On Saturday March 14, YURLU | COUNTRY was announced as the recipient of the Vision for Human Rights Award at the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) in Geneva, Switzerland 2026!
This prize is awarded to a film that, through its quality, theme and narrative, encourages commitment and can contribute to constructive social change by addressing an urgent human rights issue. The jury is composed of five professionals working for human rights, development and environmental organisations.
Yaara Bou Melhem and Johnnell Parker accepted the award in person on behalf of the YURLU | COUNTRY team at Theatre Espace, Geneva.
“Yurlu | Country wins for the quiet devastation of its gaze, and determined call to accountability. Yaara Bou Melhem’s hypnotic cinematography holds Banjima Country with tenderness and dignity, and serves as a gentle but unflinching rebuke of the impact of colonial abuse of sovereignty, land, labour, and heritage, whose long tail is experienced in asbestos toxicity still killing today. Yurlu | Country shows clearly how human and environmental rights violations compound and intersect through corporate impunity and government complicity in abnegation of human rights obligations. In the face of a new rush to exploitation, extraction and encroachment everywhere, its urgency is undeniable” – FIFDH Human Rights Vision Award Jury Statement
