“Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices. The most critical ones are to lead a long and healthy life, to be educated and to enjoy a decent standard of living. Additional choices include political freedom, guaranteed human rights and self respect.”
(Human Development Report 1990:10)
HumanDOC International Documentary Film Festival GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT IN CINEMA is the first innovative event combining the world’s high class cinema with an afterthought on global issues in Central-Eastern Europe and the third such event in the world.
The films shown during the HumanDOC Festival are absolute gems of short documentary films and features presenting global dependencies, problems and challenges. The festival is like the world in a close-up: living off for less than one dollar a day, fighting social exclusion, results of climate changes, international aid, conflicts.
This is a unique combination of business with pleasure: documentary films at the world’s highest level, social campaigns, debates and discussions.
The festival presents original films, full of passion and emotions which make one sensitive to social injustice but most of all inspire to action, show that even being here in Poland we can change other people’s lives for the better and help even in the most remote places in the world.
Films which inspire to thinking and let discover the world anew!
Poland belongs to the group of the 40 richest countries in the world. We are highly developed country in the international scale. Since several years we have been not only the recipient but also the donor of the international aid. We spend about 2 billions PLN a year on helping other countries. The European Union spends hundreds of billions euros on supporting the communities of the Global South.
What does it mean? Whom and how do we help? Why do we decide to support other people very often living in countries far away from Poland and Europe?
Globalization has made the communities living in different places in the world dependent from each other. It has made the problems of small far away turn into international problems. At the same time the economic gap between the countries of rich North (the so-called Global North) and the countries of poor South (the so-called Global South) grows bigger and bigger. Uncontrolled growth of the world’s population accompanied by high unemployment rates creates conditions for extreme poverty, outbreaks of mass famines and infectious diseases. Conflicts which force developed nations to costly military interventions break out. Excessive consumption causes the exhaustion of natural resources and dramatically deteriorates the state of the world’s environment. These problems are just a few examples from a very long list of challenges which the contemporary world faces.
Are we doing enough to address these issues? Are we still able to control the course of events? The United Nations had defined the key Millennium Development Goals which it wants to achieve by 2015 – reducing poverty is one of them. Are we able to achieve these goals? HumanDOC Festival is the occasion to raise these types of questions and try to find the answers.