The Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf is the patron of perspektive, Germany’s biggest human rights film festival, which begins on 30th September in Nuremberg. Jasmin Tabatabai is also coming to Nuremberg for the German premiere of her new film Altiplano on the opening night. Iranian filmmakers will be showing their films as part of a special "Iranian cinema" programme.
It is the sixth time that filmmakers from all over the world are coming to the Nuremberg festival to present their latest films in the Competition and the International Forum. As festival director Andrea Kuhn puts it, "not only is it especially important to us to bring films about the whole world to Nuremberg but also to ensure that these high-quality films are from all over the world. The themes range from the rights of the local population in Peru to press freedom in Russia or youths standing up to neo-Nazis in Gräfenberg in central Franconia.”
Apart from Jasmin Tabatabai and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iris Berben, Fatou Bensouda and Hollman Morris are also coming to Nuremberg this year. Iris Berben will read from her book Women Move the World (Frauen bewegen die Welt). Fatou Bensouda, the deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague will present The Reckoning, a fascinating documentary about the court's work. The Colombian journalist Hollman Morris is considered the “last bastion of independent reporting” in his home country. He is coming to Germany with his documentary Unwanted Witness, which gives an explicit insight into his everyday life, shaped as it is by bodyguards, death threats and the pursuit of the “truth”.
Among the over 80 festival films are previews of this year’s Berlinale winner The Milk of Sorrow (La teta asustada) by Claudia Llosa and Michael Haneke’s Das weiße Band, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes and will be German’s contender for the Oscar next year.
perspektive is especially proud of the fact that one of the world's most famous Iranian directors has agreed to be the patron of this year’s festival. He writes: "Today, the future of world peace is closely connected with the future of democracy in Iran and the future of Iranian democracy is connected with art, the media and the cinema in the whole world. That is why I am coming to your human rights film festival, so we can find a way for peace and democracy together." Makhmalbaf’s presence at the festival underscores the ambitions of the festival organisers to bring films with pertinent themes and artistic quality to the screen.
Dieses Jahr werden neben Jasmin Tabatabai und Mohsen Makhmalbaf auch Iris Berben, Fatou Bensouda und Hollman Morris nach Nürnberg kommen. Iris Berben liest aus ihrem Buch Frauen bewegen die Welt. Fatou Bensouda, die stellvertretende Anklägerin des Internationalen Strafgerichtshof in Den Haag, stellt mit The Reckoning eine spannende Dokumentation über die Arbeit des Gerichtshofs vor. Der kolumbianische Journalist Hollman Morris gilt als „letzte Bastion unabhängiger Berichterstattung“ in seinem Heimatland. Er kommt mit der Dokumentation Unwanted Witness nach Nürnberg. Der Film zeigt eindrücklich den Alltag des Journalisten zwischen Leibwächtern, Morddrohungen und dem Anspruch nach „Wahrheit“.
Unter den über 80 Filmen des Festivals befinden sich auch Previews des diesjährigen Berlinale-Gewinners Eine Perle Ewigkeit von Claudia Llosa und Michael Hanekes Das weiße Band, der die Goldene Palme in Cannes gewann und kommendes Jahr für Deutschland ins Oscarrennen gehen wird.