NEW DELHI: A hard hitting and thought provoking film festival on human rights, the Flashpoint Human Rights Film Festival, is to be held in Mumbai coinciding with the Human Rights Day on 10 December.

Being held from 8 to 10 December at the Alliance Francaise auditorium at Marine Lines, the festival will bring together eight extraordinary films from around the world that deal with human rights issues - human trafficking & child prostitution; war crimes; religious fundamentalism, homophobia, violence against women, death penalty, forced disappearances, etc.

“These movies will shock you and wake you up to the new realities that we all must understand and counter. The Flashpoint Human Rights film festival will hurl you into the hearts and the lives of those brave people who had the audacity to stand up alone against the tyranny of the oppressor,” said filmmaker and rights activist Mahesh Bhatt, who will inaugurate the festival on 8 December.

Well known theatre person Dolly Thakore will also be a Guest of Honour at the opening ceremony.

The eight films set in Algeria, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Iran, Italy, Nepal and the Gaza strip show how brave human rights defenders campaign for justice and human rights, often paying a very high price for their work. “These activists and/or their organizations play a crucial role in the worldwide protection and promotion of human rights”, said Taco Ruighaver, director of Movies That Matter Film festival, Netherlands, with whose support this festival has been organised.

Apart from screening of films, there will be panel discussions on urgent and important topics like ‘human trafficking and inadequacy of the law’, ‘violence against women’ and ‘religious intolerance’ with eminent filmmakers Kalpana Lajmi, Bishakha Datta & Vinta Nanda; rights activists Priti Patkar & Flavia Agnes and advocates Maharukh Adenwala, PA Sebastian & Colin Gonsalves.

The three-day film festival is being organised by Solaris Pictures (Mumbai), Magic Lantern Foundation (New Delhi), and Movies That Matter (Netherlands).

The festival will later be held in New Delhi from 20 to 22 January, 2011.