On Sunday July 14, 2019 the 31st Galway Film Fleadh came to a close after many Irish and international film premieres, screenings, workshops and discussions. On the last day of the festival, the film fleadh held it annual awards honouring the best of the filmmakers working in every discipline who brought their work to showcase in Galway. The best Human Rights Film (chosen in association with Amnesty International) was “For Sama” (https://www.forsamafilm.com – Director Waad al-Kateab & Edward Watts – Producer Waas Al-Kateab). The documentary film is an intimate yet epic journey into the female experience of war. The film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria,’ and the choices she has to make to protect her daughter.
“All we can do is roll with the punches…” First Run Features has unveiled a trailer for a documentary titled Quest, described as a “portrait of an American family” filmed over the course of almost a decade. This “epic in scope” documentary follows a couple in North Philadelphia – Christopher “Quest” Rainey, and his wife, Christine’a “Ma Quest” Rainey – as they raise a family in a poverty stricken neighborhood. This premiered at Sundance and has played at tons of festivals all year, picking up numerous awards including Human Rights awards, Jury Prizes, Audience Awards. Not to be confused with the feature film also titled Quest, about the graffiti-loving youngster. Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Jonathan Olshefski’s documentary Quest, in high def on Apple:
The 2017 ceremony of the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders will take place on 10 October in Geneva at 18h15 CET. For the many people who cannot attend in person, there is the possibility of following the event on screen via: https://www.facebook.com/villegeneve.ch/
The ceremony is in English and French and features 3 short documentaries on the finalists as well as the announcement of the Laureate 2017 which the Jury of the MEA decided on this morning.
An ambitious documentary project has 7 days left to find the funding via Kickstarter:
Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who took the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to justice, is leading a movement of legal ‘warriors’ from all over the world to guarantee the international punishment of major economic, financial and environmental crimes. The tool to achieve their goal can be summed up in two words: Universal Jurisdiction. The movement composed of judges, prosecutors and lawyers tries to promote the international denouncement of actions such as food speculation, issuing junk bonds, squandering public funds and large-scale contamination. These crimes should, as genocides and war crimes, be designated as Crimes Against Humanity and prosecuted internationally.
History is filled with visionaries who understood before others that practices such as slavery, colonialism and apartheid were not part of the natural order of things: they were immoral actions carried out by a minority and should be considered as crimes. Today, this international movement led by Baltasar Garzón tries to expose that financial fraud is not a systemic problem but a premeditated act, and should be considered as criminal behaviour. The aim of the group is to foster a new Universal Jurisdiction code of principles and fight alongside the civil society to ensure its application.
During the Universal Jurisdiction Congress (Buenos Aires, September 2015), a new list of Crimes Against Humanity was drafted. After countless debates between experts from the six continents, the list now includes economical and environmental infractions. All these efforts must now work their way to national legislations. On a planet with almost 8 billion people, irresponsible economic decisions can be disastrous. With all their effort, the legal warriors work together towards a common goal: cease with the impunity of economic and environmental crimes.
In the Kickstarter post, the Director, states “For me it’s an important task to help people understand the juridical language, given the historical isolation of the judicial power and its perverse use by the political and economic powers. Democratize juridical language, understand judicial mechanisms and point out their actors, all this with the support of a hundred of the most prestigious international jurists who have united to fight against impunity in major economic and environmental crimes, is a noble objective. This documentary is about heroes, brave jurists, classical characters of film noir
Our team has been working on this project for three years now and is very committed to it. We think that if the fight of the legal warriors is made public, citizens will be able to pressure their political powers to include changes in national legislations and international relations. We are talking about establishing a new code of social conduct, a code of human relationships, consistent with the challenges of living on a planet in constant evolution. We interviewed tens of professionals and filmed in three countries so far: Argentina, Spain and Senegal, where we attended in May 2016 to the end of Hissène Habré’s trial for crimes against humanity during his dictatorship in Chad.
