XVIII FESTIVAL DEL CINEMA DEI DIRITTI UMANI DI NAPOLI
CALL FOR COMPETITION 2026

Art. 1 – Introduction

The eighteenth edition of the Naples Human Rights Film Festival, titled “Human and Integral Development, Principles of Peace,” will take place in November 2026 in the urban area of the city of Naples.

As always, the Festival is organized by its Board, composed of experts and members of associations that have supported the event since its founding in 2008 — first and foremost the cultural association “Cinema e Diritti,” which founded the Festival and oversees its coordination and promotion.

Art. 2 – Objectives and Competition Sections

This call for entries is addressed to authors of audiovisual works wishing to compete for awards and special mentions in the Festival’s competition categories.

A selection committee appointed by the Festival Board will carry out the initial selection, choosing the works to be screened and submitted to the Juries, which will determine the winners in each category and assign mentions.

The admitted works — documentary, fiction, and animation — should portray aspects of contemporary reality, focusing on the social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues that globalization and the crisis of traditional development models have made unavoidable for the global community, as well as on possible solutions, best practices, and forms of resistance to social decline that communities, associations, and citizens experiment with daily.

Particularly welcome are works that recount real cases of denunciation or human resistance, whether individual or collective, opposing threats, abuses, violence, dictatorships, and aggression against people belonging to ethnic or cultural minorities or socially vulnerable groups.

The 18th Naples Human Rights Film Festival is divided into four competition sections:

A) HUMAN RIGHTS DOC, open to works longer than 52 minutes

B) HUMAN RIGHTS SHORT, open to short films of 52 minutes or less

C) HUMAN RIGHTS YOUTH, open to works created by authors under 25 or aimed at children and/or young audiences, with a maximum duration of 30 minutes

D) SWISS EMBASSY PEACE PRIZE, open to works dealing broadly with the theme of Peace and its implications

Art. 3 – Submission Process

Submission to the call implies full acceptance of these regulations and must be made exclusively through the FILMFREEWAY.COM platform. Submissions by email or other means will not be accepted. Each film submission requires a symbolic fee of €10 (TEN).

At the time of submission, the following materials must be uploaded to FILMFREEWAY:

Full film with Italian or English subtitles;

Trailer (maximum duration 1 minute);

Complete technical sheet, synopsis, director’s notes, and relevant documentation;

CV and filmography of the author;

One photo of the author and two stills from the film in high-resolution jpg or png format.

At the same time, the following must be sent to competition@cinenapolidiritti.it:

signed release form downloadable from www.cinenapolidiritti.it;

signed acceptance of the regulations, explicitly indicating the submission ID number provided by FILMFREEWAY;

reliable postal, email, and phone contact details of the author and/or submission contact person;

dialogue list in .srt format in Italian or English.

Authors and/or producers, through a signed release form available on the Festival website (to be sent in pdf or jpeg format), assume full responsibility for the content of their works and declare that all copyright obligations have been fulfilled.

All documentation must be provided in Italian or English.

(For information: competition@cinenapolidiritti.it)

Art. 4 – Deadlines, Conditions, and Selection Process

Works submitted to the four competition sections must be delivered no later than May 30, 2026, must have been produced after January 1, 2025, and must address the topics outlined in Art. 2.

Documentaries and short films will be reviewed and selected by a committee of experts appointed by the Festival Board. Selected works will be scheduled and screened according to a calendar to be defined, with appropriate promotion and prior notification to authors. No screening fees will be paid for selected films.

Each author may submit multiple works but may participate in the competition with only one selected work per section, at the discretion of the selection committee.

Works produced or sponsored by commercial companies that function as advertising vehicles are not eligible.

Selection results will be communicated by email and published on the website http://cinenapolidiritti.it/web by September 10, 2026. If no works meet the minimum requirements, the organization reserves the right to cancel one or more competition sections. The organization also reserves the right to reassign selected works to different sections if necessary.

Selected authors will be contacted in due time to provide screening materials.

Selected works must be delivered in h.264 format without subtitles, along with Italian subtitles in .srt format by October 1, 2026. Exceptionally, if Italian subtitles are unavailable, English subtitles may be provided (in synchronized .srt format) by September 20, 2026.

The Festival Board commits, upon receiving free authorization from the authors, to promote selected works within specialized Human Rights film circuits after the conclusion of the Festival.

Art. 5 – Results and Awards

Works selected for the official competition in the HUMAN RIGHTS DOC and HUMAN RIGHTS SHORT sections will be evaluated by an Expert Jury of up to five members, including directors, journalists, film experts, and cultural and Human Rights figures. The composition of the Jury will be publicly announced through various communication channels.

The Jury will award a prize for each of the HUMAN RIGHTS DOC and HUMAN RIGHTS SHORT sections.

A Youth Jury will award a prize in the HUMAN RIGHTS YOUTH section.

Additionally, for works in the HUMAN RIGHTS DOC, HUMAN RIGHTS SHORT, and HUMAN RIGHTS YOUTH sections are established:

“Mario Paciolla” Prize, dedicated to works addressing international cooperation, solidarity, and volunteering.

For HUMAN RIGHTS DOC and HUMAN RIGHTS SHORT are established:

FICC SHORTS and FICC DOC Awards, established by the Italian Federation of Film Societies.

Dedicated juries will be established for the Swiss Embassy Peace Prize, the Mario Paciolla Prize, and the FICC awards.

The internal selection committee will award a Special Mention in memory of Vittorio Arrigoni and Juliano Mer Khamis to a work that, with courage, passion, and independence, brings to light marginal stories and situations, outlining new spaces for modern civil activism, including through experimental forms of communication and language.

A “Platea Diffusa” Jury, composed of citizens and supported by media and Festival partners, will award a Special Mention to a film in the HUMAN RIGHTS DOC or HUMAN RIGHTS SHORT sections.

Prizes:

HUMAN RIGHTS DOC and SHORT: €1,000 each

HUMAN RIGHTS YOUTH: €500

SWISS EMBASSY PEACE PRIZE: €1,000

MARIO PACIOLLA PRIZE: €500

FICC SHORTS and DOC: €500 each

Winning films and those receiving special mentions will be promoted within the Human Rights Film Network, the Caffè Sospeso network, and the Festival’s cinema and activism circuits.

Art. 6 – Out-of-Competition Screenings and Post-Festival Distribution

The selection committee may identify works for out-of-competition screenings in specific contexts such as prisons, schools, universities, and other cultural venues during the Festival, as part of special events aimed at audience development and the promotion of human rights cinema. Authors’ willingness to grant free screening rights in such contexts is particularly appreciated.

Art. 7 – Clauses

By submitting, authors and producers implicitly authorize the use of up to 90 seconds of their work for Festival promotion. Admission to the Festival also implies granting, free of charge, reproduction rights for still images or film excerpts up to a maximum of 3 minutes for promotional purposes across press, television, and the web.

By submitting to the Festival, each author, producer, or distributor assumes responsibility for the content of the work, declares that all copyright obligations have been fulfilled, and grants explicit authorization for its use.

The applicant guarantees the accuracy of the submitted data, which may be used in promotional materials (catalog, website, press releases, etc.) if the work is selected.

These regulations must be signed and sent, together with the required attachments, to competition@cinenapolidiritti.it

In the event of disputes, jurisdiction lies with the Court of Naples.

Personal data will be processed in accordance with Law no. 675 of 31/12/1996 and subsequent amendments.