WITNESS Begins New Partnership with Bay Area Video Coalition

Tina Singleton — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:27:56 -0700

From May 29 - June 7, I attended the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), Producers Institute for New Media Technologies in San Francisco, California. BAVC is a nonprofit media arts center founded in 1976 by a coalition of media makers and activists who wanted to find alternative, civic-minded applications for a new technology - PortaPak video. BAVC's continuing mission is to inspire social change by enabling the sharing of diverse stories through art, education and technology.

As Video Advocacy Training Coordinator at WITNESS, I was attending the Institute as an observer/participant to see how BAVC conducts this particular training program and to figure out ways WITNESS and BAVC can collaborate on the Institute in 2010.

The Producers Institute is a ten-day residency for eight creative teams (independent producers or public broadcasters) with a shared goal of developing and prototyping a multi-platform project inspired by, or based on a significant documentary project. The intention of the Institute is to develop socially relevant media projects for emerging digital platforms. Producers participated in high-level industry roundtables, intense one-on-one project development with technical mentors, new media storytelling workshops, and hands-on prototyping of their ideas. The participants created prototypes for exciting multiplatform projects adapted and developed film, video, and audio content for delivery using a range of interactive formats, including but not limited to video game applications, interactive, web-based experiences, mobile streaming, multi-user communities, and new educational software. Subjects included strip mining in Appalachia, sexual slavery, public health in Oakland California, the meat industry in the US, the human rights campaign to end apartheid in South Africa, Jamaican elders in the UK, creating an online global LGBT community, and troop support of soliders from Afghanistan and Iraq in Bangor, Maine.

The Institute provided creative mentors, technology consultants and advisors based on the needs of participants' projects. At the end of the residency, all participants pitched to a panel of venture capital funders, industry leaders, and foundations. As ongoing support after the Institute, BAVC hosts a web-based resource center for the continued sharing of new ideas, strategies, project development, and distribution opportunities. Here's an interview conducted in the 3D virtual world of Second Life by one of the Institute's mentors - Bernhard Drax (aka Draxtor Despres) - with Wendy Levy, BAVC's Director of Creative Programming:

I participated in the Public Program Plenary Panel discussion on The Future of Visual Storytelling: Content-Driven Technologies and the New Documentary Movement and provided some input on participant projects around advocacy and storytelling. In 2010, WITNESS will be collaborate with BAVC on the Producer's Institute to integrate NGOs and human rights advocacy into the Producer's Institute mix of technologists and documentary producers, and to help identify and pair social issue documentary producers and the cross-platform projects they develop at the Institute with nonprofit organizations working in the same issue area. We are excited to be collaborating with this dynamic organization and look forward to a long and productive partnership.

Visit bavc.org for more information and to view clips from Producers Institute 2009 projects.

From paper to screen: 'House of the Dead'

Tina Singleton — Sun, 17 May 2009 09:12:15 -0700

May 18 is National Day of Psychiatric Reform in Brazil, and activist and researcher Debora Diniz is hard at work advocating the issue. Debora, from Brasília, Brazil, is an activist and researcher at Anis: Institute of Bioethics, Human Rights and Gender.

I first met Debora in July 2008 at WITNESS' Video Advocacy Institute (VAI), in Montreal, Canada, at Concordia University. In collaboration with the Department of Communication and Documentary Centre, this 10-day video advocacy training brought together 27 human rights advocates from around the world to learn how to integrate video into their human rights campaigns. As the VAI Coordinator, I had the pleasure of working with and following the training of these incredibly committed advocates. When I read Debora's application for the VAI, it stood out from a pool of almost 300 applicants because of her commitment to human rights, clear advocacy focus on psychiatric reform in Brazil, and strategy for how to integrate an advocacy video in this campaign.

Debora's proposed advocacy video is to be used as part of an advocacy campaign to provide evidence of the vulnerability of people living in psychiatric prisons in Brazil, and to advocate for the right to live freely. At the VAI, Debora participated in group sessions on video advocacy strategy and film production as well as work in small regional groups with other participants to refine her Video Action Plan (VAP), which is a blueprint for production and distribution of an advocacy video. The VAP includes honing the objectives, messaging, storytelling and distribution plan for the video. As Debora edited the video in Brazil, she sent us the rough cut for comments and feedback.

The resulting film, House of the Dead, chronicles the lives of inmates at a psychiatric prison in Salvador. The film was launched at the International It's All True Documentary Film Festival in March and awarded the best doc at the Amazonia Doc Festival. The film has been accepted to be exhibited in several festivals around the country and internationally, and was reviewed by several important newspapers in Brazil. The film will be distributed free of charge.

At the same day of the launch of the video at the It's All True Festival, Debora tells us, "The President of the Brazilian Supreme Court, Judge Gilmar Mendes, received our petition related to the psychiatric prisons in the country. We asked the court to review cases like Almerindo, who is profiled in the film and living in "life imprisonment". As a result of both the video and the petition, the Justice Council decided to initiate the review of all the cases like him in the 25 institutions around the country." In addition, the Brazilian National Council of Public Defendants decided to support the advocacy campaign in all states of the country. The proposal is to exhibit the film in all states to open the discussion about the psychiatric prisons and the right to be free.

House of the Dead will be launched at two political events today in Brazil on honor of the National Day of Psychiatric Reform: in Salvador, the city where the documentary was filmed, in a large debate around the issue; and in Brasília, at the University of Brasilia, with several policy makers. Since the first screening of House of the Dead, the network around the campaign has grown to include several legal, psychological and scientific organizations and institutes. As Debora updates WITNESS, "We are thinking about a Supreme Court proposal for next August."

The success of Debora's documentary at film festivals reflects not only the quality of the film she produced and directed, but also how film festivals can be a powerful tool to shed light on human rights issues that festival goers may not normally be exposed to, in this case, psychiatric reform in Brazil.

This blog is the first of a series of posts about VAI alumni - stay tuned as we continue to follow the progress of their advocacy videos and advocacy efforts. WITNESS brought these human rights advocates together because we believe in their work and we look forward to highlighting their human rights work around the world.

As for House of the Dead, what impact did the film have on you? Let us know the comments field below...

[Tina Singleton is the Video Advocacy Institute Coordinator at WITNESS]

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WITNESS Begins New Partnership with Bay Area Video Coalition

From paper to screen: 'House of the Dead'