On Friday, November 15, the Traveling International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA started in Zakarpattia with the movie "Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World" at the ILKO Gallery Art Center.
88 minutes of unique facts about Bellingcat's activities aimed at confronting the daily production of fakes, including the world's leading media. The film dealt with large-scale revelations about military events in Syria, the poisoning of former Russian agents in the UK, and most importantly, the proven truth about the Russian MN-17's bombing of the Donbas by Russian mercenaries.
“We live in a time when information security has become as important and relevant as physical security for each of us. Information wars and attacks, unfortunately, accompany constant pressure on Ukraine by the Russian Federation. Correctly perceiving the flow of information, responding to it correctly is a present-day requirement. That is why today we are talking about whether we will allow the program to change our minds,” Natalia Kabatsiy, the co-organizer of the event, director of the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattia said at the opening of the festival.
She also added that Docudays UA is not a political nor commercial festival. It is the only international human rights documentary film festival in Ukraine, which is also a part of the Human Rights Film Network.
After watching the movie, there was a discussion about the problem defined. The speaker was Mykhaylo Makaruk, the spokesman for the international volunteer community "Inform Napalm".
“To date, Inform Napalm is perhaps the most powerful authority in the country engaged in information warfare, as the state does not currently take care of this function. Our main tools at work are the desire to achieve peace through victory and the people who support our activities and share our values. We are proud to be an international community, because we have volunteers from Georgia, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, France, South Africa, and Turkey. And each of them does its important part. At the moment we have a rather high-efficiency rate of our work. Both the state and international structures refer to Inform Napalm,” Mykhailo Makaruk said.
And even Mykhailo does not like to be called an expert, his thoughts are extremely correct and relevant. In particular, the need to apply critical thinking and improve media literacy is the key to ensuring that people understand the essence of the events around them.
“The world is changing. Soon we shall not recognize it; it will be different from its present state. Unfortunately, in today's context, Ukraine has been losing the information war. We are just learning how to confront the enemy's propaganda. And one of the effective mechanisms is, for example, this festival,” Mykhailo Makaruk added.
Within Docudays UA two days more the topical films will be showing in Zakarpattia. And further, the intense educational program for school pupils and students will be provided.