and “Yeh Freedom Life” by Priya Sen. The films will cover both international and national civil rights, along with social justice issues.

Each movie will be streamed for 24 hours. There will also be Q&A sessions with each filmmaker that will be open to all students at specified times.

“Coded Bias,” which centers around racial and gender bias in artificial intelligence, will stream Thursday with a Q&A session at 8 p.m. “Landfall,” focuses on the effects of Hurricane Maria and the debt crisis in Puerto Rico. The film will stream Friday, with a Q&A session held Saturday at 4 p.m. “Yeh Freedom of Life” streams Saturday, and the Q&A session takes place at 8 p.m. The film tells the story of two people living in South Delhi, India.

The film festival, which has taken place for 18 years, has always focused on “building community through conversation, through discussion and often even through debates about these critical issues that we face,” said Roger Hallas, an associate professor of English and co-director of the film festival.

Cecilia Aldarondo’s film “Landfall” investigates the effects of hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico. Courtesy of Tula Goenka

Tula Goenka, a professor of television, radio and film and co-director of the festival, said films can foster communications and ignite discussions so that students can connect their experiences with what is happening around the world, she said.

This year’s festival has continued its mission in both familiar and new ways. The festival will continue to emphasize diversity, Goenka said. The broad range of movies will also enhance students’ knowledge and perspectives on social issues, as well as provide international students a sense of familiarity, as the films show both international and national issues, she said.

“I know for a fact that when students come, and if we’re showing a film from India or China or Korea or Japan or wherever to watch a film in your own language about issues that connect with you personally is something that’s really important,” Goenka said.

Mackenzie Snell, a graduate student at SU who is involved with the social media management of the film festival, said the flexibility of online streaming allows for a larger audience to enjoy the festival.

In previous years, a community of viewers would watch the movies together at the same time. But this year the festival is open to a wider audience, as the documentaries can be watched anytime in a 24 hour window, Snell said.

“Yeh Freedom of Life” by Priya Sen follows two people’s journey with love in South Delhi, India. Courtesy of Tula Goenka

“I also think that (streaming the festival online) creates an interesting space. For the way that it’s been set up this year, there is a 24-hour window to watch these movies,” Snell said. “So if you wouldn’t have been able to (come to the festival) because of a class or because of the job … That means, ‘Okay, you can watch it on your own time.’”

While documentaries presented in the festival throughout prior years all have captions to help the hearing-impared community, this is the first year that the festival has accomplished its goal of including audio descriptions in movies to aid blind people. By going online, the festival can provide separate links with audio description, making the festival even more accessible.

Every year, the festival has also included Q&A sessions after the films to provide time for the audiences to interact with filmmakers. This year, the conversations with the filmmakers will become even more personal, Hallas said. Q&As will now be offered over Zoom, which provides the opportunity for more personal encounters.

This is a change from previous years where the Q&A sections could only accommodate one to two filmmakers who were available to attend the festival at Syracuse. In addition, Zoom allows the audience to speak directly with the filmmakers instead of talking via a microphone to a large audience.

“The festival is really at the heart of what is meant for SU to be a liberal art institution,” Hallas said. “The values of the liberal arts is respect for diversity and engagement with social justice … We’re seeing in the past year the ways in which student activism has really brought that to the forefront.”