Resist the winds


15 years! The Festival celebrates a significant anniversary in an age of profound interrogations. Never before has humanity held such wealth, choice, knowledge and possibilities. Paradoxically, inequalities widen, disorder roars and fear looms at the very moment we finally possess every mean to conquer social justice.

« Time for Outrage! », wrote Stéphane Hessel at the beginning of the decade. He has been taken at his word: today, outrage is everywhere. It is also bitter, swollen with resentment and hate. It blows winds of rage against our institutions, the media, minorities, and the very foundations of democracy. If rightful outrage is important, the challenge lies in building something out of this anger. Under our very eyes, an old world collapses. And so we ask ourselves: who will build the new one?

To be revolutionary in 2017 is to overcome our fear, to stand our ground, letting filmmakers and artists rekindle us with a sense of wonder, creating a space for discussion and debate. To change the world in 2017, we must ask the right questions and offer a horizon of action. Why do we fight? What unites us? Where do we strive to go? How can that be achieved?


We require new spaces, open and accessible, that allow us to leave the familiar in order to confront ourselves to others, and moments for profoundly meaningful political action.


From Geneva, a small city with a global footprint, persistently rattled and spared by the planet’s tremors, we have put together a program that strongly denounces all violations against human dignity, and names names so the perpetrators do not remain unpunished. But this 15th edition goes further still: we want it to surprise you, to instill in you a will to act, strength, confidence and energy. With the unwavering conviction that each human being is irreplaceable and deserves to be heard, protected and free.


This spirit of freedom, which permeates our whole of our program and brings with it a renewed impulse. Over the course of ten days, something brings us together, the public, the festival team, filmmakers, activists and partners, something unique and uniquely powerful. With perhaps, deep inside us, the hope that one day we will be able to say: during these difficult times, we did not give up. We raised questions. We defended our fundamental values. We remained steadfast, we resisted the winds. And we were right.


Isabelle Gattiker

Director