As a tribute to the Women's History Month and to celebrate the International Women's Day on March 8, the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin presented a series of interviews with nine inspiring women. We talked with them about the power of documentaries and how films have changed their perception of the fate of women worldwide. You have the chance to read all of the inspiring interviews here:
Overview:
- Anna Ramskogler-Witt - Director of the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin
- Shahida Tulaganova - Director "Exile: The Rohingyas"
- Christina Lamb – Author “Our Bodies, Their Battlefields” & “I am Malala”
- Barbara Fickert - Founder and Author of kinoblindgaenger.de
- Lisa Witter - Apolitical Foundation
- Michaela Dudley - Columnist, Cabaret Artist, Diversity Expert & Lawyer
- Kristina Meyer - Bundeskanzler-Willy-Brandt-Stiftung
- Andrea Steinke - Researcher at the Center for Humanitarian Action
- Leslie Thomas - Filmmaker, Founder of ART WORKS Project
Anna Ramskogler-Witt is the director of the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin since 2019. But already before she worked at the intersection of film and human rights. Anna is convinced that films, in particular documentaries, can be a beautiful and very powerful vehicle to raise awareness and to inspire people to act.
Which documentary was particularly inspiring to your work from a feminist point of view?
There are so many that it is really hard to choose or highlight just one. At the very start of my career I had the pleasure to be responsible for the impact strategy of two documentaries both directed by very strong and inspiring female directors – Sudabeh Mortezai (In the Bazaar of the Sexes) and Nathalie Borgers (Winds of Sand – Women of Rock). To see the impact that we were able to reach and to watch people – young and old ones – and their reaction in the cinemas and how they slowly changed their perception was exceptional and made me fall in love with documentaries in general.
To frame the question differently, is there one film you will never forget?
Oh, hopefully I will not forget any documentary I ever saw, as I learned a lot from each one of them. But yes, when I was working for “this human world” we showed the very strong and haunting documentary The Price of Sex and it was eye-opening for me. I was always interested in human rights and women’s rights issues, but until this film I never really thought about the industry behind sex trafficking. It was something I opposed to and I was aware of, but how the industry behind it systematically runs like clockwork, supported through corruption, the insufficient laws but also the view of the society on this issue in particular. The film definitely still haunts me, but it also inspired me to dive deeper into the issue. I wanted to find out how sex trafficking can be prevented, how to raise awareness for gender-based violence and how to make the survivors be seen as well as protect them. This was also one of my personal motivators behind our conference day on “Storytelling as Empowerment” at the Human Rights Film Forum 2020.
Are there other films that you would like to recommend?
Many but I think if you look at our festival program of the last years you will find quite a bit of inspiration. From the program of last year, three films pop into my mind Mrs. F, Mai Khoi and the Dissidents and Radio Silence. Three films about three very different strong women – who all stand up against inequality and oppression.
Shahida Tulaganova is an award-winning producer/director. Born and raised in Uzbekistan, she has lived in the UK for the last 20 years. She was a news and current affairs producer/reporter with the BBC (UK) and RFE/RL (Czech Republic) and has produced and directed outstanding documentaries.
Were there any female documentary filmmakers or journalists that inspired you to become a journalist yourself?
I was a kid and I remember I was sick with the flu and I watched a film on TV about a female journalist working in Honduras. That was the moment I decided to be a journalist because it seemed so cool. Later, of course, I have learned from many other reporters male and female, the art of the profession and I wanted to be like them. I always see the job of a journalist, especially those of us who work in the war zones, as of a doctor. You need to keep cool, be unbiased, take nothing for granted, and question everything. Otherwise, you get the story wrong and this could potentially bring devastating results. I don't differentiate colleagues by gender, I think it is wrong. I look for the best in the field, be it journalism or film-making, and gender doesn't play any role in it. If you are a good journalist or a good film-maker, does your gender matter?
Was there a documentary that touched or inspired you in particular from a feminist point of view and if so why?
There are a lot of films, both documentaries and fiction, which make women a lead character and this is great. Media and films have a huge role to play in breaking stereotypes and this is important. I have noticed for some time now, that roles given to men are now given to women and most importantly, I can see more Black and Asian actors- I am immensely pleased with this. We are moving forward, But I am not a feminist, strictly speaking, I am human rights activist and to me, human rights are equally applied to everyone independently of gender, race, or religion.
