The Human Rights in Motion award was created by the Council of Europe to highlight the strong connection between documentary filmmaking and human rights, honoring the director whose film most effectively captures the struggle for freedom, democracy, and fundamental rights. Starting this year, the award is presented at four leading documentary festivals in Europe: the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, FIPADOC in Biarritz, France, Sheffield DocFest, and doclisboa in Lisbon. At the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the award, which comes with a cash prize of €5,000, is open to all films from the three competition sections that address issues of human rights and democratic values. “With this initiative, we aim to raise awareness of the work of the Council of Europe and support filmmakers who bring our principles and values to the big screen,” stated Theodoros Roussopoulos, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, announcing the establishment of the award. “Documentaries have the power to capture the impact of human rights violations with immediacy, awakening empathy and understanding.” The jury members are Maxim Cîrlan (director, head of the MOLDOX International Documentary Festival), Krystalli Glyniadakis (translator and poet), and Carlos Muñoz (cinematographer).
Nominated Documentaries:
Members of the Jury:
Maxim, a polyglot and graduate of Classical Languages from the University of Athens, merged his humanities background with his passion for filmmaking. After completing Prague Film School, he directed short films that earned nominations at international LGBTQI+ festivals. Back in his home country Moldova he co-founded the Moldox Documentary Film Festival, fostering social change through film. He also co-founded the Queer Voices Film Festival, challenging Moldova’s patriarchy. An alumnus of the Torino Film Lab and Balkan Documentary Center, he co-wrote the award-winning Timebox (HBO Go). Maxim now lives between Moldova and Thessaloniki, where he earned a Master’s in TV Series Creative Writing while continuing to produce impactful documentaries with upcoming filmmakers.
He studied film directing and photography at the Catalan Centre for Film Studies (2004, Barcelona). For the last 24 years he has been working as a director of photography in documentaries and his career is based on socio-anthropological projects shot in different parts of the world. Since 2018 he is based in Athens, where he collaborates with Greek and foreign production companies. Since 2022 he also works for the TV show "Invitation au voyage", on Canal ARTE France, with content based on Greek history and geography. Also, since 2008 he teaches photography direction in the postgraduate program of Creative Documentary at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
Krystalli Glyniadaki was born in Athens in 1979. She is a poet and translator. She was awarded the State Prize for Poetry in 2018. She holds a PhD in Media and Communication from Bournemouth University, specializing in interactive web documentary (i-doc) and its relationship with historical narrative and collective trauma. She has been working as a translator of Norwegian literature since 2006 and contributes articles to Greek and Norwegian media.
