Docudays UA-2015 presents the festival’s juries, who will select the best films in three competitions: DOCU/LIFE, DOCU/RIGHT and DOCU/SHORT.
Today we start with the short introduction of the members of DOCU/RIGHT jury, the competition where feature-length documentaries focused on problems with human rights observance.
Ezra Winton (Canada) is a film and media scholar, curator and co-founder of Cinema Politica
“It is both a joy and honour to participate in DocuDays UA 2015 - as a jury member, programmer, lover of documentary films, and as a huge fan of this important festival. Docudays UA is one of the rare festivals that does everything right: it has an energetic and provocative program, there is free entrance to all events, and excellent extra-screening activities and a thoughtful, progressive approach to documentary make for an invigorating experience”.
Ezra Winton is a co-founder (with Svetla Turnin) and Director of Programming for Cinema Politica – a non-profit organization based out of Montreal that has grown in its 12 years of activity to become the largest campus and community-based documentary screening network in the world, with nearly 100 chapters internationally. Ezra holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Carleton University and is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. His dissertation looks at the cultural politics of documentary as seen through the lens of Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival. Ezra writes extensively on the socio-politics of documentary, festivals and world cinema, and is a Contributing Editor at Canada’s leading documentary magazine, POV, as well as at Art Threat, a cultural politics blog he also co-founded. His recent essay on liberal vs. radical documentaries entitled Upping the Anti was selected for the anthology Best Canadian Essays 2014.
Oleksandra Matviychuk (Ukraine) is an activist, a lawyer and a human rights defender
“After Euromaidan many people speak about importance of creating democracy and society with clear and fair rules. However, reading convention articles isn’t sufficient for human rights understanding. Almost every day life impulses us to make a choice and confirm our loyalty to these values. Sometimes the problem of choice is especially acute. In this context this is not only a good documentary cinema, but a cinema which can help to survive this challenge”.
Oleksandra Matviychuk works in the field of human rights and democracy, she is the chairwoman of the Center for Civil Liberties NGO, member of the Advisory Board on Human Rights in the Parliament of Ukraine. She also coordinates the Euromaidan SOS civic initiative, which was created after the violent crackdown of peaceful demonstrations on Independence Square on 30 November 2013. Volunteers of the initiative gave legal assistance to Maidan participants, and now they are assisting in the Crimea and in the East of Ukraine.
Oleksandr Pavlichenko (Ukraine) is a human rights defender and an activist
”Docudays UA always gives reasoned emphasis to problems of the modern world. It includes facts, proofs, their analysis and art skills of their presentation. This is an outlook on life and its topical problems through lenses of a photo or a video camera which doesn’t constrict but on the contrary broadens the picture of the world, plunges a spectator in the situation which often gives no answer but arises a problem which needs to be solved and in such way attracts, motivates and ‘fires’ a spectator and makes Docudays’ participants change something in themselves and aim for positive changes in the whole world”.
Oleksandr Pavlichenko was previously the director of the Center for Information and Documentation for the Council of Europe in Ukraine at the Ukrainian Law Foundation, and the director of the Information Bureau of the Council of Europe in Ukraine, He also worked at the Ukrainian Ombudsman’s Secretariat as deputy to the Ukrainian Parliament’s Representative on Human Rights. Now he works as an expert in the Kharkiv Civic Rights Group.
