Discover the festival in a real or virtual cinema and become part of a global reflection on the contemporary world.

The HumanDOC Festival offers a deep understanding of global issues and encourages reflection on our role in the world. Through global education, showcasing the causes and effects of phenomena, and highlighting interdependencies, the festival helps build a more aware and responsible society. It is an extraordinary film experience that can inspire action toward a better, more just world.

The best documentaries from around the world are waiting for viewers in Poland, and it’s completely free—just visit vod.humandoc.pl and enjoy the festival from the comfort of your own home. The HumanDOC International Documentary Film Festival is a unique event that attracts audiences from all over Poland every year. The festival offers access to outstanding documentaries from around the globe, including those nominated for an Oscar. Among the films, you’ll find real, moving human stories, depictions of threats to our planet, transformations in contemporary society, and the extraordinary cultures of the world.

Face to Face with Filmmakers
Meetings with creators are an integral part of the festival. Viewers have the chance to participate in online sessions with directors and filmmakers, allowing for a deeper understanding of the stories presented.
Additionally, the festival offers Master Directing Workshops led by renowned filmmakers, as well as discussion panels with experts that delve into the topics explored in the documentaries.
HumanDOC at Home also brings additional surprises, such as expert commentary on the films and discussion panels that help viewers gain a closer understanding of the stories and current global issues.

DONATOR

The project co-financed from the state budget under the Polish development cooperation program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland

“Help with One Click” – petition for helping domestic violence victims

From all over the country, we’ve been receiving some disturbing information about the negative results of isolation, which on the one hand, caused sense of impunity for the domestic violence perpetrators, and on the other, due to frustration, brought domestic violence to homes, which had always been free from it. We have to act fast in order to help people, for whom their own home poses a bigger threat than coronavirus.

HumanDoc Foundation has issued a petition, in which we appeal to the Polish Police to create a way of quick and safe contact, thanks to which a person experiencing violence will be able to notify the nearest police station in a different way than calling the emergency numbers 112 or 997. Being in one house with the perpetrator of domestic violence, such a phone call may be impossible. We suggest a quick but safe way of informing the police via a dedicated e-mail address.

Our petition was widely discussed in the media – some main stations like Wirtualna Polska, RMF FM, Gazeta Wyborcza or even Super Express informed about it. The information was also published on smaller portals and parenting blogs, like Mamamdu.pl or Psychologists for the Society – a group gathering over three thousand specialists.

This action of HumanDoc Foundation was also described in “Duży Format” in a reportage by Ewa Wilczyńska, “Violence under Quarantine”.  

Georgia. A country attracting lots of tourists every year. In its modern capital have been placed automatic food dispensers for stray dogs. In this country, in 2016, 25 women died as a result of domestic violence. 

The scale of the problem of domestic violence in Georgia can be best described by the story of a policeman, who took part in one of the trainings organized by HumanDoc Foundation. After completing the training, he admitted that he realized, he was a perpetrator of domestic violence himself.

For many years now, HumanDoc Foundation has been conducting systemic activities in Georgia, such as domestic violence prevention and strengthening the victim protection system. Since 2018, together with the local organization “Merkuri”, we’ve been helping women and children start a new, safe life, free from violence and aggression.

We are able to do that because we opened the first in western Georgia shelter for women and children, who experienced domestic violence. The shelter is a place, where women and children can survive the crisis, find their balance and strength to prepare for a new life without violence, but with rebuilt self-esteem and financial independence, achieved thanks to the vocational trainings organized by the Foundation.

Help from HumanDoc and its partners is based on a few activities:

– We ensure shelter and a place to live for women and children, who escaped from their homes.

– Our beneficiaries can receive the support of a psychologist, lawyer and social worker. – We also run a support center, where women and children, who faced the problem of domestic violence, but don’t need to live in the shelter, can receive professional advice.  

– Our effective actions are possible thanks to our cooperation with local police, social services and other non-governmental organizations.

Building women’s financial independence 

We help women become financially independent, thanks to which they can leave their husbands or families who use violence. As the first ones in Georgia, we prepared a system of conducting vocational trainings adjusted to the needs of our beneficiaries. Thanks to these courses they can improve their qualifications during e.g. computer and accounting course, massage course, gardening or stylization courses.

Women who completed such courses said multiple times that if it wasn’t for the good atmosphere, flexible schedule (sometimes the classes are conducted on Sundays) and the care provided for their children while they were learning, they never would have dared to take such steps.

We raise women’s self esteem

Throughout the duration of the project, we noticed an urgent need of therapeutic work both with women and the children, for whom we prepared specialized programs of psychological support.

