Denial

I deliberately went to see 'Denial' without reading up about the film, or the facts about David Irving or Deborah Lipstadt.

Moment Magazine

What greeted me was a whole host of emotions in a film about the 1996 libel suit in which David Irving accuses Penguin books and Deborah Lipstadt - who, in her book 'Denying the Holocaust' wrote that 'David is a liar, racist and extremist' - of slander and a conspiracy to debunk his reputation.

I'm a young ambassador for HET, a charity dedicated to educating young people and empowering teachers with knowledge of the holocaust and highlighting the roles of the ordinary people that lived to see it and experience it. We speak regularly on the subject alongside survivors and try to be visible both in our communities and online.

I have often, during my time as an ambassador been named on social media as 'part of the conspiracy'. In 2014 for example, myself and two young colleagues ran a 10km to raise money for the charity and were met with direct Twitter comments including this one (pictured). I, like Deborah, struggle to separate my emotions when comments like this are made. In fact, twitter is an engine that has given voice to many more deniers than before were heard. During the launch of a London exhibition early last year, I was asked via Twitter if holocaust survivors would be present - quite an innocent question it seems, until I did some digging and found that the user was in fact a holocaust denier who has previously directly targeted survivors.

Over Facebook I also received a direct message, as a result of a post I'd written about the rise of the far right in Greece with parties such as the Golden Dawn with a view to championing multi-cultural society. It might not be holocaust denial in this instance, but a direct attack on the very foundations of a society that values the lessons we have learned from it. I think this response speaks for itself...

I've received direct messages like this since my work began at 18 and it is sad that we must be so vigilant.

The film 'Denial' did highlight the question of what to say to these deniers. Do we stay silent and let the facts speak for themselves? Or do we give in to our emotions and respond? Can we be educated enough to do both? There are many of my peers I believe could be one day - but none of us can ever be armed with enough, can we?

There were more parallels than this though. Young lawyer Laura Tyler stays up late into the night incessantly working on the case, much to the annoyance and intense misunderstanding of her partner who managed to sum up what many peers have thought of me and my work as an ambassador and probably of Lipstadt too.

The Telegraph

They have asked me, 'isn't it time to let the past be the past', say 'you're obsessed', ask me 'why do you even care, you're not Jewish' and tell us there is 'more to life than the holocaust'. But in the same room the question has been uttered 'What is the holocaust?'. For me, it is impossible NOT to involve myself in the continuance of holocaust awareness and education. Because once you have looked truth in the eye, walked the rubble and ruins of Jewish cemeteries and visited Auschwitz, you cannot live with a version of yourself that is silent. I cannot be uncaring, I cannot forget, and I cannot deny that it ever happened.

Denial wasn't just about the libel suit, but the absolute passion for truth, that the holocaust HAPPENED. It was about speaking against all prejudices and facing denial in all it's forms, from bedroom-denouncings to outright racism.

odeon.co.uk

I've been to Auschwitz and 'Denial' managed to capture the exact essence of the place that remains through some respectful film-making - although I am sure that many early mornings were needed to find the place so empty. From the shoes and suitcases of Auschwitz 1 to the endless rows of barracks and razed crematoria at Birkenau. Upon my visit I did not cry but since then, I have come to consider many holocaust survivors I work with, as friends or extended family even. To see that place again, was as though I was seeing it through fresh eyes, and I cried. (This helped me to gain some idea of why some second and third generation survivors cannot bring themselves to know their family stories in detail). The stillness of the shots, the mist, the coldness of the image, the quiet - it was exactly the eerie place I remember. Somewhere you can almost feel the past vividly. 

The film reflects and values this experience. It also asks us to be vigilant in our analyses and critique those who claim to be experts in the field but he film above all, champions that the truth is ultimate. The outcome of the case was as it should be, and Deborah and her legal team can indeed say that the voices of the victims were heard as justice was done.

EveningStandard

The fact that posters for the film were defaced with anti-Semitic comments and drawings here in London, tell us exactly why it's important to show it at present. The fight against denial did not end when Lipstadt and her team won the case. It continues today and is rife in social media. What comes next is up to us but it's important I think that we take from the film, that truth is ultimate. Do not deny truth. Be someone that fights for it. 

time.com

13th

13th, is a documentary about the administrations and prison systems of America, about injustice, racial prejudice and anti-black rhetoric. What follows in this post is only part of the argument that I gleaned from this poignant film and I can't recommend that you watch it enough to understand the bigger picture. If you're nervous about this week's election result, then watch this film and understand that there is a lot more to worry about than we realise, that there is a lot of work still to do and that the fight for civil rights and liberty continues to this day.

