Gillian Triggs, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, will be our guest at Locarno to commemorate seventy years of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.
On Sunday, 8 August, at Piazza Grande, she will greet the audience before the world premiere screening of The Alleys by Jordanian filmmaker Bassel Ghandour. On Monday, 9 August, Triggs will be at the Forum @Rotonda by la Mobiliare, participating in a panel discussion with the audience, moderated by journalist Alessia Caldelari.
Following the 2018 celebrations in Locarno that marked the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with guest Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, the Festival renews its collaboration with UN Geneva.
This year it will celebrate the 70 years since the signing of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Convention is a landmark human rights instrument, adopted on 28 July 1951, that defines the term "refugee" and specifies the rights of refugees, as well as the legal obligations of States to protect them.
Marking this significant anniversary, the 74th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will feature two special events organized together with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, which has been mandated as the guardian of the Convention.
On Sunday 8 August, Gillian Triggs, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection will be in Piazza Grande to greet the Festival audience before the screening of the evening's leading film, The Alleys, the debut feature from Jordanian filmmaker Bassel Ghandour, who was a production assistant on Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2008). The Alleys grimly humorous crime drama tells a neighborhood story with highly topical parallels, centered on issues of personal reputation, religious freedom, and female empowerment.
On Monday 9 August at the Forum @Rotonda, Gillian Triggs will meet the Festival audience again in a panel conversation moderated by RSI journalist Alessia Caldelari.
Tickets and season tickets for the screening on the 8 August in Piazza Grande will be available for purchase online from mid-July here.
Members of the press who wish to attend can register and gain accreditation here.
The panel conversation on Monday 9 August at the Forum@Rotonda will be open to all with free admission.
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