A FILM and music festival championing human rights is being organised by Oxford students for the seventh year running.
Liberty director, human rights campaigner and Oxford Brookes University chancellor Shami Chakrabarti will launch 10 days of free events aimed at putting the spotlight on oppression, at an event at the university on Friday, February 27.
Students have put together the programme, which includes free screenings of 14 films.
Event co-ordinator and Brookes student Mona Luxion, 23, said: “The subtitle of our festival is Visions of our Common Humanity and we want to raise awareness of values, like dignity that tie us all together as human beings and that are worth safeguarding.”
The films include box office successes such as Rendition, starring Reece Witherspoon, iconic 80s film Footloose and transvestite road trip film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, as well as less well-known films that highlight human rights issues all over the world.
They will be screened at locations across the city, including the Asian Cultural Centre in Manzil Way, Exeter College Chapel, Oxford Synagogue in Richmond Road, Oxford Union, the Friends Meeting Place in St Giles, The Corner Club in Turl Street, Baby Simple bar in Cowley Road and Oxford Brookes University. Ms Chakrabarti will join students at the opening night in Oxford Brookes’ main lecture theatre at its Gipsy Lane campus for the screening of South African film Between Joyce and Remembrance, a documentary following the lives of the family of a murdered student activist.
The London Lucumi Choir, who were finalists in the BBC Choir of the Year competition, will perform at the event.
Ms Chakrabarti said: “Many of the students involved in the event will go on to work for aid and emergency organisations in disaster and conflict zones across the world.”
She will launch the festival at 6.30pm, with the screening at 7pm and music at 8pm.
All films will be free and open to the public, with many followed by discussions led by experts.
See brookes.ac.uk/go/humanrights fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk
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