Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Monday, June 09, 2008
A story from Guantanamo Bay: "I didn't know how to pray. I didn't know anything."
Continuing my June trend of posting things as I read them rather than saving them in my drafts with the intention of writing giant posts I don't really have time for, here's another article/video I came across. It's about Murat Kurnaz, who was detained in Guantanamo for 5 years and released without charges. Guantanamo is nothing new (even on this blog), but I found the video really informative and to the point, so have a go at it :)
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
FOLLOW UP: Escaping North Korea
Just thought I'd follow up my previous post on North Korea with a BBC article I came across. It's about the lengths to which North Koreans go to to get out of the country and features some video material to go with the text.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
North Korea: The only thing the government fears is balloons
The Planet Doc Review festival is being held in Warsaw right now. My dad took me out on Monday to see Andrzej Fidyk's Yodok Stories, which is a documentary about North Korean concentration camps. What many people don't realize (or at least I didn't) is that North Korea is running several concentration camps today (I believe the film spoke of the existence of 15) to hold political prisoners and their families. In North Korea, if you are guilty of a crime against the state (which can mean a lot of things - for example putting a newspaper with the photograph of Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, on the floor would be considered such a crime) three generations of your family will be put in a concentration camp.
Andrzej Fidyk is a Polish documentary director (though apparently his next project will be a feature film, so I'll be really excited about that!) who makes very particular sort of films. I first came across him in film school (for those who don't know me that well - I did a two year film course where I specialized in editing and then didn't follow it up with anything much). My history of film teacher showed us Andrzej Fidyk's 1989 film - Defilada. He told us (or at least that's what I remember - I hope I remember right!) that in the late 80s the North Korean government decided to invite eight foreign documentary directors to make a film about their country (they wanted to improve their image abroad), but of course reserving the right to censor the films. Of the 8 films made, only Fidyk's passed the censors and made its way out into the world. Poland of course has a very strong tradition of making films which pass censors, but which say everything that needs to be said anyway and Defilada is a classic example of this (in fact that's why it was shown to us!).
Almost 20 years later a Norwegian human rights body asked Fidyk whether he would be interested in making a film about North Korean concentration camps. So he started to wonder how such a thing could even be done. Naturally, you can't just waltz into a concentration camp and film it and then there's the other issue of how do you make a film on this topic without making it so depressing that nobody would want to watch it.
Finally, he had an idea... You see, North Korea does probably the most spectacular stadium performances in the world. In fact Fidyk's first film about North Korea references this with its title - Defilada means The Parade. You can see a fragment of Defilada which shows a stadium performance below (it's in Polish, if you want to go straight to the bit that shows the performance then it's about half way through the clip):
To see more of Fidyk's Defilada, go here or to see another North Korean parade go here (there are way more on youtube and all of them are just as spectacular!).
So Fidyk decided that he had to find a North Korean spectacle/theatre director amongst the many North Korean refugees in South Korea and talk him into directing a play about North Korean concentration camps. The documentary would focus on the making of the play. Eventually he found a man suitable for the job and after a lot of talks the play evolved into a stage musical (apparently these are very popular in South Korea). The musical is called Yoduk Story - Yodok being the name of one of the concentration camps. It was a huge success in South Korea and has toured the USA too. You can see the trailer for the stage musical below:
What struck me most in what I learnt from the film was how totally isolated North Korea is. The people living by the border may have some idea about what's going on in the outside world, but everybody else is totally cut off from outside information. And anyone who *would* have such information would not share it because their whole family would end up in one of the concentration camps. Furthermore North Korea has NO internet. That was the first thing I checked on-line after seeing the film because I just couldn't believe it. The North Korean domain is .kp and there are exactly two known websites in that domain and both of them are on servers outside of North Korea. In North Korea internet just doesn't exist. So the only way people (mainly the many North Korean refugees living in South Korea) have been trying to give people in North Korea information about the outside world is by sending brochures via helium balloons.
I really recommend the documentary - it's a very important topic and a very well made film too. It will still be showing this Saturday and Sunday at the festival.
Andrzej Fidyk is a Polish documentary director (though apparently his next project will be a feature film, so I'll be really excited about that!) who makes very particular sort of films. I first came across him in film school (for those who don't know me that well - I did a two year film course where I specialized in editing and then didn't follow it up with anything much). My history of film teacher showed us Andrzej Fidyk's 1989 film - Defilada. He told us (or at least that's what I remember - I hope I remember right!) that in the late 80s the North Korean government decided to invite eight foreign documentary directors to make a film about their country (they wanted to improve their image abroad), but of course reserving the right to censor the films. Of the 8 films made, only Fidyk's passed the censors and made its way out into the world. Poland of course has a very strong tradition of making films which pass censors, but which say everything that needs to be said anyway and Defilada is a classic example of this (in fact that's why it was shown to us!).
