The 22nd Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will run 11–19 November 2025 across Hungary, followed by an online edition from 20–30 November. This year’s slogan, «We Exist Together,» frames a program that examines how communities confront conflict, fracture and shared responsibility.

The festival opens with Coexistence, My Ass!, a five-year portrait of Israeli activist-comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi, raised in a bilingual Israeli–Palestinian village and now uses stand-up to probe the limits of conventional peace discourse.

Programming spans war-zone testimonies from #Ukraine, #Gaza, #Sudan and #Iraq, alongside investigations into issues within societies at “presumed peace,» including #climate precarity, factory-worker disenfranchisement, gender inequality, alcoholism and child protection. Several titles deploy archival material to map historical patterns of nationalism and propaganda, encouraging viewers toward more nuanced interpretations and practical coping strategies. More than half of the selected directors are women

Early highlights include Cuba & Alaska, following two field medics who confront wartime absurdity with grit and humor; Rashid the Boy from Sinjar, tracing a Yazidi child’s survival and uncertain future in post-ISIS Iraq; and Khartoum, a Berlinale-laureled chronicle of Sudan’s civil war through five civilians’ interwoven stories. Also featured is The Long Road to the Director’s Chair, in which Norwegian cinema icon Vibeke Løkkeberg opens a trove of 1970s footage to reflect on women navigating a male-dominated industry. Hungarian representation includes Sára Haragonics’s Don’t worry Sari!, a personal inquiry into family trauma.

Further details and the full programme will be available at verzio.org.