In which way do you think can documentaries contribute to change in society and which responsibility have filmmakers and producers regarding the messages they convey and how they frame them?
I believe that documentary films are getting more popular now, because the audiences want to see reality as opposed to fiction. Real people who watch relate better to real people whom they see on the screen. At the same time, unlike fiction which can play with facts, we, as documentary film-makers, can't afford it. Our job is to document the events and tell the whole story from all possible angles rather than restricting ourselves to one or two narratives. We film real events, often, history in making and therefore I think it is important to us to give the viewer an opportunity to feel the irony, the drama, human errors and judgments in our films. This is a huge responsibility.
Christina Lamb is one of Britain’s leading foreign correspondents. Educated at Oxford and Harvard, she is an expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan which she has reported on since 1987. Known for her passionate storytelling combined with depth of knowledge, she has won numerous awards including five times being named Foreign Correspondent of the Year and Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. Currently, she is the Foreign Affairs Correspondent for The Sunday Times of London. Besides her journalistic career, she is also an acclaimed book author, including the bestselling I am Malala co-written with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and her new book Our Bodies – Your Battlefields an impressive collection of stories of survivors of sexualized violence.
In the context of your work, is there a documentary that in particular influenced you or even changed your perception in parts?
Michele Mitchell's documentary The Uncondemned which tells the story of the brave women of Taba in Rwanda who first got war rape prosecuted as a war crime was a real revelation. That, and The Prosecutors by Leslie Thomas, really brought home to me how difficult it is to get justice but also the courage of some of those trying to make a difference. And the need for more female judges and prosecutors - as Ruth Bader Ginsberg said 'women belong in all the places decisions are being made'.
If we look at it from a feminist point of view. Is there a female filmmaker that inspired you or a film that in particular moved you from this perspective?
It's exciting to see young female filmmakers around the world telling stories from their homelands as we saw at the Human Rights Film Festival Berlin.
In which way do you think can documentaries contribute to change in society and which responsibility have filmmakers and producers regarding the messages they convey and how they frame them?
Some subjects like war rape may be uncomfortable for people to hear about, but that doesn't mean we should keep turning a blind eye, otherwise they will never stop. Survivors need to be able to tell their stories in the way that they want and the least they deserve is for us to listen.
Barbara Fickert is a film critic, producer, and advocate for equality. She is the founder of the film blog blindgängerin – where she writes film reviews from the perspective of a blind person. With her production company kinoblindgänger she produces barrier-free film versions, in particular for foreign productions that otherwise would not be accessible to people with visual or hearing impairments. Additionally, she works as an editor for audio descriptions. Since 2020, she has been a member of Hörfilm e.V., the association of German-language film descriptors.
Which documentary film has particularly impressed you in recent years?
Village of Women by Tamara Stepanyan - an outstanding documentary that I saw at DOK Leipzig in October 2019. Stepanyan quite sensitively observed women of a remote Armenian mountain village whose husbands are in far-away Russia at a stretch to earn money for nine months a year.
I was fascinated by these charismatic women of all ages. They keep the village life going perfectly without men, manage the fields, take care of the cattle and educate the children. But of course, they also miss their husbands and are happy when they come back.
Which other documentaries would you recommend on the occasion of the Women’s history month?
The Poetess by Stefanie Brockhaus and Andy Wolf - a beautiful film about the Arab poet Hissa Hilal, who became the first woman to make it to the finals of the popular TV show "Million's Poet" in Abu Dhabi. A particularly courageous and admirable woman! In the film, we also learn how her art changed her life and that of her family.
Russia's Millennium Children by Irene Langemann - as the film shows that they tick very differently and quite differently than I would have suspected. It was a pleasure for me to get to know the seven personalities better, and I definitely recommend this to everyone, too!
Last but not least I can highly recommend Sand Girl by Mark Michel and Veronika Raila. There is no shortage of conversation in Sand Girl. But, what makes it special is the way in which they are conducted. Veronika Raila can hear, but not speak. The young woman, an autistic, has been severely physically handicapped since birth and is too weak to operate the keyboard of a computer on her own. Supported by her mother's hand, she writes and publishes prose and poetry. The excerpts of her texts presented in the film blew me away! Doctors certified Veronika Raila with an IQ of ZERO. Only thanks to the mother's commitment and faith in her daughter, Veronika Raila became what she is now, and to get an idea of this.
