Humans Fest, the Valencia International Film and Human Rights Festival organized by the Foundation for Justice since 2009, has been officially recognized by the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a qualifying festival for the Goya Awards in the categories of Best Fiction Short Film and Best Documentary Short Film.
This is stated in the Rules of the 40th edition of the Goya Awards, published last Wednesday, July 16, which establishes that winning the official section of a qualifying festival or being selected in seven of them is one of the requirements for a short film to be eligible for nomination for the most prestigious awards in Spanish cinema.
Humans Fest thus joins the list of national festivals selecting films, which only includes two others from the province of Valencia: Cinema Jove (Valencia International Film Festival) and Maniatic (Valencia International Fantastic Film Festival). "We are very happy because this increases the prestige of our festival. The team has put a tremendous amount of effort into achieving this distinction. We remain enthusiastic about continuing to grow this project about cinema and human rights," says Pilar Almenar, director of Humans Fest.
Humans Fest is part of the international Human Rights Film Network, along with 52 other film and human rights festivals around the world. Its 15th edition, the latest to be held, was thanks to the collaboration of the Vice Presidency and Ministry of Social Services, Equality, and Housing of the Generalitat Valenciana; the Valencian Institute of Culture; Valencia City Council; the Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts (ICAA); the Valencian Provincial Council; Caixa Popular; and the Valencian Coordinator of NGOs (CVONGD). À Punt, the Valencian regional radio and television channel, is the festival's official media outlet.