With the Middle East and North Africa entering an unprecedented phase of political and social transition, with decades old regimes coming to an end, and citizens demanding justice and accountability for crimes committed by their governments and terrorist groups, the International Criminal Court is more relevant than ever to the people of the region. With Jordan currently the only Arab country to have signed the Rome Statute (the treaty that governs the ICC), the Middle East is extremely underrepresented at the ICC. In this context, Skylight Pictures is nearing completion of the Arabic translation of our film, The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court in an effort to build awareness amongst a population of some 300 million native Arabic speakers and contribute to ending impunity in the Arab world.
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Last week I heard that the Harold Koh, U.S. State Department Legal Adviser, intends to retract the letter John Bolton sent to the UN denouncing the International Criminal Court when he was the Bush administration Ambassador to the UN (as seen in "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal ...
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Last week I heard that the Harold Koh, U.S. State Department Legal Adviser, intends to retract the letter John Bolton sent to the UN denouncing the International Criminal Court when he was the Bush administration Ambassador to the UN (as seen in "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court").
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Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú came to the Sundance Film Festival to anoint our film Granito and to support the launching of the Ford Foundation JustFilms Initiative. Ford Foundation and Robert Redford hosted the dinner for Rigoberta to celebrate the JustFilms/Sundance Institute partnership. ...
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Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú came to the Sundance Film Festival to anoint our film Granito and to support the launching of the Ford Foundation JustFilms Initiative. Ford Foundation and Robert Redford hosted the dinner for Rigoberta to celebrate the JustFilms/Sundance Institute partnership. JustFilms’ goal is to advance social justice worldwide through the talent of emerging and established documentary filmmakers. JustFilms supports works that educate, motivate and create positive change in people’s lives by conveying stories that have the power to transform how we think and act. Ford Foundation has committed $50 million to do so. Goodbye Boffo Box Office, hello Impact!
It was an unforgettable evening, an intimate dinner at Redford’s Zoom Restaurant. We showed a 10-minute sample from Granito and Orlando Bagwell, the Director of JustFilms, called Rigoberta, Paco and myself up to the front of the room to speak about Granito and my long collaboration with Rigoberta going back to When the Mountains Tremble which played at one of the first Sundance Film Festival 27 years ago.
Rigoberta was in fine form. She enthralled Ford Foundation and Sundance Institute leaders with her eloquence on the importance of social justice storytelling, and even said that, “When the Mountains Tremble saved my life. It made it more difficult for people to forcibly disappear or kill me when I was in the refugee camps. That is the power of storytelling."
She noted that, “Arresting visual narratives can open eyes and open hearts. A film can collectivize the suffering of victims who have been afraid to speak openly about their experience. They realize they are not alone."
Then she went back to When the Mountains Tremble saying that, “Its power lies in the dignification of the Maya people, presenting me as a credible woman, not as a victim".
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Family of disappeared activist Fernando García. Photo: Dana Lixenberg
As 2010 draws to a close, we’re applying the finishing touches to our new documentary, Granito, just in time for the film's world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Granito is a story of ...
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Family of disappeared activist Fernando García. Photo: Dana Lixenberg
As 2010 draws to a close, we’re applying the finishing touches to our new documentary, Granito, just in time for the film's world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Granito is a story of destinies joined by Guatemala's past and how a documentary film intertwined with a nation's turbulent history emerges as an active player in the present. Granito's central characters are connected by the Guatemala of 1982, then engulfed in a war where the military's genocidal "scorched earth" campaign exterminated nearly 200,000 Mayans. In the present-day, Granito's characters become integral to the overarching narrative of wrongs done and justice sought that they have pieced together, each adding their granito, their tiny grain of sand, to the epic tale.
To accompany the release of Granito we will launch a transmedia project called Granito: Every Memory Matters (G:EMM), for which we have developed a mobile application that will serve as a "memory collector", in an extended outreach and engagement campaign that will restore the collective memory of the Guatemalan genocide.
Granito's world premiere at Sundance will be part of an all-new "Documentary Premieres" category that is dedicated to showcasing "films on big subjects and new works by master filmmakers" (we are honored!). For screening dates click here.
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photo: Jean-Marie Simon
As I was musing about the past year of filmmaking and outreach that we've been doing at Skylight Pictures, it occurred to me that much of the focus of what we do, as well as the actions of the human rights heroes that appear in our films, plus the sustained and committed ...
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photo: Jean-Marie Simon
As I was musing about the past year of filmmaking and outreach that we've been doing at Skylight Pictures, it occurred to me that much of the focus of what we do, as well as the actions of the human rights heroes that appear in our films, plus the sustained and committed work of all of our outreach partners in the field, could be described as: how to nail a dictator. Whether it's all the "granitos" (grains of sand) coming together in the amazing story of the 30-year quest for justice depicted in Granito , or the use of The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court in a grassroots campaign to bring Sudanese President Omar al Bashir to justice, the common theme is people pushing for societies governed by the rule of law and respect for our shared humanity, and part of that process is to nail the dictators. Our film State of Fear: The Truth About Terrorism was based on the work of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and many of their findings illustrated in the film helped to convict former authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori for human rights crimes - he is now in prison facing a 25-year sentence. Granito is a great example of how documentary films and social media tools are being used in the pursuit of dictators - stay posted for festival screenings in your area.
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For 25 years Skylight Pictures has been committed to producing artistic, challenging and socially relevant independent documentary films on issues of human rights and the quest for justice. Through the use of film and digital technologies, we seek to engage, educate and increase understanding of human rights amongst the public at large and policy makers, contributing to informed decisions on issues of social change and the public good. 
