WE ARE THE GIANT by Greg Barker, former war-correspondent-turned-filmmaker, is a full-length documentary about human rights people in the context of the Arab spring. It comes out in the Sundance Film festival 18-26 January. English and Arabic with English subtitles, 2014, 90 minutes, color, U.S.A./United Kingdom.
This blog has often referred to the growing role of images in the protection of human rights. The Activists Guide to Archiving Video produced by the NGO Witness is one tool that can greatly help those who want to be part of this development. The term “archive” may turn off many human rights defenders as something boring or at least not deserving priority but to neglect it would be a big error. As the Witness guide explains very clearly:
Do you want your videos to be available in the future?
Do you want your videos to serve as evidence of crimes or human rights abuses?
Do you want your videos to raise awareness and educate future generations?
The risks of not archiving are big:
Your videos may exist somewhere, but no one can find them.
Someone may find your videos, but cannot understand what they are about.
Your videos cannot be sufficiently authenticated or corroborated as evidence.
Your videos’ quality may become so degraded that no one can use them.
Your videos may be in a format that eventually no one can play.
Your videos may be accidentally or deliberately deleted and lost forever.
In further sections the Guide help to understand how videos can be made accessible (shared) and brings clarity to tricky issues such as the different formats and copyright.
In relation to the other post of today about Witness’ new application, I want to draw your attention to the video posted on 23 December giving excerpts from the human rights channel covering police brutality, torture, chemical weapons attacks, etc. Through the lenses of bystanders, witnesses, and sometimes even perpetrators, you see the darkest episodes of humanity, all with the ease of a click, and the speed of an upload. They come from Daveyton, South Africa in late February, watching with other shocked bystanders as officers handcuffed Mido Macia to their van and drove away, dragging the taxi driver down the gravel road behind them; from Haiti were you can listen to Haitian earthquake survivors, who testified that officials, landowners, and thugs were attempting to force them out of tent camps and into the streets. And in the pre-dawn hours of mid-August, in a suburban Damascus hospital, witnessing in horror victims as young as babies suffering from what would later be confirmed to be a chemical weapons attack. [In 2013, the Human Rights Channel curated nearly 2300 videos from 100 countries, but as the importance of citizen video becomes clear, so too do the challenges it involves, including the need for verification and the potential of misuse.]
To create awareness among the masses, the Flashpoint Human Rights Film Festival was held from 12-14 December 2013 in Mumbai, India. The three-day film festival was organised by Solaris Pictures in association with ACEE – The Third Eye and Movies That Matter and Alliance Francaise de Bombay. The third edition of the film festival was held at Alliance Francaise and entry was Entry free. The films screened included
In the presence of the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, the MEA Laureates of 2013: the Joint Mobile Group, the family of Werner Lottje (his wife Margit and the children) and some 90 other participants we had on 13 November 2013 the first WERNER LOTTJE LECTURE in Berlin. It was an impressive affair and the organisers, Bread for the World and the German Institute for Human Rights, can look back on a successful launch of this annual event. There were many good tributes to Werner’s life and contribution. Igor Kalyapin of the JMG explained the terrible conditions under which his team has to operate in Russia and Margaret Sekaggya concluded with a wide-ranging overview of obstacles that HRDs all over the world face. A short, impressive film brought the person of Werner to life.
Here I am providing you the full text my own speech on this occasion, not only because I have it handy but because it concerns mostly the international part of his work:
“Thinking outside the box – Werner Lottje as an international networker”
On Thursday 3 October the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights [RFK Center] launched its third annual “Speak Truth to Power Student Video Contest“. This year, the contest is for the first time open to student filmmakers from all of the USA in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers, the New York State United Teachers and the Tribeca Film Institute. The video competition, originally launched in New York State in 2011, invites students to create a 3-6 minute video examining a human rights issue or violation and profiling the defenders who are fighting to restore justice.
Last year’s prize went to students of the Young Women’s Leadership School of Brooklyn, who made a film about the work of sexual slavery and trafficking activist Juliana Dogbadzi of Ghana.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 