IHRR Exploring Risk Film Festival 2023

The Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) at Durham University hosted the Exploring Risk Film Festival 2023 in the Calman Learning Centre. The film festival took place over two evenings with a key theme on each evening:

Theme 1: Reconnecting with our roots: Building resilience through community projects

Over millennia, human civilisations have developed technologies and protocols to protect their communities and reduce the severity of risk from hazardous events. Often some of the most successful approaches to mitigating disaster are those that are small-scale and community-driven which also utilise local natural resources. These typically incorporate indigenous knowledge that has been passed down through generations. This session will showcase films that explore these community-led and nature-based mitigation and preparedness strategies to natural and human-made hazards.

Five short films were shown in this session, based in four different countries (Bolivia, India, the UK, and Malawi). We also held a Q&A with two of the directors, Dr Penelope Anthias & Dr Bob Alexander. 

Theme 2: Compounding Crises: Considering multiple forms of emergency

For this session of short films, we are thinking about compounding crises. What are the complex set of issues facing people, communities and societies? What is happening to make the problem worse by adding to the scale of hardship? Are these related to hazards, health, financial, and conflict? How are people, communities and governments mitigating against, coping with and or adapting to these crises? What are the ways forward for people and societies?

A collection of short films from the UK and Ukraine were shown in this session. We also held a Q&A with Svitlana Pohasiy, a Ukrainian film school director.

Further details on the films shown can be found here.