Most people who opened Docudays UA film clubs in their organizations are active people who want to change the world for the better. Those who come to film clubs to watch documentaries are also people who care. They watch films from around the world, discuss other peoples problems in other countries, and see how other people protect their rights, the rights of their neighbors, or the interests of the entire community. During such discussions, the audience comes up with ideas about what can be done to solve problems in their city or village. With the help of documentaries, we inspire the audience to take active actions to protect human rights and public interests and provide the necessary knowledge for this.
Rights are the most important idea of humanity, which allowed ordinary people to articulate important vital requirements to states, governments, and representatives of the authorities.
"Human rights are a complex of natural and inviolable freedoms and legal opportunities that belong to each of us by the very fact of human existence in society."
However, many people believe that there is no need to protect human rights in democratic countries. This is a false statement. Because democracy is the rule of the majority, and history shows that the majority can be very cruel to individuals or various minorities. The majority usually forgets minority issues, and some of these issues even cause hostility. The unlimited power of the majority is a threat to individuals and groups. In fact, democracy is a limited rule of the majority, limited by all the rights and freedoms that belong to individual people. The majority has no right to violate these rights and freedoms as they determine the limits of the majority's power.
Human rights are a protective shield for each of us against the arbitrariness of the majority. Legal education measures are needed to understand what rights each and every one of us has. For example, the discussions that our moderators conduct after the film screenings help to crystallize one's own position and become more confident, and to find like-minded people.
Fragments of the lecture from the online course "How to organize the work of a film club. A basic course for beginner moderators."
Cinema is the youngest of the arts and actually the most popular among others. It was born from tricks and mediocre entertainment for the crowd. Still, it later became an independent and large-scale phenomenon, which not only captured the 20th century in detail and captures modern years but also directly influenced the history of humankind. Hundreds of scientific studies have been written about the cinema, and today cinema is analyzed through the prism of humanitarian disciplines, psychologists use it as a method of art therapy, and activists use it as a tool for social change.
As for the latter, film clubs become a perfect place for making changes because a significant part of the collection of the DOCU/CLUB Network is made up of impact films. Their screenings and discussions take place all over the country, in big cities and in small villages, offline and online. Tens of thousands of people visit them every year. Someone changes their attitude to a problem or phenomenon, someone decides to join organizations that work with this topic or problem systematically, someone becomes an agent of change.
The collection of the DOCU/CLUB Network includes 146 films from the media library of the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, including winners of the Sundance Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Watch Docs, and other famous festivals. The films are translated and dubbed into Ukrainian.
Fragments of the lecture from the online course "How to organize the work of a film club. A basic course for beginner moderators."
In addition to holding legal education events, we help film club teams to implement advocacy campaigns, both at the regional and state levels, and also acquaint Ukrainian school students with human rights through documentary films.
We help moderators of Docudays UA film clubs to acquire new skills and abilities to protect human rights and promote reforms. We support the community's involvement in solving urgent problems and active participation in decision-making by conducting advocacy activities, the goal of which will be to change policies, practical approaches, the balance of forces, views, and relations.
We are creating an opportunity for students of hundreds of schools to watch films from the film collection of the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival for free. Unlike most traditional educational tools, documentary films provide an opportunity to bring the topic of discussion closer to students and promote their maximum emotional involvement, which is one of the foundations of an effective educational process.
We help moderators of Docudays UA film clubs to acquire new skills and abilities to protect human rights and promote reforms. We support the community's involvement in solving urgent problems and active participation in decision-making by conducting advocacy activities, the goal of which will be to change policies, practical approaches, the balance of forces, views, and relations.
Head of Docudays UA Networks Department, the Head of the project "DOCU/CLUB Network, for Reforms!"
Author and co-founder of the Docudays UA human rights media education online resource center and Docudays UA Film Library
Coordinator of the Docudays UA Network Development Department, development coordinator of DOCU/CLUB Network
Coordinator of the project "DOCU/CLUB Network, for Reforms!"
Coordinator of the DOCU/CLUB Network on human rights and reforms
Online development coordinator of the DOCU/CLUB Network
communications manager of the DOCU/CLUB
Finance manager of the project "DOCU/CLUB Network, for Reforms!"
