Leshu Torchin is a Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, where she works on the subject of film and human rights advocacy. Her work has appeared in Third Text, and Cineaste. She is the author of Creating the Witness: Genocide in the Age of Film, Video and the Internet (University of Minnesota Press, 2012.)
Hashtags were prominent, whether in the below screen titles, or in the title of the films themselves. ##12M mai no hem marxat (15Mbcn.tv) provided a birds-eye-view of Plaça Catalunya on the first anniversary of the 15 May protests that launched the Indignados movement (and inspired OWS.) The title means “We have not left.” (More…)
Michelle Fawcett, co-organizer of Occupy the Film Festival said people had asked about the title of the event. Did she mean “Occupy: The Film Festival” suggesting a festival about the Occupy movement, a completely suitable topic for a program taking place in the weekend leading up to S17, the first anniversary of the birth of Occupy Wall Street (OWS)? Or, did she mean, “Occupy the Film Festival”? (More…)
Last week, the Humanities Center at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University held a roundtable event on the origins of Occupy Wall Street. Commemorating the first anniversary of the uprising, the gathering could not have been more necessary, or appropriate. (More…)
Given its viral success, it might be redundant to explain that Kony 2012 refers to both the Invisible Children campaign, and a documentary centrepiece designed to promote celebrity warlord Joseph Kony. Already indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, the Ugandan’s capture is now sought, ostensibly through military intervention. (More…)
Cancer sucks. I, too, mourn the passing of Steve Jobs. Not to mention a few notable, world changing people who passed away the same week as Apple’s co-founder. I too appreciate the contributions to technology and design he made. Jobs sold things that people did not even know they needed until they held them. (More…)
The Green Wave, a new documentary directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi, tells the wired and informed what they already knew. It recounts the groundswell of support for Iranian presidential candidate and one-time Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, whose chosen campaign colour of green gives the film, not to mention the historical event (The Green Revolution) its name. (More…)