One World
Dear friends,
In March I haven’t read any books, but I met a lot of people and old friends thanks to One World Festival in Czech Republic, where I had an opportunity to work for a short period of time.
For those of you who don’t know - One World Festival is a part of Czech humanitarian and human rights organization People in Need. This NGO helped millions in 38 countries around the world and still helping in such countries as Ukraine (donors have sent 63 million EUR to People in Need’s Ukraine emergency appeal fund, you can donate too).
But let’s go back to the festival. First, it was amazing for me to see how systematic and professional team is, how all members work as one organism and aim for one big purpose – defend human rights with help of documentary cinema. It was a honour for me to be part of this beautiful initiative. I also learned a lot in terms of festival organisation and effective team-working. Hopefully, I can apply this knowledge to our Animafilm Festival.
During the festival I was responsible for assisting to Q&A Coordinator Jan Kamenický and to Head of Guest Service Veronika Hvizdalová (she is extremely skilful person in this area, also works for Zlin Festival, AFO Festival and others).
Besides this, I was also responsible for transportation of foreign guests and coordination online Q&A sessions. This work not only increased my event management skills, but gave me a unique opportunity to meet amazing people from all around the world.
We received around 70 foreign guests, all of the them filmmakers and artists. All of them deserve a separate blog post. But here I’d like to mention and thank the following people:
Andrea Svobodova – a SEO of AZ Translation and huge supporter of Tibet. We have been friends with Andrea for a long time, it was so lovely to see her again and absolutely magical to receive a present from her – a book Tibet Was Never a Part of China. Thank you, dear Andrea for this beautiful present and for your hard work translating it to Czech language.
Tue Steen Müller – a legend of documentary films, God father and mentor of several film festivals and many filmmakers. Tue is co-author of FILMKOMMENTAREN.DK – a blog and huge database of articles about documentary films. I also have to say that Tue was my mentor in CinéDOC-Tbilisi Summer School and helped me a lot with developing my first documentary Dialogues with Zuleyha. I was lucky to make a picture with him:
Simon Lereng Wilmont’s film A House Made of Splinters won the International Competition Jury Award for the Best Film of One World Festival. This is an intimate documentary about children and staff of an institution for children who have been removed from their homes while awaiting court custody decisions. Though film is heart-breaking (almost impossible to watch how children are suffering), I liked the way how director showed the playfulness of children – everyone can relate to that. I met Simon online for his Q&A session and afterwards physically at the festival; and got impression of genuine person with big heart. Thank you, Simon.
Mary L. Gray is Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. She is author of co-author of several books, the recent one is Ghost Work How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass – the name of the book speaks for itself. I had a privilege of meeting Mary on her Q&A for the film The Gig is Up (film-participant at One World Festival). The film made me think of injustice in the world – why gig economy (and technology in general) is so advanced that it can generate billions and trillions, but unable to provide equality and basic rights? Mary is one of the protagonists in the film and shares interesting ideas of our technological future. Thank you for inspiration, Mary!
Unfortunately, I have seen only two films during the festival – The Gig is Up and Simon’s A House Made of Splinters. Nevertheless, there is opportunity to see the festival program online (from 3rd April till 17th April). Do not miss this chance and join me : )
Last but not least I’d like to say huge thank you to all team of One World Festival. It was such inspiration working with you! Unforgettable! Thank you!
#PeopleInNeed #OneWorldFestival #TheGigIsUp #VeronikaHvizdalova #MaryL.Gray #SimonLerengWilmont #AndreaSvobodova #TueSteenMüller