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Sometimes it’s enough just to awaken people’s minds.

"The main objective is just to inspire people," says Cindy Murdoch, executive director of the Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties, which presents the first annual Human Rights Film Festival from March 21-26 in downtown Winnipeg.

Developed in 2010, the festival aims to increase public awareness of the efforts required for greater social justice, and an end to discrimination based on race (the fest highlights March 21, the Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination). Most events are free.

The "free" part is crucial. "It was important to make the event as accessible as possible," Murdoch says. "Consciousness-raising, not fundraising, was the main goal." Disseminating information on specific actions or initiatives, related to specific issues, was also less of a priority.

That being said, "hopefully people who attend will be moved to action," Murdoch continues. To this end, a key component of the festival is Q&A sessions with featured filmmakers, many of them from Winnipeg or Manitoba.

That was another key element in planning the festival: putting the focus as much as possible on local issues through local film, whether in short or feature form. In the former category is the stark, moody and powerful Warchild, by Winnipeg filmmaker Caroline Monnet, which played at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

Another notable playing alongside Monnet’s film is the handsomely shot The Sacred Seven, by Winnipeg born-and-raised Jordan Molaro. The film, which concerns a young foster child, had its world premiere at the 2010 Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival, and also played the 35th American Indian Film Festival this past November, in San Francisco.

In the feature category is Billy, a new feature-length drama by local filmmakers Winston Moxam and Ernesto Griffith. The movie’s subject is the memories of a 94 year-old black man in a Swan River, MB nursing home.

Then there’s the feature documentary Grand Rapids by Gregory Zbitnew, who filmed one of the Winnipeg Film Group’s first "official" productions, the northern Manitoba documentary Muskeg Special, in 1979 (it was finally completed in 2006). Grand Rapids will be making its Winnipeg premiere.

Formerly from northern Manitoba himself, Zbitnew – now living on Vancouver Island – says he hopes the film will make Manitobans more aware of their own human rights history…especially as it pertains to people of the north.

Grand Rapids concerns the title community, and how the hydroelectric dam built there in the 1960s ended the way of life the residents had theretofore enjoyed. What happened, Zbitnew explains, is that the dam cut off the rapids where local people used to fish; at the same time, the land where they used to trap was turned into a dried-up riverbed.

"Basically, my film is about people – First Nations people – whose rights were never considered at all," Zbitnew says. "They were just subject to the whims of government; they were treated like second-class citizens in their own community."

Zbitnew wanted to give his subjects a voice. The film "doesn’t make a strong political statement," nor does it even contain narration; rather, it consists of clips featuring people of the community just talking, and expressing their own thoughts on past events and present ramifications. (Zbitnew plans on making another doc in northern Manitoba this summer.)

While the various foci are slightly different, Murdoch says that there’s certainly thematic overlap with various other local film fests, from WAFF to the Global Justice Film Festival to the Reel Green Film Festival. "We’re all looking at issues of social justice."

What that says about the community, Murdoch says, is that it’s becoming more socially aware – hence there’s a greater need for events that bring like-minded people together. "We’re also definitely trying to attract those who are already active in some way.

"Other people can be a very important part of the inspirational process."

The first annual Human Rights Film Festival takes place March 21-26. To download the festival program, visit http://marl.mb.ca/content/filmfestival.