Documentary films often generate empathy in audiences, illuminating new perspectives and activating powerful emotions, but what happens next? How can empathy created by effective storytelling fuel action?
A panel of filmmakers and industry professionals will come together to discuss how they’ve carried their messages beyond the screen to incite engagement from viewers and response to social issues and injustices. Subjects to be discussed include storytelling methods for inspiring action, building campaigns through multimedia platforms, and engaging with the journalistic community.
Chaired by:
Sarah Mosses, CEO of Together Films, a new agency working with social issue film content to reach new audiences. She helps filmmakers craft Impact Distribution Campaigns to increase both their social impact, audience reach and revenue potential. As an award winning producer Sarah’s debut feature documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First had its World Premiere at SXSW 2015. Sarah is a mentor for Documentary Campus, Eso Doc, Sheffield DocFest, working with filmmakers to identify strategies and partners for their films.
The panelists:
Riddhi Jha is a UK Producer/Writer, educated at Royal Holloway, University of London. She started her career working in post-production and later began developing programmes for major UK television channels. Her debut in production was on a Channel 4 documentary ‘Why Don’t You Speak English?’ which followed the lives of those who had settled in the UK for the first time. Riddhi has since worked on the popular BBC television series ‘The Great British Bake Off’, has cast contributors and worked as Researcher for several productions for the BBC and Discovery and has scripted several commercials. “Riddhi came on board as an Associate Producer on India’s Daughter with the sort of commitment, energy and passion that a producer dreams of having at his/her side”, Leslee Udwin has said of her. Riddhi has a feature film in development as writer/producer – the story of a child bride.
Callum Macrae is a filmmaker, writer and journalist. An Emmy, BAFTA and Grierson nominee, his output has ranged from current affairs investigations to observational documentaries to polemics and he has filmed around the world, including Iraq, Sri Lanka, Japan, Haiti, Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Mali, and Sudan on subjects ranging from international and civil conflict to sex-workers rights. He headed the Channel 4 team nominated in 2013 for a Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Sri Lanka which culminated in his feature documentary, No Fire Zone. The product of a three year investigation, No Fire Zone is credited with playing a key role in convincing the UN Human Rights Council in March 2014 to launch a major international war crimes investigation into the events in the closing stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Patrick Hurley is Distribution Manager at Dogwoof, a leading film distributor and world sales agent specialising in high-profile feature-length documentaries. Primarily responsible for theatrical-release campaigns and audience-building, Patrick has worked on over 60 cinema releases for documentaries in the UK over the past four years. For this discussion, Patrick will share insights from Dogwoof’s campaign for Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish for which Dogwoof handled UK distribution, international sales plus website and social media. Released in 2013, Blackfish has become a worldwide phenomenon, achieving an immense global audience and instigating a major impact on Sea World’s admissions and reputation for keeping orcas in captivity. Patrick will discuss how Dogwoof positioned and marketed the film to a broad audience while simultaneously leveraging support from key activist partners.
With over one hundred million ‘views’ the Kony 2012 video has started a far-reaching debate on the aims and value of a production seen by many as an over-simplification of complex situation.
Produced by the NGO ‘Invisible children’, the video calls for military intervention to “stop Kony and disarm the LRA”.
Host Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House was on the hunt for controversy – which is exactly what he found.
Perhaps the most scathing comments on the video came from film-maker and journalist Callum Macrae.
“Low and behold the world has paid attention and I’m hating every minute of it… This is a dreadful, I’m afraid, campaign. But nonetheless very important and we need to discuss it.”
Macrae says the unwavering focus on Joseph Kony puts him ill at ease.
“We shouldn’t be lowering ourselves to the level of Kony or the people who see him as an African bogeyman, we should be looking at the issues that are raised by it.”
Mareike Schomerus, of LSE’s Justice and Security Research Programme agreed that focusing entirely on Kony is a dangerous simplification.
“If you go into LRA controlled areas and actually stay there it becomes clear that the situation is actually much more complex than elevating just one man to the position of superpower…
When I talk, especially to military men,… and I say to them ‘do you honestly really believe that that one man can be responsible for messing about… 5 national armies and 3 UN missions and the US army, and the French army and sometimes the Israeli army.”
Programmes Director for the charity War Child, Amanda Weisbaum also casts a critical eye on the content of the video.
“They did 30 minutes of filming and they didn’t really do any history surrounding it or any complexities surrounding it… but yes I would have loved the 100 million hits”
But how then do people kindle an interest for African issues? Asks Benjamin Chesterton of production company DuckRabbit.
“Do you think we all start with PHDs?… we have to start somewhere… a percentage of [these people that watched the video] will go away and find out more… and maybe do something more than sitting around debating it.”
Poet and musician of Ugandan descent, Musa Okwonga rejects this out of hand.
“It’s utterly patronising to say that children can’t handle complexity… people followed complex narratives involving multiple characters over seven books with Harry Potter”
The idea put forward by the video that military intervention is the only solution held no water for the panel.
“The lessons of history” says Macrae, “are that it’s always gone wrong; it’s always scatter gun and it’s always brought more havoc”
Watch the full event here:
]]>Despite its inaccuracies this campaign has created wider awareness about Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) than any news report or campaign that has come before it, so what can be learned? Join us for April's First Wednesday as we debate whether the KONY 2012 campaign is a force for good or a worrying development in campaigning.
