Speech by Human Rights Ambassador Wim Geerts at Movies that Matter Festival

Speech | 26-03-2025

Good evening, everyone.

It’s a true pleasure to be here.

If you didn’t know any better, you might think it was a scene from a feel-good movie.

A few friends meet in the cheerfully named Café Sympathique.

They laugh.

They catch up.

They embrace each other.

‘You know,’ one of them says, with a broad smile on her face.

‘The nicest thing about the coup is that we met…’

‘Yes!’ a friend chimes in. ‘It was then we discovered that we had the same dreams.’

This is one of the many powerful moments in the film you are about to watch.

Spoken by some of the strongest protagonists you can imagine.

At a time when hope for democracy in Sudan seems to have faded…

and dreams feel further away than ever.

Because the military coup in Sudan has brought nothing but a bloody war -

a war that continues to this day.

Indeed, the heroes of this film have paid a high price for their hope.

Like Ahmed Muzamil, who is with us today.

Through his powerful murals in Khartoum, he immortalised the friends he has lost — friends who were murdered by the military.

For that, he was imprisoned, just as so many Sudanese people have been silenced.

And many others killed.

Yes, these are dark times for human rights.

For everyone who believes in them.

Speaking out often comes at a great cost.

Last night, Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian filmmaker of the Oscar-winning documentary ‘No Other Land’, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the West Bank and detained by the Israeli military.

His documentary was screened here, at Movies that Matter, last year.

Our minister has condemned this attack.

Dear friends,

Anti-human-rights movements are gaining ground.

And war rages on.

In Sudan.
In Gaza.
In Ukraine.

It weighs on us.

It drags us down.

It makes us feel despondent.

And yet
And yet — despite all of this —

I hope you will leave this cinema tonight with something else.

A smile.

A smile, like the ones worn by the film’s protagonists.

A smile of resilience.
A smile of determination.

Activists — so very young, yet already so well practised in optimism.

In finding hope, holding on to it, and passing it on.

Hope, not as an easy comfort, but as a hard choice.

A commitment to seeing a future beyond the darkness —

and to doing whatever it takes to get there.

Again and again.

For as long as it takes.

As one of the friends in that café says:

‘Even if we set up a citizens’ government, I will be in the opposition… until it is perfect.’

I’ve been human rights ambassador for a year and a half now.

And if there is one thing that never fails to move me when I meet human rights defenders, it’s this:

They never stop searching for cracks of light.

No matter how dark it gets.

And even when those cracks are sealed shut once more —

They find a way to open new ones.

Again and again.

That is how the light gets in.

And even though we may feel despondent, I am convinced we can see that light too, all around us.

In the early release from prison of Burundi journalist Floriane Irangabiye last summer.

In Bashar al-Assad’s departure from Damascus last December— which may leave in its wake an uncertain future, but which finally closes a bloody chapter in Syria’s history.

In Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and transfer from the Philippines to the International Criminal Court, the ICC, here in The Hague earlier this month.

In the early release of a human rights activist just last week, who was detained simply for making truthful edits to a Wikipedia page, which shows that standing up against injustice never goes unnoticed — not by oppressors.
And not by those who worked tirelessly to free him.

All of this, thanks to the resilience of human rights defenders.

Resilience you will also find in the eight films of the Activist Lens programme.

Films that do not just expose the most horrific injustices —

Slavery.

Sexual violence.

Oppression.

But films that also showcase the strength of those who refuse to give in.

Those who stand tall, no matter what.

To borrow the words of Mariame Kaba: ‘Hope is a discipline, and we have to practise it every single day.’

And what I find truly encouraging in these dark days, is that this strength is being passed on.

Thanks to determined filmmakers, like Hind Meddeb -

And thanks to festivals like Movies that Matter, these stories can be passed on, all across the world.

At film screenings at Dutch embassies,

but also at film festivals supported by Movies that Matter:

in the Amazon rainforest

in rural communities across India

and in refugee camps in the Sahara desert.

And I hope it will be passed on here, this evening, in this cinema.

So I wish you an inspiring screening —

and a determined smile when you leave this theatre.

Determined to find hope,

to hold on to it,

and to pass it on.

Just like Shajane — one of the protagonists in the film.

Standing in the centre of Khartoum with a sign that reads:

Souls cannot be killed.

The soul doesn’t die.

Let alone ideas.

Thank you.