What role do documentaries play for you in social discourse and to what extent do you think they can make people think differently?
I have discovered the documentaries offer me access to other worlds and, above all, to the people in those worlds. I would not have come to the Armenian mountain village, nor would I have met Hissa Hilal or the young people from Russia. I would also have never come into contact with Veronika Raila.
This is the great strength of documentaries, which deserves a much larger audience because it is able to breakdown prejudices!
Lisa Witter is an eternal optimist, an award-winning executive, entrepreneur, writer and public speaker. She is the CEO of the Apolitical Foundation, a non-profit set up by Apolitical to advance the revitalization of democracy through effective and transformational public and political leadership. As a policy geek and lover of politics, she co-founded several political training institutes over the last 25 years. She loves wearing dresses (not so much during COVID), her childhood nickname was “Animal” because of her tenacity in playing sports, and she dreams of being a stand-up comedian who does not use schadenfreude or political cynicism.
Is there a particular documentary that has inspired your work from a feminist point of view? What about the film inspired you?
The documentary that really stands out is Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The film documents the peace movement Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. Organized by social worker Leymah Gbowee, the movement started by praying and singing in a fish market. Leymah organized the Christian and Muslim women of Monrovia, Liberia, to pray for peace and organize nonviolent protests. Dressed in white to symbolize peace, and numbering in the thousands, the women became a political force against violence and their government. My favorite part of the story is how Leymah organised a sex strike as part of their non-violent protests.
Leymah and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”
It’s no accident, I believe, that two women – Gini Reticker and Abigail Disney – directed and produced the documentary.
What other documentaries would you recommend to watch for Women's History Month?
Knock Down The House follows four determined women – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush and Paula Jean Swearingen – as they kickstart a grassroots campaign to take on politicians funded by big money in the 2018 race for US Congress.
Maya Angelou’s And Still I Rise because she’s a legend. A must watch. Gloria: In Her Own Words – because she’s extraordinary.
Also, a must watch: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is a four-hour series shot in 10 countries: Cambodia, Kenya, India, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia and the US. Inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's book, the documentary series introduces women and girls who are living under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable – and fighting bravely to change them. The film reflects viable and sustainable options for empowerment and offers an actionable blueprint for transformation.
In Girl Rising nine women celebrities – Selena Gomez, Kerry Washington, Chloë Grace Moretz, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Alicia Keys, Freida Pinto and Meryl Streep – voice the stories of nine young women from impoverished and developing countries who are fighting tooth-and-nail for an education. Poverty, forced labor, sexist cultural and religious norms and a lack of schools are among the challenges these brave girls face in doing something many of us take for granted.
How do you think film can change perception or even conditions in society?
Film takes us into darkness and light that we cannot see or feel. It can rewrite narratives. It can spark movements – I have seen it and been part of making it happen – both with Half the Sky and Pray the Devil Back to Hell. We can be, make and push for the change we want to see.
Dr. Michaela Dudley is a Berlin native with African-American roots, a columnist, cabaret artist, diversity expert and qualified lawyer. As a queer feminist, she writes for Siegessäule, Taz, Tagesspiegel, and Missy Magazine. She is also an official translator (DE<>EN) for the Berlin International Film Festival. She brings her social satire Eine eingefleischt vegane Domina zieht vom Leder, including original compositions, to cabaret stages, and regularly appears as a cultural commentator on the German 3Sat television program “Kulturzeit.”
What documentary in particular inspired you to do what you do from a feminist perspective?
For me, it started with Kate Millet's Three Lives from 1971. The film was made by an all-female crew, directed by the author of Sexual Politics. The premiere was at New York's art-house Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village, practically parallel to Ingmar Bergmann's Persona. I was barely ten at the time, mind you. And yes, it wasn't until six years after it was released that I saw it, rather by chance, although I already liked scene flicks.
Why was this film particularly significant to you?
I was standing at the crossroads of intersectionality, so to speak. Black, queer, genderfluid, young. The documentary is about autobiographical interviews with three women who talk openly about their paths. I know it sounds innocuous, but it fascinated me. It struck me how rare it is for women to have their say in a format like this without being questioned or interrogated by men.
