S. Asian festival promotes rights through art

Art for Rights, the South Asia Human Rights Festival featuring several leading artistes from the region will be held from December 5 to 9 at the National Film Corporation premises in Colombo.

The festival organised by Amnesty Intentional South Asia will include movies from the region, art installations that speak of human rights and a discussion forum wherein academics from anthropological and history disciplines will initiate a dialogue with youth participants on local footprint in human rights.

Another objective of the festival is to amplify the discussion on regional identity and human rights.

An objective of the discussion is to encourage anthropologists, historians, artistes and academics to take the stage and initiate the conversation on human rights, not law and policy makers.

Through the festival, Amnesty will also build partnerships with local artistes in the country, and it will lay a foundation for the university students to engage with key human rights mechanisms.

In summary, the South Asian Human Rights Festival aims to achieve the following objectives:

Provide a platform for an academic discussion on

local footprint in human rights.

Positively contribute to the youth’s engagement in human rights, and actively engage them in the discussion towards local footprint in human rights

Create artistic platforms to discuss human rights

issues in South Asia

Demonstrate to the youth practical applications of

human rights and its relevance

Build collaborative working partnerships with youth groups and activists and artistes in the region.

Several film screenings, too, will be held, with selected films from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Short films from Sri Lanka will be among them.