Almost 20 years later a Norwegian human rights body asked Fidyk whether he would be interested in making a film about North Korean concentration camps. So he started to wonder how such a thing could even be done. Naturally, you can't just waltz into a concentration camp and film it and then there's the other issue of how do you make a film on this topic without making it so depressing that nobody would want to watch it.
Finally, he had an idea... You see, North Korea does probably the most spectacular stadium performances in the world. In fact Fidyk's first film about North Korea references this with its title - Defilada means The Parade. You can see a fragment of Defilada which shows a stadium performance below (it's in Polish, if you want to go straight to the bit that shows the performance then it's about half way through the clip):
To see more of Fidyk's Defilada, go here or to see another North Korean parade go here (there are way more on youtube and all of them are just as spectacular!).
So Fidyk decided that he had to find a North Korean spectacle/theatre director amongst the many North Korean refugees in South Korea and talk him into directing a play about North Korean concentration camps. The documentary would focus on the making of the play. Eventually he found a man suitable for the job and after a lot of talks the play evolved into a stage musical (apparently these are very popular in South Korea). The musical is called Yoduk Story - Yodok being the name of one of the concentration camps. It was a huge success in South Korea and has toured the USA too. You can see the trailer for the stage musical below:
What struck me most in what I learnt from the film was how totally isolated North Korea is. The people living by the border may have some idea about what's going on in the outside world, but everybody else is totally cut off from outside information. And anyone who *would* have such information would not share it because their whole family would end up in one of the concentration camps. Furthermore North Korea has NO internet. That was the first thing I checked on-line after seeing the film because I just couldn't believe it. The North Korean domain is .kp and there are exactly two known websites in that domain and both of them are on servers outside of North Korea. In North Korea internet just doesn't exist. So the only way people (mainly the many North Korean refugees living in South Korea) have been trying to give people in North Korea information about the outside world is by sending brochures via helium balloons.
I really recommend the documentary - it's a very important topic and a very well made film too. It will still be showing this Saturday and Sunday at the festival.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
And I thought Poland had it bad...
This is a short follow-up to my big pornography post. While Polish politicians have been debating about a total ban on pornography, Iran seems to have taken their politic debates muuuuch further. If the proposal passes, anybody involved with the making, distribution (including websites) or production of porn films in Iran could be sentenced to death.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Teletubbies and the profound effect they might be having on Polish children
Apparently Polish officials are worried that Teletubbies promote homosexuality. The reason they think this is because Tinky Winky carries a woman's handbag. They are considering taking the show off public TV if their psychologists confirm these very terrible fears.
(For those who can't read Polish - I swear, I didn't make this up! That is really what the article says!)
(For those who can't read Polish - I swear, I didn't make this up! That is really what the article says!)
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Women's Rights in Afghanistan
Found an article on BBC about women's rights in Afghanistan. Here's a short quote of what was the most shocking thing for me:
"My message, really, to the international community is: you need to address specific security issues for women," she says.
"Women's rights activists are getting killed, women's NGO workers are getting killed, and that is not going to change unless some drastic action is taken," Ms Fernandes continues.
The entire article is here
If you're interested in the problem, there is a very good feature film about women in Afghanistan available. It is by Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf and entitled At Five in the Afternoon. It's the (fictional) story of a girl who dreams of becoming the president of Afghanistan. It was shown in Poland by GutekFilm in 2004 and as far as I know has been released in many countries abroad.
"My message, really, to the international community is: you need to address specific security issues for women," she says.
"Women's rights activists are getting killed, women's NGO workers are getting killed, and that is not going to change unless some drastic action is taken," Ms Fernandes continues.
The entire article is here
If you're interested in the problem, there is a very good feature film about women in Afghanistan available. It is by Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf and entitled At Five in the Afternoon. It's the (fictional) story of a girl who dreams of becoming the president of Afghanistan. It was shown in Poland by GutekFilm in 2004 and as far as I know has been released in many countries abroad.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Freedom of expression on-line
While I'm not expecting this blog to turn into something very serious or political, I just want to draw the attention of everyone reading this blog (if anybody is reading it of course!) to a site called http://irrepressible.info/ which deals with freedom of expression on-line. It's a bit weird to think that there's people who are getting jailed for what they write in blogs like these (well not like mine because mine is rather pathetic at the moment - I think their blogs are mostly much better and more interesting!), but it is happening and I think it's important to support Amnesty International's campaign for freedom of expression on-line. Perhaps as somebody coming from and living in Poland, where the current government has started restricting freedom of speech (maybe not so much on-line yet, but certainly there have been some strange goings on in the media and then there's the case of Hubert Hoffman - a homeless man who called the president names and is now being pursued for it by the police!), it is all the more important for me that freedom of expression is defended. So for anyone who agrees, show your support by visiting that site and sign the petition! :)
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