A little later, I saw the 1977 Canadian documentary Some American Feminists by Luce Guilbeault, Nocole Brossard and Margaret Wescott. There I experienced American feminists arguing, which was hardly to be seen in the mainstream media in the same depth. The diversity of opinions was also beautiful. The nexus between racism and sexism was addressed. I was impressed by the Black writer Margo Jefferson and Rita Mae Brown. Betty Freidan, author of the classic The Feminine Mystique, is also included, though I've come to view her more critically. But the dynamics of the dialogues are significant in terms of dialectics. Things were just no longer concealed.
On the occasion of International Women's Day and Women's History Month, what other documentaries would you recommend?
Definitely Free Angela and All Political Prisoners by Shola Lynch from 2012. As a child in the early 1970s, I wore a “Free Angela” pin. The activist and her embrace of the LGBTQ+ movement are inspiring.
Indispensable, moreover, is the documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson about a lady to whom I dedicated a song on television. It's about the queer icon, the black trans* woman who threw the first stone in Stonewall, as I label it in my tribute. Marsha showed, despite and because of multiple discrimination, that the intersectional approach is the way to go. The documentary by David France is motivating and informative. Finally, I also recommend Registe from 2014 by the Italian Diana Dell'Erba. The documentary looks at the commendable filmmaker Elvira Coda who succeeded with her profound silent films, in spite of the strict censorship at the time.
Dr. Kristina Meyer studied history, political science and communication science at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. She was awarded the Willy Brandt Prize for Contemporary History in 2015 for her dissertation "Die SPD und die NS-Vergangenheit 1945-1974". In 2006, she began as a managing assistant, and in 2013 became scientific director of the Jena Center 20th Century History. She has also been a member of the SPD History Forum since February 2019 and its co-spokesperson since June 2019.
What documentary has inspired your work from a feminist point of view? Why in particular did this film inspire you?
The documentary film Who Will Write Our History by Roberta Grossmann particularly impressed me as a historian in recent years from a feminist perspective. The film tells the story of the underground archive "Oneg Shabbat" from the perspective of journalist and writer Rachel Auerbach, one of the few women in the 60-member team around historian Emanuel Ringelblum. During German occupation, Oneg Shabbat collected tens of thousands of eyewitness accounts of the lives of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to inform posterity about the terrible events that took place there. Rachel Auerbach, who also ran a soup kitchen there for the particularly indigent, dealt especially with women’s situation and experiences of suffering and violence in the completely overcrowded ghetto in her reports for Oneg Shabbat. She was one of the secret archive group’s three survivors. Their hiding places were rediscovered after the war in completely destroyed Warsaw.
Which other documentaries would you recommend watching during Women's History Month?
I also recommend the documentary RBG by Betsy West and Julie Cohen about US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who died in 2020. Not only is her own life story – a journey from very humble beginnings to becoming the second women justice on the Supreme Court – remarkable from a feminist perspective, but so is her decades-long commitment to equality and women's rights in the USA.
How do you think film can change perceptions, or even conditions, in society?
Documentaries about women like Rachel Auerbach, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and others can encourage other women to fight for women’s agency and rights. Films can only be one piece of many in the puzzle of changing thinking and conditions, but their impact and reach can do much to help.
Dr. Andrea Steinke is a research fellow at the Centre for Humanitarian Action (CHA) in Berlin. She analyses the dynamics of humanitarian interventions and leads the research project on the Humanitarian-Development-Peace-Nexus (Triple Nexus).
Andrea, you work in the humanitarian context, is there a documentary in particular that inspired you for your work from a feminist point of view? And why in particular did this film inspire you?
I recently had the chance to watch Madan Sara by Etant Dupain. It is a documentary that centers Haitian street merchants, almost exclusively women. They are called “Madan Sara” throughout the country and their everyday work literally constitutes the backbone of the country, economically, socially, and politically.
Beyond its focus on women, Madan Sara helps to better understand Haiti in general. It is an eye-opener for why certain forms of well-meaning aid interventions will never fall on fertile ground in the country. Haitian society is deeply marked by its history of enslavement and resistance. The independence and self-reliance, the sheer force, commitment and solidarity to their families and communities of the “Madan Sara is a prime example for that.
