Human rights &
Advocacy
Stephanie Case is an international human rights lawyer with deep expertise in protection, international humanitarian law, and advocacy in contexts shaped by conflict, displacement, and crisis. Her work has focused on ensuring that legal frameworks translate into real-world protection for civilians—particularly women and girls—amid humanitarian emergencies where accountability is fragile and consequences are immediate.
Across senior roles in complex operating environments, she has worked at the intersection of law, policy, and frontline realities: supporting rights-based responses to armed conflict, advising on protection strategies, and navigating the ethical and operational challenges of working where political pressure, insecurity, and uncertainty are constant. This experience grounds her advocacy in rigor, credibility, and an understanding of how systems function—or fail—under extreme stress.
Alongside legal and policy work, Stephanie is deeply committed to creative advocacy as a tool for change. She uses storytelling, film, and sport to expand public understanding of human rights issues, challenge dominant narratives, and create space for voices that are too often excluded. As founder of Free to Run, she has helped pioneer sport-based empowerment programs for women in conflict-affected communities, while also bringing these stories to global audiences through documentary film.
More recently, she has increasingly contributed to projects as an impact producer, supporting films that seek not only to inform but to influence—bridging storytelling, outreach, partnerships, and advocacy strategy to ensure that films reach the audiences and decision-makers who can drive change. Her work reflects a belief that durable impact often happens where disciplines meet: law and lived experience, evidence and emotion, policy and story.
Below are selected films and projects that reflect this approach, including Free to Run and Off Course, which explore human rights, gender, and resilience through deeply personal and global lenses.
Free to Run
Free to Run is a powerful documentary about strength, courage, and resilience, highlighting the importance of women’s visibility on and off the trail, and the power of movement for women’s rights globally.
Stephanie Case was training hard during the summer of 2021 to take on the hardest ultra trail marathon of her life - the daunting 450 km Tor des Glaciers race through the Italian alps. But weeks before she was set to toe the line, things took an unexpected turn as she watched the Taliban sweep across Afghanistan, threatening the basic human rights of women across the country, including those of the charity she founded, Free to Run. As governments around the world failed to evacuate at-risk Afghans, she was thrown into crisis management mode, fighting to find a way forward. Free to Run was shown at nearly two dozen film festivals around the world and won the “Spirit of Activism” award at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival and the “Best Adventure Short” award at the Boulder International Film Festival. Stephanie was an athlete featured in the film and also an associate producer.
Off Course
Off Course is an intimate documentary about ambition, uncertainty, and the unpredictability of trying to create a family while living at the edge of human endurance.
The film follows two elite ultrarunners, Stephanie Case and Sophie Grant, who are deeply familiar with risk, suffering and control. In the mountains, effort leads to outcome; preparation leads to progress. But when their lives take an unexpected turn, they are confronted with a journey where timelines collapse, certainty disappears and no amount of discipline can guarantee an outcome. Set against the extremes of endurance sport, the film explores moments of vulnerability off the trail that are rarely seen or spoken about. Off Course is a powerful reflection on letting go of control, redefining success, and learning to endure when the path forward is anything but clear.
Stephanie is an athlete featured in the film and also served as an executive producer. The film is currently touring select film festivals worldwide. For the latest news, please get in contact or follow the film on social media.