Global Peace Film Festival
Panel Moderator: Rachel Luce-Hitt
Panelists:
Paul Cooke: Producer/Director, At First They Don’t Believe: Surviving the Khmer Rouge
June Beallor: Producer, Liberation Heroes: The Last Eyewitnesses
Andrew Goldberg: Director, Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations
This panel discussion previews 3 films that are part of the Global Peace Film Festival running from September 21 – October 4, 2020. The films include:
LIBERATION HEROES: THE LAST EYEWITNESSES: Heroic World War II veterans vividly share their liberation journeys, drawing parallels between the past and present. These powerful eyewitness accounts from Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive® share a cautionary tale and compelling reminder of what can happen when insidious hatred remains unchecked. With antisemitism, racism and xenophobia on the rise worldwide, this film serves as a call to action to stand against hatred in all its forms.
VIRAL: ANTISEMITISM IN FOUR MUTATIONS: By virtually every yardstick, antisemitism in the US and Europe is rising and worsening in ways not seen since the 1930s. It is coming in the forms of vandalism, social media abuse, assault and murder. Like a virus it is mutating and evolving across cultures, borders and ideologies making it all but impossible to stop.
As activist Maajid Nawaz says in the film, “If we don’t draw a red line in the sand when it comes to antisemitism, Muslims will be next, gays will be next and everyone else who is deemed a minority will be next.”
AT FIRST THEY DON’T BELIEVE: SURVIVING THE KHMER ROUGE: tells the stories of two women who survived the violence of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Sieng Chantei and Leay Kimchhean. How have these women tried to confront their past traumas? What has the country done to help? How have they tried to make sense of their treatment by a paranoid regime that abused thousands of people like the two we meet in the film? And what does the younger generation make of their story? Building on the work of Changing the Story in Cambodia, a four year research project, and learning from, and with, the innovative work of Cambodian civil society organisations, the film illustrates the importance of young people learning about and acknowledging the stories of survivors. …
To view the panel discussion, please see the video below:
