Young Armenians invited to send in entries for short film contest on human rights in the digital age

The aim of the competition is to promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to raise awareness among young people about human rights in the digital age, opportunities that the internet and social media offer to defenders of human rights, to give youth the opportunity to tackle this topic from a creative point of view and to promote successes for human rights defenders.  All entries will be posted on the UN Armenia YouTube Channel and the general public will be invited to vote to select the best film. The films can be produced in groups and in co-operation with educational institutions. The best films will be screened on Human Rights Day in Yerevan in December 2012.

The same event will simultaneously take place in other UN member states. The award ceremony in Armenia will be broadcast live, connecting youth from different countries, who will be able to talk to each other via the internet, promoting international dialogue, building tolerance and sharing their experiences in promotion of human rights.

The length of the films must not exceed three minutes. They should be digital and can be fictional/feature, documentary or animation or any other category as long as they cover the topic of human rights in the digital age. The films can be in English, Armenian or Russian or even silent. They can be produced with any digital equipment available: all types of video cameras of all categories as well as mobile phone cameras are eligible for use. Only these formats will be acceptable: avi, mp4, mov. All films should respect Armenian copyright legislation.  Only films that are produced exclusively for this contest will be considered by the jury.

There will be two award categories: a jury award (consisting of MFA, UN DPI, UNDP, UNFPA, OHCHR, OSCE Office in Yerevan and CoE experts) and a general public award (through YouTube voting).