Willy Brandt Documentary Film Award for Freedom and Human Rights

This year, seven filmmakers had the chance to win the prestigious Willy Brandt Documentary Film Award for Freedom and Human Rights. Sponsored by the Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung, the award is endowed with 3,000 euros.

Winner 2024: Mediha by Hasan Oswald

The international jury will honor a competition film for its outstanding artistic and substantive achievements. The Willy Brandt Documentary Film Prize for Freedom and Human Rights was first awarded at the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin in 2019. Peter Brandt, son of the former Chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Willy Brandt, presented the prize at that time to Russian director Askold Kurov.

We need the emotional depth that documentary films evoke in us to truly understand and internalize things.

Peter Brandt

Award-winning film Mediha

The outstanding documentary focuses on the genocide committed by ISIS against the Yazidis and its aftermath. The film places the camera in the hands of its protagonist Mediha and allows us to witness her harrowing and empowering personal testimony. We follow the everyday life and thoughts of the teenager, who was forced to live in sexual slavery for years and, after her rescue, lives in difficult circumstances in a refugee camp. At the same time, the film portrays the protagonist's personal journey in a moving way, providing intimate insights into Mediha's everyday life and her struggles to overcome her trauma. It vividly shows how social conventions reinforce this trauma and explores how the experience of violence shapes the lives of Mediha and her brothers and how they deal with individual and collective grief. Mediha's life poignantly reveals the lasting effects of war, religious conflicts and violence on women and children, while offering an empowering insight into ways to heal.

Excerpt from the jury states

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Nominated Films 2024

©Clin d'Oeil Films

DRAWING A LINE

An illustrator in India creates political comics for social media – often from a feminist perspective. However, the Hindu nationalist government is cracking down on critical voices.

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FOREST

A family lives a nature-oriented life on the Polish border with Belarus when their home becomes a focal point of migration policy: people seek entry into the EU. A story about humanity.

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IGUALADA

2022 a left-wing activist unexpectedly becomes Colombian Vice President. She challenges not only the status quo but also the narrative of what a Black woman can achieve in her country.

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KAMAY

A young student at Kabul University took her own life after been refused to graduate. Her family seeks justice and tells in poetic words about Zahras passion for her homeland’s ecology.

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MEDIHA

Fifteen-year-old Mediha lives in a tent city in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq. In her video diary, the young Yazidi girl processes her trauma of her enslavement by the so-called Islamic State.

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WE WON'T SHUT UP – A FILM FOR FREEDOM

In Spain, eighteen musicians have been sentenced to prison for making political statements in their lyrics. The Catalan music scene performs their songs and fight for freedom of arts and expression.

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WHERE THE TREES BEAR MEAT

Years of drought are bringing an Argentinian cattle breeder to the brink of ruin. Within the small cosmos the world’s big problems are reflected: resignation and optimism, life and death.

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Jury 2024

from left to right: Malte Mau, Peter Brandt (not part of the jury), Liwaa Yazji, Dr. Jens Eder. Not pictured: Luisa Neubauer, Margje de Koning

"It is a great pleasure and honour to be part of the jury. More than ever, we need an unsparing look at reality. And right now, we also need the stories, images and films that show us with radical hope what the world could become if only we want it to."

Luisa Neubauer (Jury Member 2024)

last update:

5. NOVEMBER 2024