 While going out from the problem of domestic violence, it is vitally important to receive the proper support in making decisions and solidarity, thanks to which women know that they are not abandoned. Bearing that in mind, we have established a Women’s Club – a place, which offers exactly those things. Women can meet there regularly, share their experiences, participate in workshops with a psychologist and other specialists.

Within our project, we cooperate with groups of professions, which are included in the domestic violence prevention system. In the years 2016-2020, we conducted in 4 regions specialized trainings in domestic violence for:

We have trained a group of psychologists, who are now professionally prepared to work with domestic violence victims, as well as a group of trainers, who are now able to conduct their own trainings in domestic violence prevention.

 Trained teachers conducted in their schools various actions for students and their parents aimed at raising awareness of the problem. A few thousand people participated in them. Additionally, our experts, who run programs about domestic violence prevention, appeared regularly in two radio stations. 

Education is one of the most important values of HumanDoc Foundation. To know more is to be able make wise choices, supported with solid knowledge and, most of all, to be able to take actions consciously – for our own, local identity, but also for its global dimension.

We introduce our mission into life on many levels: though smaller activities, like preventing infodemia by preparing press reviews and by publishing reliable information from all around the world. By complex, long-term projects, like International Documentary Film Festival HumanDOC and by education supported with high-quality culture, we can reach thousands of viewers nationwide.

New modules (specialisations) for the students

While extending our experience, we implement braver projects. One of such projects, which aimed at raising the quality of teaching global education in Polish higher education by introducing to the curricula two new modules (previously: specialisations) on full-time, I degree studies in political science and journalism.

New modules, that is Global Studies for Political Science Students as well as Film and Communication in Global World – for Journalism Students. Together with our substantive partner, University of Opole, and involved scientists from the Institute of Political Science by the Faculty of Political Science and Social Communication, we implemented our project assumptions in 100%. We take pride in the fact that a few dozens of students fulfil the program prepared by us and our partners. This is the beginning of a new chapter of global education in our country.

At the same time, bearing in mind the necessity to share knowledge with everyone who is interested, the HumanDoc Foundation and University of Opole prepared and published a multimedia coursebook. Apart from the traditional form, which was sent out to the most important academic centres in the country, we have also prepared an online version of the coursebook, so that everyone can access it at any time.

Global Studies Coursebook – multimedia tool for global education

The concept of the coursebook – its multimedia dimension – is a result of previous activities conducted by the Foundation: building the story of Global South for the recipients from Global North, told to a significant extent by the reportages, which document the events from the world. Apart from the substantive and informative values, its multimedia form is an undoubtful advantage of the coursebook. Visually attractive form and innovative looks will surely meet the expectations of a contemporary reader, who not only looks for information of global importance, but also for comprehensive presentation of data in the same, multi-dimensional, even global form. This is why, the chapters in seven big parts of the coursebook contain photographs, which are also didactical material themselves.

It’s worth emphasising that the photographs come from such websites like Global Voices or Human Rights Watch. These are highly valuable sources, strongly related with global understanding of contemporary world.

The idea to prepare the coursebook in a modern, multimedia form was an imminent consequence of the Foundation’s activities. Our primary goal is to educate about global problems. For nearly a decade now, we’ve been promoting through media, art, new technology and educational activities the socially involved topics, knowledge of Global South and implementation of new solutions, supporting social growth and promoting entrepreneurship. We put our values into real actions. We produce reportages from all over the world and since 2010 we’ve been organising the International Documentary Film Festival (LINK DO FESTIWALU).

About a Lesson in Dying

Two-year project, finalised by organising a nationwide scientific conference, in which scientists working on the topic of global education from whole Poland took part. More than 200 students, 12 scientists, and 2 guests from outside the science world participated in the event.

Our goal was to go beyond the traditional scientific conferences. We were striving to build a platform for the scientists and students to exchange their views. This is why we invited special guests and meetings with them were aimed at preparing students for academic discussion about teaching global education in Poland.

Our open workshop by Katarzyna Boni, Polish reporter, attracted a lot of interest as well. Boni is interested in the problem of global education, especially in the area of ecology. At the same time, she is the co-author of the book “Kontener”, written with Wojciech Tochman. The book tells the story of Syrian refugees and their life in Jordan. The workshops by Bani opened students’ eyes to global education, making them realise that their personal choices and local actions, have their consequences in the global structure of the world.

For the academics, the discussion panel turned out to be the most interesting part of the event – “Searching for the Effective Narration. About the Global Studies – How to Talk about the Global World”. All invited quests, including the prominent professor Mirosława Czerny and the Polish Ambassador, Michał Radlicki, participated in the project. The goal of the panel was to specify the directions of global education in higher education.

