Each year we highlight a particular event or theme while focussing on a broad range of issues, such as press freedom, war and disarmament, race relations, poverty and economic transitions, women's issues, environmental survival and more. Documentaries selected for the festival are particularly suited to helping the public get to know individuals in other cultures and humanizing other racial and national groups.
Documentaries often elicit a very personal or emotional response and encourage dialogue and action.
Unfortunately, there are too few venues for accomplished documentarians to present their work and to engage in these conversations. We celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our relationship with the United Nations Association. To acknowledge the tradition of community support for international human rights issues, we emphasized the San Francisco Bay Area's role in the historic signing event. We also held a panel discussion about using film as a medium for encouraging action on human rights issues. The films range from Russia, China, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam to South Africa, Uganda, Eritrea, Colombia, Italy, Yugoslavia, Canada and the United States.