After kicking off Wednesday, the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) screened 31 films spotlighting human rights violations throughout the world, ranging from the U.S. penal system to brain disease in Tibet.

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John Laxson

Zach Niles, director of "Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars" speaks after his film screened at UNAFF this weekend

In its ninth year, the festival featured international documentary films from 30 different nations in Cubberly and Annenberg Auditoriums during its five-day run before closing last night.

Chris Jenkins, who received a masters’ degree in documentary film from Stanford in 1999 and was a cameraman for the film “Refugee All-Stars,” has worked with the film festival since it’s inception in 1998.

“I think it’s daring,” Jenkins said of the festival. “Some of these films expose things that happened as a result of our country’s actions. A lot of times people don’t realize the consequences of our way of life.”

The festival played to packed houses, with most films attracting an eclectic mix of around 200 to 300 students, faculty and community members. After many of the showings, the filmmakers held a question and answer session.

Sophomore Weena Pun saw the documentary “Beyond the Call” last night, which featured three aid workers in war-torn countries.

“When I first read the summary, I was not too excited,” Pun said. “But I thought it was interesting because more common people could do it. It was just three people. It was so down to earth. Just normal people saying, ‘We should do this because we care’.”

Festival founder Jasmina Bojic, a lecturer with the Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities Department, said the festival is a forum for ideas and news absent in the mainstream media.

“Each film goes to the core of the problems, and you have time to talk to the filmmakers,” she said. “Films are an amazing medium to discuss problems. This festival seeks to encourage people to dig deeper into society’s problems.”

Junior Ben Henretig, co-president of the Stanford Film Society, said that the festival was important because it gave students a chance to watch movies and share ideas together.

“It’s important to see these things in a community atmosphere,” he said. “And festivals are important because they’re the only chance to see a diverse collection of films at one time in one place.”

Since its inception, the UNAFF, which is unaffiliated with the United Nations, has grown considerably in influence in recent years.

“We show films that wouldn’t be shown at any other film festival in the country,” Jenkins said. “For example, a film that was shown here a few years ago wasn’t shown anywhere else in the country, but it won the Barcelona film festival prize for Best Documentary.”

Dawn Jackson, who helped produce “True Whispers,” a film about the Navajo codetalkers during World War II, said a good screening can boost a film’s commercial success.

“It helped us to get it to a wider audience, to get it shown on ITBS and PBS,” she said. “Our first version was only fifteen minutes, and it was shown at the Telluride Film Festival. The tremendous response we got is what pushed us to make a longer version.”

With the main festival at Stanford now drawn to a close, UNAFF will hit the road, appearing in Santa Rosa, Monterey, Berkeley, Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

“It has grown so much,” Bojic said. “It was a small two day festival. Now it’s a five day festival and it is recognized by the world as one of the most important in documentary film.”