Five outstanding women join the FIFDH Foundation Board

In a dynamic of renewal, Ursula Meier, Stina Werenfels, Sanija Ameti, Nadia Dresti and Dr. Shirin Heidari are joining the Foundation Board of the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH). Yves Daccord takes over from Bruno Giussani as Chairmanof the Foundation Board.

Following the appointment last June of the new Director of Programmes, Irène Challand, who will share the post of Co-Director-General with the Director of Operations, Rachel Gerber, the Festival is now introducing changes in its governance.

On 1 September 2022, Yves Daccord, Executive Chairman of the Edgelands Institute, former Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and current member of the FIFDH Foundation Board, will take over the Chairmanship of the Board from Bruno Giussani, the European Director of the TED Conferences, who has led the Foundation for five years. Journalist and filmmaker Anne-Frédérique Widmann and scriptwriter Aude Py left the Board in early March and July 2022, respectively. All three have provided unwavering support and wise counsel to the FIFDH team: a particularly important presence during the challenging editions in 2020 and 2021.

The Festival staff would like to thank them warmly for their involvement and commitment since the creation of the Foundation in 2017.

"I am happy to be able to contribute to a new chapter of the FIFDH. Now, more than ever, we need to explore different perspectives, new territories to serve as a counterbalance to the negative dynamics that affect human rights. And the Festival, with its renewed spirit, is ready to take up this challenge." says Yves Daccord, new president of the FIFDH Foundation Board

As of 1 September, five dynamic women with diverse and complementary competencies will join the FIFDH Foundation Board. The choice of these members was motivated by their profiles and expertise, which correspond to the ambitions of the FIFDH: to assert its roots as a film festival, as well as consolidating and extending the quality of its debates and its commitment to human rights.

With regard to cinematography, the Festival will be able to count on the sensitivity and knowledge of Ursula Meier, a renowned filmmaker who has won numerous awards and nominations, including the 2012 Silver Bear - Special Prize at the Berlin Film Festival (L'enfant d'en haut) and the Swiss Film Prize in 2009 and 2013 (Home, L'enfant d'en haut); Stina Werenfels, director and screenwriter, winner of the Swiss Film Prize 2007 - Special Jury Prize (Nachbeben); and Nadia Dresti, member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Board of the Locarno Film Festival, with a rich and distinguished career in the film industry.

With a more political and human rights background, the FIFDH brings into its Foundation Board Sanija Ameti, co-president of the national political movement Operation Libero and doctoral student in the field of cybersecurity at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern and Dr. Shirin Heidari, researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, specialising in sexual and reproductive rights and gender issues, and a consultant for the WHO.

The new Foundation Board will support the two Executive Directors and the Festival team in the strategic development of the FIFDH.
 

Discover the new composition of the Foundation Board of the FIFDH