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“Films are a kind of weapon,” Edwards says. “They’re a tool for good or evil. And if they can have a negative effect, then they certainly can have a positive effect as well.

“I don’t kid myself that the festival is going to change the world. But if it raises people’s awareness, well, then that’s all for the better.”

In the long term, though, he’s realistic enough to know that the mainstream boom in political film-making can’t last. Films such as Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck may be awards season champions, but with US box office returns of $30 million for Good Night and $49 million for Syriana their prospects, and those of the genre within an explicitly profit- driven medium, look bleak.

“Those films are always going to be at a disadvantage because they’re not feelgood entertainment,” says Edwards. “They come in waves, and there’s a brief period of time where they pop to the forefront of the public consciousness, and then they fade away again. And maybe that’s the best we can hope for.”

Meanwhile, for Fiennes, any sort of fading away simply isn’t an option. He says that as he moves into his mid-forties he has lost the sense he once had that the world is a great place. And that maybe the things that we think are hopeful, like a great piece of music, or family, or the children that we love, are all actually nothing, and that in reality man’s endless cycle is one of continual destruction and madness.

He says that he’s still reeling from the profundity of making Land of the Blind, still ruminating on the need to make politically relevant choices in work. “Land of the Blind seemed to be very connected to what’s happening now,” he says. “It’s made me feel that the choices that we all make in whatever we do have to connect somehow with everything. And it’s made me more wary of the mainstream choices. In the end, the film that shows us the truth is better than the film that dresses up hope in a facile way.

“It’s better to see the awfulness of something. And, when the mirror is held up, then, perhaps, we will have a glimmer of understanding.”

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, March 15-29. www.hrw.org/iff/

Captives audience: highlights of the 2006 Human Rights Watch film festival

PARADISE NOW
The highest-profile movie at the festival. An Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning drama about two childhood friends who become suicide bombers in Tel Aviv.

PIERREPOINT
Hard-hitting UK drama about the life of Britain's most famous hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, played superlatively by Timothy Spall.

VIVA ZAPATERO!
Timely industry documentary about free speech on Italian TV, and the cancellation of an anti-Silvio Berlusconi comedy satire.

STATE OF FEAR
Punishing but gripping documentary about the hugely bloody internecine struggle between Peruvian revolutionaries and the country’s army.

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS
A surprising, revealing and illuminating account of life in Iraq today, set among the people who live there.

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