Have you ever wondered, what it feels like to lose your vision? And in addition, not to be able to hear, what is going on in your surrounding? Never to hear the voice of your mom? Or your own child?

Nino knows this feeling. It’s not only the darkness. It’s also the sense of lack of balance. Lack of control. It’s as if she was underwater and couldn’t get out above the surface. Deprived of the ability to see, she took her first shaky steps, trying to feel with her hands the world around. Yet it was still impossible without a caregiver. – I realized, how difficult the life of the blind is and how often I add to their misery by not sharing sufficient information with the society – Nino says.

Her blindness was just temporary. It was just an exercise, fully controlled and supervised, during workshops where Nino and other students were learning about the world of the deaf-blind community. It was one of many trainings prepared by HumanDoc Foundation and our partners in Georgia to improve the quality of life of the deaf-blind.

The deaf-blind persons have visual and hearing disabilities at the same time. Their situation is especially difficult, as the limitation of senses cannot be compensated with hearing or vision.

We have to act because currently the topic of deaf-blind community in Georgia is virtually non-existent, and the awareness of the problems is close to zero. Additionally, people even with one ability (e.g. visual or hearing) are afraid of stigmatization. A person ashamed of their health problems often tends to ignore other disabilities which might appear “in order not to cause any more problems to their families”. A lot of visual or hearing impairments could be prevented to some extent if periodic medical tests were more commonly conducted.

In order to change that, we have opened four Support Clubs for the deaf-blind persons in Tbilisi, Batumi, Zugdidi and Telavi. At the same time, together with our local partners, we were the first ones to start in Georgia activities aimed at building support and care system for the deaf-blind community. Our actions are based on over 30 years of experience of our experts from the Polish Support Organization for the Deaf-Blind.

In the Club, we conduct educational workshops for the deaf-blind and their families. We organize informative meetings for the local authorities and non-governmental organizations. Our Clubs are equipped with modern devices, helping the deaf-blind with everyday life, including optical equipment – different kinds of magnifying glasses and eye charts. Additionally, Club in Tbilisi, which should play a role of a diagnostic and rehabilitation center, received a case of corrective lenses, simulators of eye defects, tonometer which measures pressure in eyeball. Thanks to these purchases, it will be possible to conduct some basic tests and to detect ocular defects in our beneficiaries.

Within the scope of HumanDoc’s activities, we run also specialized medical tests for our beneficiaries. For many of them, this is the first opportunity for many years to check their current health condition. Thanks to our project, by the end of 2019 we examined over 100 with both visual and hearing disabilities.

At the same time, we train our local experts, who will be professionally prepared to work with the deaf-blind community.

In 2018, together with Polish and Georgian linguists, we managed to create a Georgian version of Lorma alphabet, the so-called GeoLorm. It’s one of the ways for the deaf-blind persons to communicate. 1 700 people have already watched the training video, which presents the use of GeoLorm.

When back in 2016, we started working in Georgia, it became very clear to us that we have to support women experiencing domestic violence. With time, we opened a shelter, which was for them a kind of safe haven. Our first beneficiaries, thanks to the support of experts from Merkuri organization, started a new life.

 Lali took advantage of a municipal program – she is renting an apartment from the city. Etuna, Natia and Tea, thanks to our vocational courses, opened their own small businesses. Keti, together with her husband, with the assistance of a psychologist, participated in marriage mediations, and for 1.5 year now their home has been free from violence.

Violence hurts not only women, but also children and men themselves, who often cannot handle their aggression well. Even if they want to work on themselves, there are no places, where they could seek support. This is why, in November 2019, after a major renovation of the building, we opened a Family Support Center in Zugdidi. Everyone, who experiences violence, can turn to specialists for help – children, youth, women and men. Specialists offer legal and psychological support, as well as correction program for the perpetrators. This is the first initiative of this kind, offering such a wide range of services in the country.

One of the beneficiaries is a wife of a soldier, Tengiza. He took part in a mission in Afghanistan. After he came back, he couldn’t cope with his normal, “civilian” life. The reaction he knew and trained was aggression. Tengiza’s wife, together with her children, started to seek psychological support. Tengiza, after receiving encouragement from his supervisors, decided to take part in psychological consultations as well. At the same time, Tako – the psychologist, started conducting a marriage therapy. Tengiza’s wife has recently thanked Tako. She doesn’t remember the last time when their home was free from violence and screaming for such a long time. Each individual story is extremely important. It also shows, how needed are such centers with professional team, which is ready and prepared to help every person, who struggles with the problem of violence.

In HumanDoc we try to create such conditions and opportunities, so that there are more places of that kind.