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.
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
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)