The International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) will this Sunday screen a French documentary on last year's Catalan independence referendum in Geneva, Catalogne: l’Espagne au bord de la crise de nerfs (Catalonia: Spain on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). It will be shown during the festival's closing session, to be followed by a discussion with president Carles Puigdemont, and has made Spanish authorities visibly nervous.
The film documents the police repression during the 1st October referendum and covers the range of political fallout. The documentary, the work of Sylvain Louvet, Gary Grabli and Julie Peyrard, also explains the origins of the Catalan independence movement and interviews the protagonists of the current situation, from both sides of the debate, as well as European analysts.
"Kosovo, Scotland, Iraqi Kurdistan, Catalonia: all invoke a right considered fundamental: a people’s right to self-determination. In 2008, the declaration of independence of Kosovo paved the way for several regions to push for the recognition of their right to self-determination. While the recent unilateral proclamations of independence of Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia have been categorically rejected and strongly repressed by the Iraqi and Spanish governments, the will of the people wanting to assert their independence and the responsibilities of the States to uphold the laws seem to be on a collision course. Are we witnessing an evolution of the right to self-determination, until now reserved for the context of decolonization," the festival write.