Look On! Esma's Secret: sexual violence in wartime

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy productions)

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (2006) is one of the best movies about consequences of the Balkan conflict.
The story line of this film focuses on the life of a single mother and her teenage daughter in the Grbvica neighbourhood of Sarajevo, Bosnia. As the plot unfolds it becomes apparent that the mother, Esma (played by Belgrade-born Mirjana Karanović), was raped by a Serbian soldier and became pregnant as a result.

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As Professors Ingvill C. Mochmann (Köln, Germany) and Stein Ugelvik Larsen (Bergen, Norway) wrote in their 2008 article, "Children Born of War": The Life Course of Children Fathered by German Soldiers in Norway and Denmark During WWII—Some Empirical Results (p. 361):

'How important it is to provide information to society concerning children born of sexual exploitation and abuse is clearly seen by the impact of the film “Grbvica”. The film produced in 2006 told the story of a relationship between a Bosnian woman who had been raped by a Serbian soldier during the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and gave birth to a daughter. This film created a shock in society and raised the awareness of the topic in society. A positive consequence of the movie was that rape victims were acknowledged as victims of war and do now receive a small pension.'

Written and directed by Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Žbanić, the film is definitely worth watching, as an example of how popular culture, and film in particular, can be used to influence the law.
The film, which was released in Britain as Esma's Secret: Grbavica, is also interesting in its depiction of post-traumatic stress.
Esma suffers from trauma and relives the experience of her sexual assault in certain scenes. Through the medium of the film, the director speaks of crimes which are both 'unspeakable' and 'undiscussable', to use to terminology of Dr Janja Beč, a Serbian sociologist and genocide researcher. Yet under pressure from Esma's daughter, who wishes to go on a school trip, Esma and the film finally break the silence surrounding her trauma.

(Cross-posted at Human Rights Film Diary blog)

Look On! Sarajevo & law's 'mediatization'

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy productions)

I've previously seen some excellent movies about the Balkan conflict, so I was apprehensive when, as part of my ongoing research into human rights and film, I chose the English-language film Welcome to Sarajevo (1997).

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The movie is directed by Michael Winterbottom, and contains some big-name actors: Woody Harrelson and Kerry Fox, who later appeared in the movie Storm (2009), about the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia – and Goran Visnjic, who played Dr Kovač on the TV series ER!
The film was inspired by the true story of the British TV news reporter Michael Nicholson, who, after months of reporting on the siege of Sarajevo, smuggled a child out of the city and adopted her.
In formal cinematic terms, it's not the best movie you will ever see. However, it does contain some interesting footage filmed at the time of the conflict. The first half of the movie is pretty slow, although it does pick up in the second half.
One of the key messages of the film is that the war does not end when it is declared to be over. The consequences of conflict remain, and rebuilding the rule of law and security remains a hard battle.
Another issue that the film focuses on is the ethics of journalism: Watchdog or sensationalists? For recent academic work in this field, check out 'Human Rights and the Mediatization of International Law', a 2010 Leiden Journal of International Law article by Dr Daniel Joyce, a Lecturer in Law at Australia's University of New South Wales.
Enjoy.

(Cross-posted at Human Rights Film Diary blog)

Welcoming Keina Yoshida

It's our great pleasure to welcome Keina Yoshida (right) as an IntLawGrrls contributor.
Keina is a candidate for a Ph.D. in law at the London School of Economics, where she earned an LL.M., with distinction, in Public International Law. She is working on her dissertation, entitled "Spectacles of justice: gender crimes in law and film," under the supervision of Professors Christine Chinkin and Linda Mulcahy.
Keina's research is funded by an award from Britain's Arts and Humanities Research Council.
She also holds an LL.B. in law and French, with First Class Honours, from Trinity College in Dublin, as well as  International Programme Diploma from Sciences Po in Paris.
As part of her research, Keina is currently an intern at the International Criminal Court,based in the Legal Advisory Section of the Office of the Prosecutor.
She's also interned at the Conseil d’Etat in Paris and at the NGO Equality Now in London.
Before beginning her Ph.D. studies, Keina was a staff attorney in the Madrid office of Womens Link Worldwide: Strategies for Gender Justice. In her initial post below, she describes how her work at that nongovernmental organization inspired her current research; in a post further below, she contributes a film review, the 1st in a series of Look On! posts to which we 'Grrls look forward.
Keina dedicates her post to Marlene Dietrich, who was born in Berlin in 1901, died in Paris in 1992, and, as previously posted, led a life that blended art and the events of her day. Keina writes:

'She was one of the icons of Hollywood cinema. Dietrich starred in two trial films considered to be cinema classics: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). In her signature style of tuxedos and men’s hats, Dietrich was open about her sexuality and the relationships she had with both men and women. A vociferous critic of the Third Reich, Dietrich became a US citizen and entertained US soldiers around the world.'

Today Dietrich, shown at left in the Hungarian poster for Witness (credit), joins other inspiring women as an IntLawGrrls foremother.

Heartfelt welcome!

