ABOUT
THE SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL is part of Syracuse Symposium 2023-24: Landscapes and is presented by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Syracuse University Humanities Center in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The festival was founded in 2003 by Professor Tula Goenka (Television, Radio, and Film) in collaboration with the international human rights organization Breakthrough under the title Illuminating Oppression: A Film Festival on Human Rights in South Asia. It was a co-presentation of the Newhouse School and the South Asia Center in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
In 2006, the film festival became part of the annual Syracuse Symposium hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences, and it broadened its programming to include films from around the world a year later. In 2010, Professor Roger Hallas (English) joined Professor Goenka as a co-director of the festival, and in 2012, the festival changed its name to the Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival (SUHRFF).
SUHRFF celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2022. An archive of all previous programs can be found in the Retrospective section of this website.
Festival director: Roger Hallas
Founding director: Tula Goenka
Festival designer: Joanna Giansanti
Website manager: Adam DJ Brett
Budget coordinator: Alissa Strusienski
Events coordinator: Jessica Allman
Syracuse Symposium administrators: Diane Drake and Jacqulyn Ladnier
Technical support: Andrew Wowelko, Steven Lobello, Brian Tibbens, Brian Simmons, and Stanley Bondy
Festival interns: Arda Oz and Angela Nell-Tascon