Number 13, unlucky for some and perhaps surprisingly, unlucky for anyone who believes in justice, freedom and racial equality. The 13th Amendment was the amendment to the US Constitution that abolished slavered and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

LAWCHA

But although the amendment abolished traditional slavery, the latter clause was one that would shape a future of negative racial rhetoric against black people through to the modern day. The probability of a white man going to prison in their life in the US is 1 in 17. The probability for black men stands at 1 in 3. Black men account for 6.5% of the US population but a huge 40.2% of its prison population.

The adamant racism of members of the American administration, have manifested a rhetoric over time, utilising the exception of freedom if punishable for a crime. On the abolition of slavery, black people were arrested for the smallest of crimes, such as vagrancy and interned as labourers, and importantly, as criminals across the South. Popular culture aided this negative campaign against blacks, by painting them as criminals, as rapists and as violent savages who are not to be trusted with their white women. They even lynched a 14yr old boy to death for supposedly flirting. Brutality towards young black men of course, is not something that we, in 2016 are unfamiliar with.

aglfblog

When, during the civil rights movement, black people headed a power shift over this criminalisation by deliberately getting themselves arrested in standing up to the state, the rhetoric then manifested into dog whistle politics concerning a mostly-fabricated 'War on Drugs', in which black people were painted as the problem. The War on Drugs became one of the most important battles of Nixon and Reagan's administrations, all the while coveting and condoning racial prejudice and the targeting of black Americans by law enforcement services and the deliberate over-represented depiction of black Americans as criminals, monsters or 'super predators'. And black communities themselves bought into the lies spread about their own children. The Central Park 5 were interned for sexual assault and murder, just one example, of an outrageous number of unlawful and racially driven arrests. Never mind that the facts point at the higher percentage of interracial rape being of white men towards black women, than black men against white women. Public opinion made these boys guilty before they were even handcuffed.

Columbia.edu

Den Of Geek

Over decades, the generalisation that black men and black people in general ARE criminals had become veined as a social norm. It had manifested over years, not just in whites, but in black people too. It became a primitive fear, the same fear depicted over decades since the abolition of slavery, abused as part of the Bush presidential campaign by publicising his opponent's support of the weekend release of Willie Horton, a black American and felon, serving a life sentence for murder. This was followed by Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in favour of the death penalty to tackle crime, followed by mandatory minimum sentencing without parole, and a three-strike rule that saw prisoners given life sentences for their third felonies, a rule that put immense strain on prisons, forcing the LA Sheriff's Dept. for example, to release 4200 prisoners every month, held for misdemeanors. A rule that saw crimes such as shifting cocaine put people away for life, without parole. A rule that prompted the building of more prisons and more police on the street. This was, in effect the beginning of the militarisation of policing that is exactly the problem that black Americans face today. A rhetoric that has turned law enforcement into a weaponised mafia on the understanding that black people are, and have always been, the problem. But Bill Clinton apologised - so it's all ok.

Los Angeles Times

But it isn't ok. The prison population is higher in 2016 than EVER before. Ordinary people can take the law into their own hands, murder an innocent young black man simply because they feel threatened by their presence and be excused of their crime under the Stand Your Ground law, written by a private group (ALEC) made up of politicians and corporations. A law that could basically mean that if I so wanted, I could declare that I felt threatened by the old lady across the street, so I shot her. Of course no-one would believe that. But if my target were black, particularly a black male, I could probably get away with it. So corporate lobbyists have their sticky hands in key US legislation and old a great deal of leverage over their result. It gets more unbelievable the more we dig. The corruption runs deep, fast and thick throughout the 50 states. Turns out, the minimum sentence, the 3-strike rule - all of it came through ALEC, including SB1070, a law that allowed police to stop anyone who looked like an immigrant. A lot of people have become very rich on this falsified notion of criminal punishment and THOSE people, should be held accountable. As the rhetoric continues to manifest itself, to slip through the cracks of federal and state law, we must be on our guard to challenge its every move.

