Charter of Anhar:

Anhar was established on December 10^th, 2015 in Amman, Jordan.

Anhar’s Internal Structure:

1. The membership is open to human rights film festival in the MENA region that adhere to the principals, practices and standards of the ANHAR charter.
2. The network plans its activities via email and meetings.
3. Anhar is composed of a general assembly, an executive secretary and an elected presidency/board.
4. These bodies meet periodically to take decisions and elect an executive secretary.
5. The procedural rules agreed upon by the General Assembly shall determine how the network will be operated, the decisions and conditions of membership shall be set forth, and the manner in which its governing bodies shall be elected.

Principles of Selecting Human Rights Films for the Network:

The Network works on promoting human rights in its most comprehensive sense as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and other international conventions. In spite of the genre of human rights films being relatively recent, HR films play an important role in heightening the understanding of human rights violations and ways to combat them.

-The film content should not be biased; it should not exude hate and not discriminate against individuals or groups of people. The content should respect the privacy and dignity of the characters portrayed in the film and should not serve commercial or political interests.

– The selected films should tackle the human rights issue at hand and not aim to be a work of propaganda; films with a stereotypical edge are discouraged.

-The participating film should carry artistic and cinematic value. A human rights film can be a documentary, narrative, animation both short and long.

-Human rights films presented by the network’s festivals, regardless of their form and contents, must be honest. This means that they must communicate the representation of human rights issues and not deliberately distort the facts, views or words of the characters in the film.

Objectives and Joint Action:

1. Promote human rights through film festivals, where efforts to communicate prevalent issues to the general public is a priority.
2. Promotion of Human Rights Film Festival and enhancing cooperation between established and emerging festivals.
3. To create a safe and supportive environment for Arab and international filmmakers; especially those who face censorship repression and risk their lives in the process.
4. Promote the production of Arab human rights films in international festivals and forums.
5. Encourage the distribution of human rights film in educational contexts.
6. Exchange of knowledge, experience and resources among member festivals.
7. Reassert the notion of human rights amongst policy makers and the wider general public and key decision makers to improve practices to preserve basic human rights.
8. Strengthen participation that deepens the concept of the human owning his or her basic rights.

Network Activities:

-Promote partnerships and exchange between new and founding members, through organizing and arranging joint events.

-Work on preparing and enriching the ANHAR databse, with a focus on heightening the importance of cinematographic knowledge and support for relevant publications.

-Coordination of member festivals events and scheduled dates so as to share production costs and enhance outreach.

-Media exposure through press releases on film festivals and the network’s seasonal newsletters and collective social media outreach.

-Exchange of information on support and funding opportunities.

-Travel of experienced members to other member festivals to provide on-site capacity building.

-Encourage training activities and organization of workshops, seminars and panel discussions.

-Promote discussions centered on ethics, professional standards and codes of conduct related to human rights films.

-Assist in the protection of members festivals in the face of obstacles that threaten the independence of their program.

-Support filmmakers and help protect them from the risk of human rights violations.