What is more, in my view, the film manages to not fall into the trap of glorifying women for their strategies of survival in an overtly unjust world. Nearly everywhere in the world women are faced with more challenges, subjected to more structural as well as physical violence than men and they adapt to survive. It shapes their spirit and their character. Solely building on that, reiterating their resilience towards atrocities instead of trying to change the structures is itself co-constitutive of oppression. Ideally, we should all thrive towards a world where everyone can be strong and weak and vulnerable together and where people, that is women, men and those who prefer not to be categorized as such, hold each other up.
Which other documentaries would you recommend to watch on the occasion of the women's history month? (and could you give a short context why)
Another documentary I recently watched was For Sama by Waad al-Kateab. By engaging in a video-dairy style documentary the filmmaker shares her own life and engagement with the revolution in Syria, her relationships and the birth of her daughter Sama, for whom she actually records her thoughts and actions.
It unravels the horrors of the siege of Aleppo, the numbness and the pain of those affected, their thoughts and doubts and anger. Last month was the 10-year anniversary of the war in Syria and I think For Sama is also a good and very painful reminder to everyone that it is especially women and children that are exposed to the violence and atrocities of war and conflict.
How do you think can film generally influence the perception of the public?
I think documentaries indeed are good tools to tell people’s stories, to open people up for new perspectives, to connect emotions and life worlds, and to make the experiences of others tangible.
I think it is especially useful for human rights purposes but also humanitarian issues can be transported well to a diverse audience. The advantage is that it can depict people in their human complexity instead of constructing one-dimensional, flat characters. This is especially important to humanitarians to be able to see people beyond the categories they use to approach people: beneficiaries, affected populations, etc pp. Documentary has the potential to do so, sometimes it does not live up to that und does more harm than good. I think it is also of utmost importance to keep in mind to not use and expose people solely for the sake of documenting, the end does not justify the means, especially when there is an imbalance of power between the film team and those depicted. I think this is still a big problem in documentary filmmaking and it should be addressed and dealt with.
A good documentary in my eyes is one where I feel the consideration of those challenges and that teaches new things, shows new perspectives, transports knowledge and at the same time opens up a space for an emotional and a political reaction that motivates me to learn more and do more.
Leslie Thomas is an Emmy award-winning art director and producer. She has directed many internationally exhibited multimedia installations and short format documentary films, such as “Thursday’s Child” and “The Prosecutors”. She is the Founder and Executive Director of ART WORKS Project, which uses design and the arts to raise awareness of and educate the public about significant human rights issues. ART WORKS provides visual advocacy tools that produce action on human rights crises at the grassroots, media and policy levels.
Leslie, you are an advocate for women's rights, is there a particular documentary that influenced you?
The documentary that has most moved me in the past few years is Cameraperson. Directed by Kirsten Johnson, it gives viewers the incredible ability to understand how projects are made. It explores how issues are tackled visually, and how we, as viewers, consume media, and the cost at which this comes to the people making films – both as subjects and filmmakers. I know Kirsten well, but seeing her work through her eyes was an entirely different experience. From my perspective, the film is required viewing for anyone working in film. Of any type.
You are also a director – we showed your powerful documentary “The Prosecutors” at the HRFFB2019 – and a producer. From an artistic and feminist point of view, is there a documentary that inspired your own work?
My film background was in narrative film rather than documentary and it's interesting, because I find it harder to work in documentary because you have to trust the "story" rather than the "plot". My editor, Christy Denes, often talks about this with me and she's right – I am plot obsessed, but I often miss the forest for the trees. While I was making The Prosecutors, a lot of films ran through my head at different stages. Perhaps the one that stuck with me the longest artistically was God's Own Country. It's an incredible film about a person’s struggle to allow themselves to be open to intimacy, possibly hurt, and love. It's about trust. While it is not a documentary, it has a very strong sense of cinema verité.
In terms of women's rights, I thought a lot about Gini Reticker's film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Also shot by Kirsten Johnson (you sense a theme?), the film takes viewers through the complexities of a political negotiation around war crimes and abuse, especially of women, using a gendered approach. It's brilliant. I am a total policy geek and it can't get too detailed or nuanced for me. I knew that “The Prosecutors” had to have the drama of a “Law & Order” episode and the factual correctness of a law case. That's hard but I hope we did it.
