The power of the Internet at the heart of One World festival

The One World international documentary festival, which opens here on Wednesday, will focus on the new weapon in revolutions and revolts across the world: the Internet.

"If the Romanian 1989 revolution was the first one to be televised, the Green movement from Iran blossomed on the Internet and was fuelled via virtual networks. This change of tools has only taken 20 years", the organisers underlined.

"Young generations are contesting the existing power in the West but also in the rest of the world, especially in the East. We want to reflect these changes", festival director Alexandru Solomon told a press conference.

A special section called "Revolution Online" will showcase "Rouge Parole", the story of the Tunisian revolution and the expulsion of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Internet and social networks played a crucial role in the mobilisation against the regime in several countries, such as Egypt.

"Fragments of a Revolution" shows how Iranian exiles depended on the Internet to follow the "Green movement" in their home countries, trying to find images and comments on social networks, anxiously expecting mails from their friends and families who were left behind.

But the power of new technologies also helped British students to find new ways of protesting against austerity cuts. The film "The Real Social Networks" follows the backroom meetings of a group of London students as they hacked computers, occupied universities and shut down banks.

A total of 50 documentaries from around the globe will be shown until Sunday in Bucharest in one of the biggest documentary film festivals in eastern Europe.

(c) 2012 AFP