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The 14th annual opened at Thursday and continues at multiple venues in Whatcom County through March 1, with multiple showings taking place at Fairhaven College Auditorium at the Western Washington University campus.

The festival focuses on documentaries about human and environmental-rights issues. This year there are 20 films with topics such as environmental justice, indigenous resistance, war and peace, gender and women’s rights. The films will be followed up by an audience discussion, usually facilitated by film directors, human rights activists or local experts.

Other venues for this year’s films include Bellingham High School Library, Bellingham Technical College – Settlemeyer Hall, Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, Deming Library, Fairhaven College Auditorium, First Congressional Church of Bellingham, Lynden Library, NW Indian College – Log Building, Sehome High School Library and Whatcom Community College – Syre Student Center Room 105.

The Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival is put on by students, volunteers, businesses and community groups. Admission and parking is free. .

The films being shown in the auditorium of Western’s are as follows:

Friday, 2/21

• The Carbon Rush, 7 p.m.: A critical look at the popularity of carbon offset schemes — who wins and who loses?

Saturday 2/22

• We Can’t Eat Gold, 7 p.m.: Alaska Natives resist as their culture is threatened by the Pebble Mine.

Sunday 2/23

• Salmon Confidential, Noon: A government cover-up of what’s killing British Columbia’s wild salmon.
• Saving Face, 1:30 p.m.: Survivors of acid attacks fight for justice while a Pakistani plastic surgeon helps restore their faces and lives.
• Rape of the Samburu Women, 2:30 p.m.: Kenyan women, raped by British soldiers and cast out of their communities, build a self-sufficient village.
• Troubled Water, 3 p.m.: Communities in a Vancouver Island watershed respond to threats to their drinking water.
• Easy Like Water, 4:15 p.m.: “Bangladesh’s Noah” designs and builds floating schools to help his country adapt to a predicted future of going underwater.

Monday 2/24

• It’s A Girl, 7 p.m.: “Gendercide” involves female children and fetuses who are killed, abandoned, or aborted in certain parts of the world due to their sex.

Tuesday 2/25

• Not My Life, 7 p.m.: Global human trafficking affects millions of children, women, and men globally.

Wednesday 2/26

• Valentino’s Ghost, 7 p.m.: Exposes links between U.S. foreign policy and media portrayals of Arabs and Muslims.

Thursday 2/27

• Battle for the Xingu, 7 p.m.: Native Xingu try to stop a dam in the Peruvian Amazon.
• Standing On Sacred Ground, 7:20 p.m.: From Papua New Guinea to the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, native people resist loss of land, water and health to mining and oil industries.

Friday 2/28

• Valentine Road, 7 p.m.: A disturbing and tragic death of a gender non-conforming teen.

Saturday 3/1

• Niños de la Memoria, Noon: The search for Salvadoran children who went missing during war.
• Unmanned: Drone Wars, 1:30 p.m.: An investigation of U.S. drone strikes’ impact here and abroad.
• Mother: Caring for 7 Billion, 3:30 p.m.: A solution based look at environmental and social crises caused by overpopulation.
• Blackout, 4:45 p.m.: At night, young children in Guinea go out in search for light to study.
• La Source, 7 p.m.: Haitian brothers raise awareness and funds to bring drinking water to their village.

For more information, contact Shirley Osterhaus at Western’s Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at 360-650-2309 or shirley.osterhaus@wwu.edu. Or contact James Loucky at Western’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences at james.loucky@wwu.edu.