Since 2010, Slovene Philanthropy has been marking World Refugee Day (20 June) in Slovenia with the Migrant Film Festival, which was moved to the autumn for its fifteenth edition in 2024 and will be organised for the seventeenth time in 2026. We strive each year to offer local audiences a diverse selection of films that shed light on current issues related to migration, asylum, and the lives of refugees. In addition to film screenings, we also prepare a rich accompanying programme, including thematic discussions and talks with filmmakers and other guests.
Over the course of sixteen editions of the festival, we have screened more than 390 films and remain one of the few festivals worldwide dedicated to this topic.
We also consider it important to bring the topics addressed by the festival closer to local communities. For several years now, we have been raising the issue of migration and putting it into context in different parts of Slovenia – in addition to Ljubljana, the FMF has been on the road in more than 10 different places.
Through film stories and discussions, we aim to create space for reflection on migration through the personal experiences of the people directly affected by these stories. We also seek to draw attention to restrictive and harmful asylum and migration policies, human rights violations, violent borders, racism, global inequality and the criminalization of solidarity, while also highlighting causes of migration, the importance of integration and the positive aspects of migration. At the same time, we call for collective engagement and for opportunities for a new beginning for those who have been forced to leave their homes for various reasons.
Film enables us to understand the complex realities of migration beyond statistics and political debates, and to come closer to the stories of people who remain trapped behind border fences, in inhumane conditions, or dying along the way.
Knowledge is the path to understanding, and the festival aims to open that path
