Capturing the Imagination:
Independence and the Claim to Rights
Organized by Christiana Ochoa
Welcome and Introduction to the Seminar
October 20 - Thursday - 2:00 p.m.
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Filmmaker Hubert Sauper Introduces Darwin's Nightmare (2004)
October 20 - Thursday - 2:30 p.m.
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Darwin's Nightmare (2004) Directed by Hubert Sauper
October 20 - Thursday - 3:00 p.m.
Some time in the 1960's, in the heart of Africa, a new animal was introduced into Lake Victoria as a little scientific experiment. The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of the native fish species. However, the new fish multiplied so fast, that its white fillets are today exported all around the world. Huge hulking ex-Soviet cargo planes come daily to collect the latest catch in exchange for their southbound cargo… Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the continent. This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots.
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A Q&A with filmmaker Hubert Sauper will follow the screening.
We Come as Friends (2014) Directed by Hubert Sauper
October 20 - Thursday - 6:30 p.m.
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We Come as Friends is a modern odyssey, a dizzying, science fiction-like journey into the heart of Africa. At the moment when the Sudan, the continent’s biggest country, is being divided into two nations, an old “civilizing” pathology re-emerges – that of colonialism, the clash of empires, and new episodes of bloody (and holy) wars over land and resources. Sauper takes us on this voyage in his tiny, self-made, tin and canvas flying machine. He leads us into most improbable locations and into people’s thoughts and dreams, in both stunning and heartbreaking ways. Chinese oil workers, UN peacekeepers, Sudanese warlords, and American evangelists ironically weave common ground in this documentary, a complex, profound and humorous cinematic endeavor.
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Filmmaker Hubert Sauper will introduce the screening.
A Q&A with Professor Mark Gibney (UNC Asheville) and Angel Urrutia facilitated by Professor Joshua Malitsky (CDRP, Indiana University) will follow the screening.
Lectures
October 21 - Friday - 9:00 a.m.
"Ironic Iconic: How Images of Protest Both Inspire and Stifle Future Activism."
Professor Regina Austin (University of Pennsylvania Law School)
"Seeing Human Rights"
Professor Mark Gibney (UNC Asheville).
Professor Timothy Waters (Maurer School of Law, Indiana University) will facilitate discussion following the lectures.
Freedom Riders (2011) Directed by Stanley Nelson
October 21- Friday - 11:00 a.m.
Freedom Riders is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
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Introduction by Professor Raymond Arsenault (University of South Florida).
Lecture: "In Search of the Freedom Riders: Film, History, and Memory"
October 21 - Friday - 2:00 p.m.
Professor Raymond Arsenault (University of South Florida).
Respondents: Cara Caddoo (History, Indiana University) and Alex Lichtenstein (History, Indiana University)
Lecture: "Empowering Voice and Challenging Rights Violations Using Video and ICTs: WITNESS' Work with Grassroots Activists and Marginalized Communities "
October 21 - Friday - 4:00 p.m.
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Tanya Karanasios (WITNESS)
Respondents: David Fresko (CDRP, Indiana University) and Alexandra Cotofana (ILFF, CDRP, Indiana University). Professor Christiana Ochoa (Maurer School of Law, Indiana University) will facilitate discussion.
