The 2014 film “Witness Bahrain” follows “J”, a female investment banker turned activist as she travels to villages and towns all over Bahrain, uncovering the stories of Bahrainis who have been most deeply impacted by the crisis, including doctors who were arrested and tortured under trumped-up charges, Sunni opposition activists (poking a hole in the portrayal of Bahrain’s political crisis as being Shi’a versus Sunni), nurses treating injured protesters at underground clinics risking arrest and possibly torture, the family of a fourteen year old boy killed by a teargas canister shot to the back of his head, the recently released eleven year old boy who was arrested while playing soccer with his friends and was imprisoned for a month, and an interview with human rights defender Nabeel Rajab before being taken to prison for a critical Tweet that he sent. [The filmmaker Jen Marlowe filmed while hiding upstairs in the home Nabeel Rajab as the police came to take him to prison.]
The government of Bahrain is denying entry to all but a few journalists and human rights defenders, so filmmaker Jen Marlowe had to enter the country under false pretenses and film clandestinely, before being deported by the Bahraini regime. The result is a one hour documentary film cut from guerrilla style footage shot with a small, hand held camera, capturing the most intimate, in depth portrayal of the Bahraini government’s violent repression of Bahrain’s Arab Spring to date. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/bahrain/]
“Witness Bahrain is an authentic account of how Bahraini medics and others have tried to cope in the aftermath of the government crackdown that began in 2011. It shows the day to day, night to night reality of what it’s like to live under repressive regime, and the courage of those who show defiance”, says Brian Dooley of Human Rights First
Jen Marlowe is a New York-based award-winning documentary filmmaker, author, human rights activist, and the founder of donkeysaddle projects. Her other films in include One Family in Gaza, Rebuilding Hope: Sudan’s Lost Boys Return Home, and Darfur Diaries: Message from Home.
For more information and future screenings see: http://witnessbahrain.com. To organize a screening in your community contact: Amer Shurrab.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
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