09/10/2018
Human Rights Films Series Term 1 Screening:
Hi guys, Welcome back to this years HRFS, we have lots of documentaries to showcase this year focusing on five areas; Feminist issues, Modern slavery, LGBTQAI+, Racial Issues and war. The HRFS will be running a little differently this year as I have planned to showcase film-documentaries on different issues every other Thursday and run a Mini-series on the same topic on Tuesdays.
We will be kicking off the term viewing documentaries on Feminist issues.
Our First screening takes place in India as we view Rafea: Solar Mama. The documentary follows Rafea the second wife of a Bedouin husband. She is selected to attend the Barefoot College in India that takes uneducated middle-aged women from poor communities and trains them to become solar engineers. The college's 6-month programme brings together women from all over the world. Learning about electrical components and soldering without being able to read, write or understand English is the easy part. Witness Rafea's heroic efforts to pull herself and her family out of poverty.
This uplifting story on how women for various background are fighting to better themselves and their communities by venturing to India to bring electricity to their villages will amaze and astound you.
For the next Screening, we travel north to Pakistan as we view Saving Face. Here we will follow plastic surgeon Dr Mohammad Jawad as he travels back to his home country, Pakistan, to reconstruct the faces of women who were attacked by acid. Such violence against women has become a regular occurrence in the country. It is estimated that more than a 100 women per annum are affected by this kind of attack. Although support is set in place, for example, The Acid Survivors Foundation of Pakistan, many women do not report attacks out of fear that it would spark more violence against them. More often than not, the attacks are carried out by members of their own family, which makes addressing the issue even more complicated. After the film’s international success at the Oscars, survivors blocked the film from being shown in Pakistan, saying they did not expect the film to be so successful and that showing their faces to the world would mean disrespect for their families. The fear of more attacks was a primary concern for the survivors. Not without its controversy, therefore the film nevertheless shines a crucial light on a hugely underreported issue that deforms and destroys the lives of many women.
The Mini-series for this topic is on the 3 part documentary Human. Human is essentially a cross-section of what it is to be human in the 21st century. Filmed over three years, 20 journalists travelled across 60 countries interviewing over 2,000 people, with the film composed entirely of aerial footage and the interviewees telling their stories directly to a camera. When released in 2015 Human was the first film to be premiered at the United Nations, screened to an audience of over 1,000, including the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. Filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent 3 years collecting real-life stories, working with a dedicated team of translators, journalists and cameramen, he captures deeply personal and emotional accounts of topics that unite us all; struggles with poverty, war, homophobia, and the future of our planet mixed with moments of love and happiness.
We will then be moving onto a very serious issue that affects many people across the world and it may surprise you, a lot of people in the UK; Modern Slavery.
As such we will be starting our screenings on this topic with Britains modern Slave Trade. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't expect to find within the suburban neighbourhoods of Britain. But the slave trade is alive and well in these areas, and its presence is insidious and widespread. A searing undercover investigation mounted by Al Jazeera, Britain's Modern Slave Trade shines a light on an underground system of crime and human rights abuses that continues to thrive while hidden in plain sight. This short documentary will shock you and make you think twice about the people you live next to.
From the UK to Africa our next screening takes place in the Ivory Coast. The Dark Side of Chocolate exposes the continued allegations of child trafficking and labour in the international chocolate industry. In 2001 the world was outraged to discover that child labour, slavery, trafficking, and other abuses existed on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, which produces nearly half the world's cocoa. Over a decade on, has anything changed? An enlightening look at the hidden abuses of corporate consumerism. Are you sure you know exactly where your chocolate comes from and who has suffered to make it for you?
We will be ending this term and starting the next term looking at abuses and problems faced by the LGBT+ community both at home and abroad.
Our first screening takes place in Uganda as we watch Call Me Kuchu. Directed by Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright, Call me Kuchu investigates the struggles of the LGBT community in Uganda. A particular focus of the film falls on LGBT activist David Kato, whose murder sparked an international outcry for Uganda to change its prejudiced attitude towards its LGBT citizens. A particularly striking dimension of the film is that it focuses on the power of a single national newspaper, The Rolling Stone, to deliberately and systematically incite hatred towards members of a particular section of society. On numerous occasions, it is stated that the paper even refers to LGBT people as ‘cockroaches’. By linking the use of public media, such terms as ‘cockroaches’ and systematic violence against an isolated section of society, the filmmakers disturbingly reminds viewers of the events that occurred during the Rwandan genocide. This lurking threat that hangs over the LGBT community in Uganda is, therefore, one that we neither can nor should ignore. Despite the horrors that the film portrays, it nevertheless illustrates, in the words of Anthony Quinn of The Independent, that the strength displayed by the gay and le***an people in Uganda is ‘a lesson in courage, in being determined to enjoy one’s life even as the authorities threaten to take it way’.
Our next screening goes back to India where the government has recently overturned the archaic British colonial law Section 377, de-criminalising Gay s*x. This documentary will show the struggle and fight the Indian LGBT+ community has faced getting this achievement. Filmmaker and gay activist Sridhar Rangayan embarks on a personal journey to expose the human rights violations faced by the LGBTQ community in India due to a draconian law Section 377 and homophobic social mores of a patriarchal society. The gritty documentary Breaking Free features searing testimonies of gay and transgender persons who have been victimised or exploited, as well as wide-ranging interviews with advocates and activists. See-sawing between despair and joy, anguish and hope, the film offers an insider view of the Indian LGBTQ community and is a documentation of its movement from invisibility to empowerment.
The Mini-series for this topic is based on the LGBT+ community in Britain as we watch four episodes of the Q***r Britain Program. Q***r Britain is an unparalleled examination of q***r culture that shines a light on the challenges faced by the UK's LGBT culture today. Presented by YouTuber and journalist Riyadh Khalaf, the series uncovers deep an often shocking issues, from those sleeping rough as a consequence of their s*xuality, to those who are shunned by the LGBT community itself. A must-see for anyone in or interested in the LGBT community.
For each screening we will be creating an event so don't forget to keep checking the page for updates and new events. I hope to see you all soon.