Spectacles of justice: human rights and film

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this introductory post, along with the Look On! post below) 

THE HAGUE – The media, the moving image and international criminal justice are increasingly entangled. 
Moving images are frequently employed prior to atrocities as forms of propaganda, dehumanising ‘the Other’ in preparation for future atrocity.  
During conflict, war reporters transmit images of war crimes onto our screens. 
These images, along with those captured by civilians, are later used as evidence leading to investigations and indictments. At the trial stage, courtrooms full of television screens play footage of atrocities, and proceedings are streamed to virtual audiences. Eventually, the conflict and the trials themselves become transformed into documentary or feature films with varying degrees of accuracy. From a theoretical perspective, war crimes trials and motion pictures are linked through their production of spectacles.
Since the 1930s, it has been argued that the camera and film have altered our ‘ways of seeing’. It has even been argued, most prominently by the French theorist Guy Debord, that cinema has created “spectacle societies” accustomed to consuming and learning through visual imagery and entertainment. In legal and other academic disciplines, war crimes trials have long been considered by critics to be ‘show trials’ (as argued by Hannah Arendt in the context of the Eichmann trial). International prosecutions of those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide have functions beyond findings of guilt and innocence, encompassing the goals of making a historical record, ‘truth telling’, memorializing and other outreach objectives. 

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It is due to these purposes that the ‘affinities between the didactic aims of law and documentary film’ have been recognised in scholarship on war crimes trials. 
In his book The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (2001), Amherst Professor Lawrence Douglas has illustrated the role ‘film plays in transforming historic trials into historic events’. Douglas argues that documentaries, such as those on the Eichmann trial in Israel, serve to legitimise the trials through reinforcing of collective memory of mass atrocity. However, in other instances, motion pictures challenge or criticise legal proceedings, or even, the lack thereof. Cinema can draw attention to narratives and discourses which have been silenced or marginalised by official legal proceedings. This is especially true with regard to gendered harms in conflict which have been subject to a ‘monumental oversight’ in legal proceedings but which appear in a number of films. Movies therefore not only reinforce the dominant discourse of the law, but also provide forms of ‘outsider jurisprudence’, allowing audiences to judge fictional or real legal cases and systems. 
My research aims to explore the interaction and interrelation of international criminal justice and cinema in greater detail.

I first became interested in this relationship during my time as a staff attorney at Women’s Link Worldwide, a nongovernmental organisation with offices in Madrid and Bogotá. I was tasked with co-authoring a manual on gender crimes in Argentina, later launched in Buenos Aires by Luis Moreno Ocampo, at that time the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. By way of background and in order to familiarize myself with the context in which crimes against humanity were perpetrated in Argentina, I turned to mediums of popular culture, including cinema. La Historia Oficial (1985) (well known to English-speaking audiences as The Official Story), La Noche de los Lápices (1986) (English title Night of the Pencils), Un muro de silencio (1993) (A Wall of Silence or Black Flowers) and Garage Olimpo (1999) (Olympic Garage), are just some of the movies which have been made since the end of the ‘Dirty War’ that deal with gender crimes perpetrated by the military junta. 
I found that cinema is a great didactic tool for students of human rights law, as recognized by initiatives such as Movies that Matter and Cinema for Peace. 
As part of my data collation for my research, I recently began a blog called Human Rights Film Diary, to keep a record of the movies that I’ve watched and will watch over the course of the next three years. I am using the next three months as an intern of the ICC to review films in my own personal collection and the ICC film library. 

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The ICC has an extensive film collection, with over 120 movies and documentaries related to human rights abuses and international criminal justice. Some of these documentaries are made by international tribunals as part of their outreach function and strategy. Others are Hollywood cinema classics, such as To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Inherit the Wind (1960), and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Many of the films would be considered as ‘world cinema’, set in different countries, made in different locations and with a huge in the budget.
The ICC also has an informal cinema club, the ‘Ark film club’, where staff members and interns can gather to watch movies. The initiative first started in 2005 in the Office of the Prosecutor and has since expanded to include the whole Court.
It is my aim to watch and review the 120 movies over the next 90 days as part of my research here at the ICC. All my reviews will appear at my blog, which is now listed in the "connections" column at right. Beginning with the Look On! post below, many of my reviews will be cross-posted here at IntLawGrrls. I am delighted to present them to you, and welcome any comments you may have on the reviews or more generally on movies and human rights law. 
In light of the historic conviction earlier this month of Jorge Rafael Videla for the systematic kidnapping of children in Argentina, I invite you to read the post below, which I wrote just before delivery of this verdict. It reviews La Historia Oficial/The Official History, the movie which first made me aware of the crime of which Videla was found guilty.

Look On! La Historia Oficial/The Official Story

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this Look On! post)

Last week, on July 5, the Tribunal Oral Federal 6 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, handed down a historic judgment convicting Jorge Rafael Videla, the former military dictator of Argentina and 10 others on trial for el robo de bebés, the systematic kidnapping of babies. The case was be the first to find that there was a ‘systematic plan’, thus qualifying it as a crime against humanity.
An estimated 500 children were robbed from their parents in Argentina. This crime has become the focus of activism in the country, led by the Madres, and now Abuelas, de la Plaza de Mayo. It was also the subject matter of La Historia Oficial (1985), directed by Luis Puenzo. Known to English-speaking audiences as The Official Story, this was the first Latin American movie to win an Oscar.

In the film, the central character, a married middle-class woman, begins a journey in which she is led to question the ‘official story’ of the military junta and to uncover the origins of her own adopted daughter.
As she seeks to discover the ‘truth’, other stories of sexual violence, silenced in the trials of the military junta in the 1980s, emerge. Her best friend Ana tells her that she was tortured and raped in a clandestine detention centre.
The rape as torture, rape as a crime against humanity, sexual violence against men and women, implicit in the film, would later be documented in truth commission reports and form part of the testimony of women in the ‘truth trials’. It would appear on screen graphically, rather than implicitly, in films such as La Noche de los Lápices (1986) (English title, Night of the Pencils) and Garage Olimpo (1999) (Olympic Garage).
Historia Oficial is definitely worth watching; you can read more about the Videla case at IntLawGrrls here, and in Spanish here.

(Cross-posted at Human Rights Film Diary blog)