This year's International Travelling Documentary Film Festival on Human Rights Docudays UA will present films to the audience, including in Zakarpattia, on the most acute and relevant themes of our time.

This was stated during a press conference in Uzhhorod by the co-organizers of the festival, the director of the Charity Organization "Medical Aid in Committee Zakarpattia" Natalia Kabatsiy, the director of the Carpathian Human Rights Agency "Wested" Maria Mendzhul, the head of the department of education of the Uzhhorod City Council Natalia Mukhomedyanova and the guidance counsellor of the city administration of education Maria Symkovych.

“As always, the festival's themes are quite relevant to the society. Last year, we talked about elections and everything to do with them. Now we are talking about the role of social networks in our space, their influence on consciousness, actions, decisions, world perception, and self-perception. We will talk about communication methods, digital technologies; information security ... Docudays UA focuses our attention on the problem of whether we allow a conditional program or application to change our minds. Realizing that reality has changed, the documentaries selected for the festival will tell about the course and peculiarities of these changes,” Natalia Kabatsiy said at the meeting in the Uzhhorod Press Club.

On November 15-17, in Uzhhorod, at the ILKO Gallery Art Center, the following movies will be shown: “Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World”, “Sakawa“, “Facade Colour: Blue”, “Biotope”, “In Between”. After the screening of each documentary, there will be open discussions about the place in today's life of cyber-activism, security, and privacy on the Internet, protection against the excessive information gathering, cultural activism and the need to preserve cultural heritage in the postmodern era.

Specialists from well-known organizations Inform Napalm and Internews-Ukraine, profile experts will join the discussion. The screenings start at 6.30 p.m. (for free).

The Docudays UA Travelling Documentary Film Festival will go on with activities for school children and higher education students. For example, for the school pupils, the organizers selected 9 movies that talk about cyber-bullying, trust, children’s rights, digital education, gadgets' impact on consciousness, health and the environment, and more.

“The theme of the festival is a part of the all-Ukrainian campaign against cyber-bullying and it also touches upon the themes of events in the Donbas. Let us discuss these issues and other areas of human rights abuses with legal professionals and youth at the Uzhhorod National University. Appropriate screenings will take place on November 18 at 1.30 p.m. at Zankovetskoi str., 89 in the conference hall and on November 22 at 1.30 p.m. at the UzhNU Law Faculty,” - Maria Mendzhul said.

The organizers point out that the audience of the Docudays UA is growing and expanding every year, in particular, the student youth are more actively involved in watching and discussing films. On the other hand, the cinematic spectrum of the Docudays UA is expanding as the program increases the number of national films. Importantly, despite the external circumstances, the Docudays UA Festival remains neither political nor commercial.

Docudays UA is the only international human rights documentary film festival in Ukraine. It is a member of the International Network of Human Rights Film Festivals. It takes place every year in Kyiv during the last week of March. Further, Docudays UA traditionally presents the best films in the regions of Ukraine during the Travelling Festival. This year festival films will be seen in 220 cities and towns of our country.