Movies That Matter
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Derek vs Derek
NATURE: In the English countryside, a clash between industrial dairy farming and ecological restoration becomes an unexpectedly moving reflection on extinction and land use.
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The Cord
HEALTHCARE: In The Cord, Nolwenn Hervé follows a community worker helping pregnant women survive Venezuela’s shattered healthcare system, while a possible birth house shaped by Wayúu ancestral knowledge opens onto another vision of care.
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80 Angry Journalists
JOURNALISM: As political and institutional pressure tightens around Hungary’s largest independent news outlet, a newsroom is pushed from exhaustion into collective rupture.
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Movies That Matter 2026 crowns Traces and Aisha Can’t Fly Away
Ukrainian documentary Traces and Egyptian feature Aisha Can’t Fly Away won the top jury prizes at the 2026 Movies That Matter Festival, which unveiled the winners of its 21st edition on Wednesday night in The Hague. The Grand Jury Documentary Award went to Traces, directed by Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk. The film follows six…
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Movies That Matter, NEFTi Launch Short Film Initiative for Displaced Filmmakers
Movies That Matter and the NEFTi International Short Film Competition are teaming up on a new initiative aimed at supporting displaced filmmakers living in the European diaspora and across Africa, the organizations announced during the festival’s 23 March programme «Take on Displaced Filmmakers» in The Hague. The partnership will launch the 2026 NEFTi Competition, designed…
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The Voices That Defy the Kremlin
RUSSIA: In today’s Russia, even the smallest act of dissent can end in disappearance.
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Sentient
ANIMAL RIGHTS: A troubling and emotionally exposed documentary, revisiting the long history of primate experimentation through the voices of those who carried it out.
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«We need a different appreciation of culture in society»
INTERVIEW: Laurens Korteweg discusses Movies That Matter 2026, financial pressure, Dutch cultural cuts, and the challenge of sustaining a human rights festival.
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American Doctor
GAZA: Following three American physicians in and beyond Gaza, 'American Doctor' confronts genocide, media legibility, and the ever-collapsing distance between war and domestic responsibility.