Yes, we made it to the national newspapers (Het Parool, AD and many others), but because of a different reason that you might think.

A religious group portrayed in the documentary The Ashram Children, begun a lawsuit against the festival, which took place in the morning of the 4th of September 2020, on the festival’s opening day, before the festival officially started.

The lawyers of the religious group demanded that the documentary would be removed from the program of the festival. The religious group accused the film of speaking blasphamous things about their religion and that it was filled with copyright infringed material.

On Friday, the 4th of Sept 2020, the judge in the court of Amsterdam ruled that the film may be shown on Saturday, the 5th of september 2020. The judge declared the film to be nuanced, balanced and a testimony of freedom of speech. Because the film portrays people who are for the religion, against and in the middle and the filmmaker never dared to say anything bad about the religion he grew up in. Besides that, all copy right infringement accusations were disproven, which resulted in HoFF 100% winning the case.

The documentary won 2 awards: Jury Award, and the Audience Award for Best Feature Film!

HoFF would also like to thank our lawyer, Josine van den Berg from Mount Law, but also major film festivals and institutions such as Movies That Matters, EYE International, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam and International Film Festival Rotterdam, for giving us advice and offering us help.

Link to Het Parool: https://www.parool.nl/kunst-media/humans-of-film-festival-wint-rechtszaak-tegen-religieuze-groepering~b2fc36d8/

Link to more articles: https://humansoffilmfestival.com/humans-of-film-festival-in-the-media/