On April 8 the Movies that Matter Festival kicks off in The Hague (NL) and online. The festival’s selection focuses on movies and documentaries related to human rights. We selected three of them for you.

What makes a place your country? What makes a home? In Little Man, Time and the Troubadour, director Ineke Smits searches for answers in Abkhazia.

The film Ophir, about the Bougainville crisis and its aftermath, has screened at almost hundreds festivals worldwide since its release in 2020. It also won the the top prize at the Pacific Documentary Film Festival in Tahiti, an achievement which was very dear to French director Olivier Pollet.

Join us for the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Many great films, among which quite a few about curious borders.

Fifty years ago the entire Creole population of the Chagos Islands was expelled by the British authorities. This secret operation took place in order to lease the largest island to the US Navy so that it could install a military base. Now Chagossian exiles embark on a struggle to return home. A documentary by Olivier Magis.

In the breathtakingly beautiful mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan Sidik sets out to find a panther that has not been seen in the area for 25 years. Finding the panther could mean that the area will be designated as a national reserve. Sidik hopes that this would put an end to wars and conflict. This documentary by Reber Dosky can be watched online till March, 28.

Metre by metre, a group of women is clearing the ‘Lachin Corridor’, a former combat zone in Nagorno-Karabakh where thousands of mines were planted. Director Khnkanosian focuses entirely on the physical routine and solemn solidarity among the women, and their impressive inner strength.

Artist Sipa Labakhua travels the land of his birth, Abkhazia. His father was an idealistic politician who was forced by the war with Georgia to flee to Moscow. Now, his son has returned home and collects memories and reflections of a colourful community. A poetic road movie by director Ineke Smits.

De Facto selected 1982, a documentary on the mechanisms of propaganda during the Falklands War. In 1982, when the Argentine military dictatorship invaded the Falkland Islands, the government left no stone unturned in using propaganda to convince the people of the righteousness of their mission.

Malaysian censors have ordered a scene to be cut from DreamWorks film Abominable before it is screened there—because of a brief glimpse of a map.