We now need your support to finish the production and get this film out to the world where it can make a difference! After three years working on this project, we are launching a crowdfunding campaign to find the necessary funding to finish the film. All funds we raise will enable our team to finish production, access film footage, and cover the editing and postproduction costs. We are confident that if we meet our goal, we will be able to finish the film before the end of 2017.
Lawrence University will recognize Gil Loescher, a visiting professor at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during commencement ceremonies coming Sunday. Loesher’s also received an honorary doctorate of law in 2006 from the University of Notre Dame.
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Loescher has established himself as an authority on refugee policy. Prior to joining Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre in 2008, Loescher held appointments as Senior Fellow for Forced Migration and International Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and as senior researcher at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles. According to Loescher, containing refugees in camps prevents them from contributing to regional development and state-building. In August 2003, Loescher was in the office of Sérgio Vieira de Mello, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad when a suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb outside the building. The blast killed more than 20 people and injured more than 100. Loescher was among nine people in the office at the time of the explosion, seven of whom were killed instantly. Loescher and Vieria de Mello were trapped in the debris of the collapsed building as American soldiers spent more than three hours trying to rescue them. Vieria de Mello died before he could be extricated. Loescher survived, although his legs were crushed and had to be amputated by the soldiers. A moving film, “Pulled from the Rubble,” was directed by Loescher’s daughter, Margaret, about this episode. [Beguiled Eye Productions [gb]]
He has been recognized with numerous honors and research grants from organizations ranging from the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation to the Fulbright Program and the British Academy.
In 2013 I reported on human rights defender, Lena Hendry, in Malaysia who was charged with showing the film “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka”, a film on human rights violations in Sri Lanka. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2013/09/18/human-rights-worker-in-malaysia-to-appear-in-court-tomorrow-for-screening-the-film-no-fire-zone/#more-3469]. Now Front Line reports on 21 February 2017, that the human rights defender was convicted by the Magistrate’s Court in Kuala Lumpur [https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/lena-hendry]. On 21 February 2017, Lena Hendry was found guilty by a magistrate’s court in Kuala Lumpur for screening “No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka” under Section 6 of the Film Censorship Act 2002. She is currently on bail and intends to appeal the court’s decision. Her sentencing is scheduled for 22 March 2017.
Lena Hendry is the former Programme Coordinator for Pusat KOMAS, a human rights organisation established in 1993 in Malaysia. This organisation works to empower indigenous peoples, poor people in urban areas, workers, and civil society organisations through the use of popular media. [On 10 March 2016, The Magistrates’ Court of Kuala Lumpur acquitted Lena Hendry of the charges but on 21 September 2016, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur reversed Lena Hendry’s aquittal following an appeal issued by the prosecution.
Front Line Defenders condemns the conviction of Lena Hendry, as it believes that the charges brought against the human rights defender are directly linked to her legitimate and peaceful work in the defence of human rights, in particular in exposing human rights violations in Sri Lanka. Front Line Defenders urges the Malaysian government to repeal provisions of the Film Censorship Act 2002 that allow unnecessary and arbitrary government interference in the showing of films in Malaysia.
This documentary provides an insight into marriage equality movement in the USA. THE FREEDOM TO MARRYis an inspiring insiders’ look at the one the recent civil rights battles.
The historic Obergefell v. Hodges case represents the culmination of a decades-long struggle to guarantee the right of same-sex couples to marry. Among those leading the fight for justice is attorney and gay rights defender Evan Wolfson, who is considered by many the architect of LGBT marriage equality. Also profiled is human rights lawyer Mary Bonauto. In tracking the climactic countdown to the landmark Supreme Court decision, filmmaker Eddie Rosenstein manages to create a thrilling ambience.
THE FREEDOM TO MARRY was the Best Documentary and Best Editing winner at the Savannah Film Festival and recently picked up the Human Rights Prize at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival 2017.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 