"If you look at the history of black people’s various struggles in this country, the connecting theme is the attempt to be understood as full, complicated human beings. We are something other than this visceral image of criminality and menace and threat to which people associate with us."

newyorker.com

Today, young black people are arrested on a whim on the street for petty crimes and charged bail amounts of thousands, which they cannot afford to pay. Often, even if innocent, they will take a plea bargain to plead guilty for a reduced sentence, in fear of the mandatory minimum sentence still operating from the Clinton administration. The Central Park 5 fell victim to this. Khalief Browder decided not to take the plea deal and take the decision to trial. After 3 years of awaiting trial behind bars on Rikers Island, after attempting suicide several times, the charges were dropped and he was released. They had nothing on him. He was innocent. And it seems to the masses, that no-one with any political leverage is challenging this kind of injustice. Justice isn't justice unless it's universal. In 2015, after his release and a battle with psychotic episodes probably associated with the trauma of having been wrongfully incarcerated and beaten for 3 years of his young life, Khalief Browder hanged himself at his home in the Bronx. His mother found him.

And today we witness the US election result, Trump or Clinton. Now is the time to share this film. Now is the time to challenge corruption. Now is the time to end this heinous era of criminalising black people and the privatisation of prison services that trades sweat shop labour for phone time. Corporations, under the blanket of self-improvement and rehabilitation, are operating inside prisons and making millions from the labour of the interned. Now is the time to demand human rights for those imprisoned, and those released having served their dues. But most importantly now is the time to realise, that this is ingrained in our society, it has been channelled directly from the days of slavery, and it can no longer go unnoticed, unchecked or unchallenged.

Nowhere to Call Home

The lovely team at The Frontline Club hosted a screening and Q&A for Jocelyn Ford's 'Nowhere to Call Home' on Monday this week. Jocelyn was told to expect some challenging questions, but she wasn't the only one who wasn't always sure about what to say.

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tibetaninbeijing.com

'Nowhere to Call Home' was a moving testament to the power of mass media and to the way that Tibetan villages seem to have managed to shield themselves from it. Zanta is a Tibetan widow, who migrated to Beijing to sell her jewellery and create a better life for her son, away from her possessive in-laws. With her husband gone, Zanta is not only troubled by racism from the Han Chinese in Beijing, but also has to deal with the added pressure of her father-in-law, who wants her son, Yang Qing to return to him.

contented.cc

One day, Zanta was selling her jewellery on the streets of Beijing and radio reporter, Jocelyn Ford came along and talked with her. Two years later, Zanta contacted Jocelyn and asked her to take her son, she could not afford to feed him. Jocelyn, perhaps against her will at first, became more and more involved with helping Zanta and getting Yang Qing into a school and forced by the pleas of her producer and colleagues, she began filming. Jocelyn helped Zanta out of trouble with the police, she helped her argue with racist landlords about the right to rent a room and she even travelled back to Zanta's village with her, to meet her family - and Uncle Aba, the grandfather who resists sending Zanta the ID for her and her son. And all the while, Jocelyn was unsure, all the while she maintained the view that she didn't want to get involved. Too late for that Jocelyn!

nytimes.com

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The film threw up many questions for me. As a journalist, it is perhaps the first rule in the book, not to get yourself involved with personal affairs and promise to help people where you are unsure of the outcome - in essence, not to meddle - but then I've never been one for rules. Jocelyn went ahead. With the support of her producer she captured the times she spent with Zanta on camera and even the voiceover allows us to see how unsure she was that she was doing the right thing at first. It seemed that her heart wasn't in it. I was conflicted as an audience member in trying to see whether what Jocelyn was doing was to help, or to make a film. I'm still not quite sure that even Jocelyn knew the answer to that along the way. The ethics of the film really stirred up uncertainty in me and I found it hard to appreciate some moments in the film because of that. even when young Yang Qing began calling her mama Joce, I was unsure if that was as heart-warming as perhaps it should have been. I was conflicted - which I suppose took me somewhere towards understanding Jocelyn's own conflict.

nytimes.com

Of course, I am not saying that Jocelyn doesn't care. She did for Zanta and Yang Qing what most Tibetan women would give anything for. She helped. And the power of having a foreign journalist by your side in a dispute is far greater than Zanta was, at first, aware of. It is clear by the end that Jocelyn is more invested than she was at the beginning and not just in monetary terms. She has indeed become, mama Joce to Yang Qing and a dear friend to Zanta.

