Young filmmakers honoured at UN-backed festival

Young filmmakers from around the world will be recognized for their efforts to highlight migration, identity and diversity issues at a United Nations-backed ceremony in New York today.

The winners of the PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival Awards – an initiative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – were selected by an international jury out of more than 150 videos from 36 countries.

The festival seeks to give voice to youth on integration, inclusiveness, human rights and social cohesiveness and also to promote respect and appreciation for all people.

In the 9-12 age category, a group of 12 Palestinian children will be honoured for their animated film, “Warda,” which examines how young people perceive the wall between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Youngmin Kim from the Republic of Korea, in the 13-17 age category, is being awarded for her clay-animated video narrating the challenges of a young girl of Korean and Uzbek descent.

Veronica Owusu Kyei, Yanira Incio Noe and Zouine Chaimaa – from Ghana, Peru and Morocco, respectively – are being recognized for their film, “Something to Exchange: a dialogue between old and new migrants,” in the 18-25 age group. Their piece challenges misperceptions of immigrant communities in Italy.

The award-winning videos will be shown at festivals and events around the world next year.

Today’s ceremony coincides with International Migrants Day, with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay drawing attention to the plight of an estimated 200 million migrants worldwide, many of whom are exposed to violations of their basic rights and continue to be treated as commodities.

“Despite the increased efforts of the international community, including civil society, in promoting sound, equitable, humane and lawful conditions of migration, the human rights of migrants often remain out of sight,” she said in a statement.