Human Rights Film Festivals: Activism in Context

Human rights film festivals have been steadily growing in number in recent years. They are all bound by a common thread, human rights, and yet show distinctly different films. What leads them to be so different, and how is the universalism of human rights made sense by each? This book explores how human rights developed as a language located in history, space and time, and how the festivals continue with this tradition by adapting it for local audiences. The tensions produced by human rights' search for universality and the located-ness of the festivals are explored in detail through two case studies: one located in Buenos Aires, South America; the other in New York, North America, which was the first human rights film festival worldwide.