Zanta is incredibly frank and Jocelyn, incredibly candid. The two hold nothing back from the audience in sharing their anger uncertainty or sadness. Yang Qing is charming to watch on screen, as although he is surrounded by controversy, his aim is still to do the things any child would do. He does share an emotional awareness for his mother's well-being, beyond that which I have seen before, comforting her and telling her not to cry. He is still however, just a child and that shines through impeccably within the film as he rides his bike around Beijing, and plays with his cousins in the village.

facebook.com

There are some nice undercover shots of Chinese employers bullying Zanta as she is Tibetan and is often wearing Tibetan clothes. I think that to me was worse than the police officers and landlords targeting her - no wonder she ends up in tears. It really is heart-breaking to watch ad know you cannot do anything to stop them. I can understand why Jocelyn felt compelled to help.

Similarly there are some nice moments where Zanta bears all to the camera, she does not hold back. Truth be told, the camera work was a little shaky in places, but as editor Gigi says in the Q&A, 'the essence was there'.

Although she may not have wanted to take on the filming in the first place, Jocelyn's nature was of course, not to decline. It was to help and then report back. The film was an achievement on her part and a great testament to the skill of her editor Gigi. She may have, at times, added jeopardy to the events that were unfolding, particularly with Uncle Aba, but ultimately she did what any of us would try to do. She helped and the film that comes out of it, is not only heart-warming because of that, but also deeply affecting when we spend so much time with our widowed mother and witness her sheer sense of will to protect and provide for her son, Yang Qing. 

Click here to see the Q&A session with director Jocelyn Ford at The Frontline Club: http://watchinabitotheatrenstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/nowhere-to-call-home-q.html

And here's the trailer:

Nowhere To Call Home: A Tibetan in Beijing (trailer) from TripodMedia on Vimeo.

The Eichmann Show

'The Eichmann Show', aired on our screens on BBC2 last night. Some of  us however, chose instead to watch the film at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton where we were treated with the company of producers Laurence Bowen and Ken Marshall, director Paul Williams and Writer Simon Block.

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I wasn't completely sure what my preconceptions of the film were and contrary to my normal routine, I decided to keep it that way. What I got in return was a film that despite its specific title, was entirely focused upon the trial of ordinary men, both the witnesses and the accused. A tangible link that, as Paul later reminds us, links us through time, to what man is capable of perpetrating and what man is capable of surviving.

picturehouses.co.uk

I find it hard to impugn any aspect of the production's value. Shot in 23days, edited in under 2months - and you wouldn't know it. You wouldn't know it at all which makes it almost pointless for me to mention it. Martin Freeman and Anthony LaPaglia do a grand job of creating an onscreen relationship and in characterising the battle of their inner demons. The lack of budget is unnoticeable at the hand of a good research team and art/costume department and the cinematography is cleverly orchestrated to complement the archive footage and keep the audience involved within the story.

bbc.co.uk

As a film-maker myself, I last year made a documentary entitled 'After Auschwitz' which champions a similar sentiment in that, the lessons there to be learned from the holocaust are ones that remain relevant within society today. In making the film I watched through much of the archive footage used within the Eichmann Show, but despite knowing I had seen some of it before, whether on my laptop screen or onsite at Yad Vashem, it felt like I too, was seeing it anew. The seamless quality of the original footage embedded within the scripted drama of the film, meant that we never once lost sight of the narrative. We instead were drawn to it, willing for it to act as proof, willing Eichmann to show even a glimmer of humanity. And that of course leads us to that one unanswerable question, 'why?' The question all of those 37 countries who televised the trial were asking, all of the 112 witnesses at the Eichmann Trial, were imploring to be answered. And yet, still now, we may never know.

This unanswered question was enough to drive Leo Hurwitz almost to despair and we too feel his agony at this indictment. Milton Fruchtman keeps up his impeccable, impenetrable nature of producing, of getting the job done, as any producer would. But what unfolds in The Eichmann Show is almost a cinematic re-construction of what short deadlines, a bold message and big ideas can really do for a production.

I have to say I didn't really think about the emotional impact of the film straight away. A lot like my visit to Auschwitz, it hit me on my journey home. As I transferred from the Victoria line to the jubilee line I noticed the assistance box, where TFL workers sit when on duty. Stood deserted in the station it looked a lot like Eichmann's box in the courtroom. I suddenly found myself picturing those faces I saw on screen, resting in Eichmann.  It actually made me forget which tube line to take.

As I said to Laurence when leaving the cinema, on meeting with many holocaust survivors at the annual Lord Merlyn-Rees memorial lecture this evening, I can't wait to hear what they thought of the film. After all, for now they are our witnesses, but in time, we will live to be theirs.

I am sure it will be a popular topic.

(Check back tomorrow when I'll have posted the Q&A with the film-makers. It'll be an interesting read!)