Draft:Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival

Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (abbreviated as Verzió) is a documentary film festival held in Hungary every November since 2004. It is co-organized by the nonprofit Verzió Film Foundation and the Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives at the Central European University. The name of the festival refers to the Hungarian film called “Verzió” directed by Miklós Erdély, which was made in 1981 and retells the story of the Tiszaeszlár affair.

History
Verzió festival was founded in 2004 by Andrea Pócsik, Oksana Sarkisova and Zsuzsa Zádori in cooperation with the Blinken Open Society Archives. Inspired by the One World, a human rights documentary film festival founded in Prague, the founders decided to create a similar space for international documentary films with a focus on human rights in Hungary. The first edition of the festival was opened by Árpád Göncz, under the auspices of the Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó, and the President of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee Ferenc Kőszeg.

In 2005, the Verzió Film Foundation was established to ensure financial stability while keeping the independence in the programming. In addition to other various sources, contributions come from international and national grants.

Some of the films presented at the festival are already well known, while others are freshly released or premiered at the festival. For 15 years, Verzió was held exclusively offline, at Budapest cinemas such as Toldi, Művész, or Kino. However, in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival moved to online spaces, and in 2021 Verzió adopted a hybrid format.

In 2023, Verzió celebrated its 20th anniversary. On this occasion, the festival expanded to Vienna, and organized a 3-day program in cooperation with Belvedere 21, Open Society University Network (OSUN), and Central European University. In the same year, the Doc Around Europe network was launched. The partnership connects 5 documentary film festivals, namely FIPADOC, Dokfest München, DocsBarcelona MakeDox and Verzió. Their projects’ focus on promotion of documentary film, but more importantly on support of the young filmmakers.

Film program
Verzió screens 50 to 70 short and feature-length documentary films annually in a range of topics related to social and human rights issues. In 2017, it screened more than 100 films. Topics include children's rights and education, gender equality, LGBTQ+ issues, refugees and migration, climate change and global environmental issues, history and memory, human rights activism, freedom of speech and democracy.

Activities
Film screenings are followed by Q&As, round table discussions, concerts and several side events such as workshops for young talents, masterclasses and networking events for the representatives of the documentary film industry. Cross-sectoral cooperation with multiple university departments include alternative film poster exhibitions, and film criticism and film analysis courses.

Verzió organizes screenings and discussions throughout the year in cooperation with cultural organizations and partner festivals (e.g. Bánkitó Festival, Sziget Festival, Budapest Pride and OFF-Biennále ).

A selection of films is offered free of charge to film clubs and schools. Verzió designs special educational toolkits to help the use of documentary films in high school education. Since 2021 a growing number of films are made available online as well, at the streaming platform of the festival.

Awards
The festival includes three competition sections:


 * International Competition: a selection of the most powerful documentary films covering urgent human rights issues. The winner of the section is awarded with the Best Human Rights Film Award by an international team of Student Jury.


 * Student and Debut Film Competition: short and feature-length documentaries from young talents. The winner of the section is selected by the members of the International Jury and is awarded with the best Student/Debut Film Award.
 * Hungarian Competition: a competition since 2020, this section awards the Best Hungarian Film selected by the members of an International Jury.

The Audience Award goes to the highest rated documentary film of the festival based on votes by the visitors.

The festival also features non-competition thematic sections, which cover a wide range of topics related to social and human rights issues.

Award winners
Audience Award Best Human Rights Film Best Human Rights Film - Special Mention Best Student/Debut Film Best Student/Debut Film - Special Mention Best Hungarian Film The Teen Jury’s Award Duna Television Award