Festival Data:

• Established: 1998
• Genre: Documentary (click to see)
• Attendance: 4000
• Media Attendance: 20
• Accredited Industry Attendance: 30
• Total Number of Films Submitted: 362
• Total Number of Films Screened: 31
• Total Screenings: 37
• # of Shorts Screened: 10
• # of Features Screened: 21

• Competitive
• Has Panels
• Has Seminars

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

UNAFF celebrates the power of films and videos dealing with human rights, environmental survival, women’s issues, protection of refugees, homelessness, racism, disease control, universal education, war and peace. Documentaries often elicit a very personal, emotional response that encourages dialogue and action by humanizing global and local problems. To further this goal, UNAFF hosts academics and filmmakers from around the world to discuss the topics in the films with the audience, groups and individuals who are often separated by geography, ethnicity and economic constraints.

Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for 2008 the UNAFF team has chosen the theme BLUE PLANET, GREEN PLANET and are welcoming films reflecting all the usual problems that we encounter living on our Blue Planet, but also films which remind us that we have to worry about the Planet’s green aspects as well

Last year UNAFF jurors carefully reviewed over three hundred submissions. The final program consisted of thirty one films related to issues from Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, China, Congo, Ethiopia, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Russia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Spain, the UK and the USA.

Encouraged by overwhelming positive response from the audience and the media, UNAFF established a Traveling Film Festival which has taken place in San Francisco, Berkeley, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Davis, Sonoma, San Diego, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC, New York, New Haven at Yale University, Waukesha at University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, Boston and Cambridge at Harvard University.

UNAFF gives three awards—The Stanford Video Award for Cinematography and The Stanford Video Award for Editing (sponsored by Stanford Video), as well as the UNAFF Grand Jury Award.

Film Submissions:

• Accepts direct submissions
• Submission formats: VHS, Beta-SP, DVD, Other