Human Rights Watch is one of the largest and most influential independent international human rights organizations. It has been carrying out global research on virtually all violations of human rights and published empirically based and verified reports about these violations. A most recent example is Human Rights Watch identification through photos and satellite images of war crimes committed by Jihadists in the rogue ‘Islamic State’. These reports have been influencing decision making processes and often been relied on in proceeding of international bodies. One of the most important avenues of reaching the general opinion shaping public has been the human rights watch film festival which was started 25 years ago in New York City and is now being held in numerous other places.  The global Human Rights Film Network now includes 38 festivals devoted to the promotion of human rights with the New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival probably as the most prominent one.

Roger Ebert suggested that cinema generates empathy and understanding of other cultures. The New York Human Rights Watch Film Festival follows this path using documentaries and features which provide evidence of abuses, draw attention to new violations, affirm the audience commitment to human rights and convince more people to get involved in the human rights struggle. More importantly, the festival has featured productions which had a direct impact on judicial proceedings and decision making procedures, an impact few documentaries can claim.  Among documentaries with a significant impact shown in past years are productions like ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE (Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin), GRANITO (Pamela Yates), THE INVISIBLE WAR (Dick Kirby), and the HBO production WARTORN 1861 – 2010 by John Alpert.

The 2014 edition of the HRW film festival was held from June 12-22 and co-presented with the film society of Lincoln center. Presenting twenty documentaries and two fiction films it included 19 New York premieres with 16 productions directed by women. Given the large number of independent documentaries now produced, the role of the HRW film festival in New York as a curatorial gate keeper has become more important. As in past editions of the festival, many productions selected this year were outstanding with respect to relevant issues selected, production values and narrative approaches. They frequently seem well funded with the French-German ‘arte’ consortium and other European sources often credited as were some established film festivals. Five themes were prominent: Armed Conflict and the Arab Spring; Human Rights Defenders, Icons and Villains; LGBT Rights; Migrants’ Rights, and Women’s and Children’s Rights.  The Sundance award winning E-TEAM by Katy Chevigny and Ross Kaufman elucidates the Human Rights Watch investigative approach documenting the first responder approach of four Human Rights Watch workers researching violations in Syria and Libya. The production was picked up by Netflix which will stream it during the fall of 2014, but also show E-Team in select theaters to qualify for an Oscar nomination.

DANGEROUS ACTS STARRING THE UNSTABLE ELEMENTS OF BELARUS by Madeleine Sackler, which will be shown this July on HBO  records the articulation of human rights violations by the Belarus Free Theater actors in underground performances, for which they are victimized by the police of Belarus’ soviet-style dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Some members of the group were forced into exile in the US and England where they continue to perform. In SCHEHERAZADE’S DIARY Zeina Daccache uses theatrical performances by inmates in the women’s Baabda prison of Beirut to enhance their emancipation process. She documents through a 10-month drama therapy project, prisoners revealing past traumas, suffering, or unjust incarceration. They hold up a mirror of Lebanese society’s oppressive treatment of women which makes it easier for the inmates to come to terms with their own lives. In PRIVATE VIOLENCE, Cynthia Hill demonstrates that for American women the most dangerous place is at home where most of the abuse by partners occurs. In the US four women are murdered every day by their partners. Hill explores this complex and disturbing phenomenon through case studies of two women, a mother seeking justice for crimes against her by the estranged husband and an advocate for women’s rights. She also elucidates why it is so difficult for women to escape abusive and violent relations be it economic dependency, fear of retributions, an unresponsive judicial system, isolation, self-blame and guilt as well as the illusion that the spouse’s abuse will cease. Yet the resources for shelters and an alternative life are still too limited. Richie Mehta’s feature film SIDDARTH is a touching and subtle exploration of a poor Indian family’s response to the abduction of their son Siddharth who was sent to work in a distant city’s factory to supplement their income. In India, child labor is rather common but also the disappearance of children, about 44,000 are reported missing each year with many victimized in the sex trade. Based on an excellent script, Mehta reports in a detached but convincing manner the father, Mehandra’s, failing search for his son. The success of the film is also due to the acting performance of the leads. Unfortunately an overbearing melodramatic score distracts from the compelling story. In India the socio-economic and cultural context generates the abuse of children from the underclass and low castes.

Self-serving political expediency deprived Nicaragua women of a right which they had enjoyed for many decades. A QUIET INQUISITION (Alessandra Zeka and Holen Sabrfina Kahn is based on the conflicts Dr. Carla Cerrato, a gynecologist, faces in her work as the senior medical staff member at the local hospital. There, medical ethics, the right of intervention when the life of a pregnant woman is at stake contravene the restrictive law preventing any abortions at any point for any reason, be it incest and rape or sound medical grounds.  Former president Ortega who had been out of office since 1990, converted in 2006 to Catholicism. With the blessing of the cardinal he was elected president in November 2006, an office he has held ever since. In 2007 the anti-abortion law was passed. The courage of Dr. Cerrato using medical ethics as the basis for her life saving decisions and openly discussing her work is amazing. Some of her colleagues fear the authorities and deny medication to a pregnant woman suffering from cancer since it might terminate the pregnancy. Iva Radivojevic offers in her sensitive and visually stunning EVAPORATING BORDERS a five part documentary essay about the fate of migrants in Cyprus. Her outstanding cinematography cements a thoughtful and reflexive approach to the issues migrants face in Cyprus, the powerful right-wing xenophobic reaction to their presence, and the failure of authorities to cope with the obvious problems systemic obstacles to integration pose. Her story highlights the experience of the immigrants through their own interpretation. There is no blame placed on any party. The mostly dreadful and fearful life most immigrants have remains entrenched in our memory as are their precarious uprooted identities.  Because the director is a Cyprus immigrant herself she is ideally suited to tune into the contradictory world faced by the refugees. In WATCHERS OF THE SKY Edet Belzberg presents through pointed interviews, much archival footage, and animated sequences a comprehensive analytic survey of the attempt to prosecute crimes against humanity exemplified by ethnic cleansing and political extermination. The documentary spans a period from the Second World War to contemporary conditions and is noteworthy for its masterful editing of complex material based on 800 hours of original footage and archival material. Raphael Lemkin’s fight for international binding safeguards and laws against extermination and genocide, the term he created, provides the bracket for the film. In depth interviews with Emmanuel Uwurukundo, a Rwanda survivor, Ben Ferencz, a Nuremberg U.S. prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Samantha Power, current U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and author of A Problem From Hell establish a compelling context. Supportive footage from the holocaust, Rwanda, Serbia, Darfur and other venues of mass murder offer grim and discouraging evidence of the failure of the international community to intervene and prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing. Certainly there have been some convictions for crimes against humanity emanating from the enabling legal framework Raphael Lemkin helped to establish. Yet today impotence seems to prevail in preventing such crimes as the current massacres in Syria, Iraq, the ‘Islamic State’ Nigeria and Central Africa demonstrate.

The 2014 edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festivals delivered on the promise of providing outstanding productions about problem areas requiring our undivided attention and remains essential for up-to-date coverage of human rights violations.

Claus Mueller

filmexchange@gmail.com