To mark Human Rights Day 2025, the Mitchell Institute is partnering with the Human Rights Centre and the Transitional Justice Cluster at QUB, to offer two events on 8 December. The events – a Lecture and a Film Screening - are part of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Festival taking place 7-13 December 2025.

Both events are rooted in the lived experience of the Srebrenica genocide and its aftermath and explore the role of the creative arts as a response to human rights violations.

My Father's Diaries.

We will host a screening of My Father's Diaries, in which, thirty years after the Srebrenica genocide, filmmaker Ado Hasanović delves into his father's incredible story by exploring his diaries and footage from those years.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion reflecting on the film and the role of the arts in responding to human rights violations.

In August 1993, Bekir Hasanović trades a gold coin for a video camera, which he uses to document daily life in Srebrenica from that point onward. The footage he captures during the war, along with his makeshift crew, Dzon, Ben & Boys, presents an unexpected portrait of a disoriented population that holds on to reality with resilience and a healthy dose of humor.

Ado, Bekir’s son, uses these recordings and his father’s diaries to reconstruct his image. Together with his mother, Fatima, he seeks to understand how Bekir survived the Death March and the Srebrenica genocide

Ado Hasanović (Director)

Ado Hasanović is a Bosnian film director and festival programmer based in Rome. He is a member of the European Film Academy and the Filmmakers Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

His short films, such as The Angel of Srebrenica (2010), Mama (2013), Pink Elephant (2017), Nomofobia (2018), and Let There Be Colour (2020), have been selected and awarded in many international film festivals. His first documentary, My Father's Diaries, produced by Palomar (Italy) and Mediawan (France), premiered in 2024 at Visions du Réel.

This screening takes place at 6pm in Queen's Film Theatre in screen 2.

Further information and registration here.