]]>The recent KONY 2012 campaign video has been met with strong criticism, but nobody can question its effectiveness in reaching a mass audience. The film, created by Invisible Children and featuring director and founder of Invisible Children Jason Russell, is reportedly one of the fastest spreading viral videos ever, reaching over 100 million views in a week.
It has been criticised for presenting a complex situation as a simplified problem with a simple solution, for reinforcing the idea that Africans are helpless victims who need to be ‘saved’ by ‘the West’ and for misrepresenting reality.
Despite its inaccuracies this campaign has created wider awareness about Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) than any news report or campaign that has come before it, so what can be learned? Join us for April’s First Wednesday as we debate whether the KONY 2012 campaign is a force for good or a worrying development in campaigning.
Hosted by Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House.
With:
Benjamin Chesterton, radio documentary and photofilm producer, co-founder of the production company duckrabbit and the website A Developing Story.
Amanda Weisbaum, Programmes Director at War Child, who work on the ground with communities affected by the LRA in Northern Uganda and Central African Republic.
Musa Okwonga, a football writer, poet and musician of Ugandan descent. He is author of A Cultured Left Foot which was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award and Will You Manage?. He is one half of The King’s Will, an electronica outfit that blends poetry, music, and animated videos.
Mareike Schomerus, Research Consortium Director of the Justice and Security Research Programme at LSE and author of many publications including Chasing the Kony story in The Lord’s Resistance Army: Myth and Reality.
Callum Macrae, a film-maker and journalist who has reported, filmed and directed many award-winning television documentaries for Channel 4, the BBC and Al Jazeera English among others. He first made a film about Kony and the LRA in 2003, and has written and made several films about the LRA since.
]]>The uprisings that shook the Middle East this year have been a focus of relentless debate. ‘Revolutionary Arab women’ – activists, bloggers and academics – took to the streets and fought both for their country and their rights, capturing the western media’s attention and begging the question ‘what does the future hold for these women of the Arab Spring?’
Last night’s Frontline Club event, #FCBBCA: Women of the revolution, in association with BBC Arabic, explored the roles women played in the revolutions and tried to shed light on what lies in store for them.
The panel consisted of three completely different women, united by their desire for change: Mervat Mhani, member of Libyan NGO The Free Generation Movement; Maryam Alkhawaja, Bahraini human rights activist and head of foreign relations at the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights; and Sussan Tahmasebi, a women’s rights and civil society activist from Iran, and founding member of the One Million Signatures Campaign.
The debate was chaired by Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’ International Editor. Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman, Yemeni journalist and founder of Women Journalists Without Chains, was unable to attend the event.
Although each of the panellist’s contributions to the uprisings were radically different, they were all adamant that women had a key role to play in the future of the Middle East, and were not going to stand back now.
Mhani, a Libyan mother of two who was dubbed an ‘accidental activist’ by Hilsum, described her experiences of wreaking civil disorder, which eventually led to her arrest by Gaddafi’s security forces. Sincere and softly spoken, she apologised to the audience for her nervousness while addressing them:
“I’ve faced Gaddafi’s brigades and interrogation, but this is a lot more difficult,”she joked.
But despite her shy demeanour, her story demonstrated what a fierce fighter she is.
“Before the revolution I lived a normal life," she said. "When there were uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, I was following very closely. We were wondering whether it would happen in Libya. We had so much fear in us that we didn’t think it was going to happen – I never believed it would.”
But when the Libyan people began to mobilise on social networking sites to protest against the 42 year-long oppressive regime of Muammar Gaddafi, Mhani, like many others, grasped the opportunity to speak out:
“No Libyan wanted to stay home. We didn’t want to stand for the killing, or the murders, or the regime any more.
“It was very difficult. They started shooting at protesters in Tripoli – there was indiscriminate killing. Protesting wasn’t an option any more – going out was basically suicide.”
The crackdown on protesters forced her and her family to think of alternative, nonviolent ways to do their bit for their country – from her brother returning to Libya from living in Cardiff and starting up The Free Generation Movement – an NGO working towards the development and progression of Libyan society – to committing acts of civil disobedience, and being sure that the world was aware of Gaddafi’s atrocities.
“I hung flags for independence, smuggled reporters from the Rixos hotel, and talked to the international community,”she said.
“The internet was cut, so my brothers and cousins stole a satellite from a government building and tweeted out to the rest of the world. We tried our best – we never carried guns, we were never armed.”
But she was arrested by Gaddafi’s security forces after she was interviewed by Reuters and BBC journalists .
“Someone must have seen the footage and could determine where our location was. Gaddafi’s platoons came to my parents’ house, stormed in, and turned it upside down," she said. “I was one of the lucky ones – I was released at midnight the same day. A lot of people we know just disappeared.”
Despite the relentless threats and attacks on her and her family – her 19 year old cousin was killed by Gaddafi’s forces in August – she remained determined to fight.
She knows there is a difficult road ahead, but Mhani is optimistic about the future of Libya and the role women have to play in it.
“With the NTC [National Transitional Council] having one woman, it’s still early days, I believe. But we’re not going to stand back and not take a role – no way.”
“We tried to do our best, and here we are – and thank God, we’re free.”
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