Academia goes cinema: Indigenous storytelling about the environment and human rights (ENG)
10 december 2025, Sphinx Cinema, Sint-Michielshelling 3, Gent
Human Rights Research Network (UGent) invites you to the movies. Join us for the public screening of two short documentaries co-created within the ERC project RIVERS: Human Rights Beyond the Human?
These twin documentaries from Nepal and Colombia weave Indigenous visions of rivers, law, and justice beyond the human.
An interactive dialogue will follow with the Indigenous judge from Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace – protagonist of the Colombian film, members of the Indigenous creative team from Nepal, and the project’s principal investigator moderated by filmmaker and climate activist Nic Balthazar.
Registration is obligatory, but free!
The free public screening will feature the two films:
Marsyangdi Wile Ri’iba: May You Live as Long as the River, is set in rural Nepal. The film explores the tension between ancestral wisdom, the agency of invisible guardians of the land, and the relentless force of ‘progress’ in Nepal’s hydropower economy.
Aty Seikuinduwa: A Judge Between Worlds, shot in Colombia, chronicles the spiritual and legal journey of Indigenous Judge Belkis Izquierdo, whose ground-breaking legal decisions recognize Territory as a victim of armed conflict within the framework of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the Colombian Peace Tribunal.
Programme:
- 20 uur: documentary screening
- 20 uur 50: Q&A with the creative team
Mariona Guiu (Creative Lead, RIVERS Project)
Manjit Lama (Indigenous Visual Storyteller and Cinematographer, Nepal)
Ransubba Gurung (Indigenous Co-producer and Research Assistant, Nepal)
- 21 uur 15: panel discussion
Moderator: Nic Balthazar (filmmaker and climate activist)
Lieselotte Viaene (Executive Producer twin documentary and Principal Investigator ERC RIVERS project, Human Rights Centre, Ghent University)
Belkis Izquierdo Torres (Indigenous Judge, Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Colombia and main protagonist Colombian Film)
Mamo Menjabin (spiritual leader Arhuaco Indigenous peoples, Colombia)
Organised by ERC Project RIVERS, Human Rights Research Network, Human Rights Centre, Green Office, Conflict Research Group, Global Minds, and UGent Doctoral Schools
In collaboration with Hello Symbiocene!