 We're going to have a chat this afternoon with Elem McNeil who is part of the Human Rights and Arts Film Festival and we thought it would be an interesting opportunity to talk about the potential value that film and visual media more broadly has for human rights more broadly, but also particularly one of the things that interests me is the the potential value of human rights within or for pushing the cause of the human rights movement. It's certainly for me one of the things that I think about first off when I when I think about film is the impact that it can have on civil society. What were your thoughts? Well, I think yeah when you talk about how film fits into that broader human rights discussion and how people can engage with it. I think it's maybe unbiased. I think it's one of the most accessible ways to engage people with human rights. I think this art of storytelling is the best way to engage people in things that they just might not know much about or before they get to a level of maybe doing something about human rights, for example. So I think it plays such a powerful role because it's like an entry point for a lot of people and I think it's how most people start on this journey of I guess understanding human rights and being involved in the kind of advocacy and protection of human rights you need to be care, you need to be compassionate. I think storytelling introduces you to these people that you know, that you'll never really forget and it kind of builds on that on that kind of journey. I think film is film is so powerful in its effect and it can cross cultural boundaries Absolutely. So powerfully. Yeah, I think it's also a really inspiring medium. So it's the one thing that people can take something from it and use that that sometimes traditional media or it's really kind of heavy on the information, perhaps not the human side of it or the human face to that story. Maybe, yeah, that's where kind of traditional media can lack, whereas I think the film or the arts or the kind of engaging storytelling is the way to really cross cultural boundaries and really talk to an audience that can be much broader perhaps than and certainly the success of the festival itself, the growth and attendance would reflect that. Have you had particular comments from people to that effect? Have you actually seen that people are suggesting that they want to become more involved in the wider movement? Yeah, look, there's a few really big indications for that. One is around us talking, I guess, I guess engaging with an audience that wouldn't necessarily engage with human rights. So we try through kind of market research and festival surveys to ask people if they engage regularly in human rights events or if they attend human rights events regularly and 50% of the audience say no quite consistently. With the growth of the festival, I think we definitely see a core audience, which would be people that are kind of socially just have a sense of social justice and want already, you know, our guests, the converted, you might call them, bringing other people along, so that kind of growth, which brings new people into the festival. But the other part of it would be that we are really passionate about connecting the audience to action or connecting the audience to information, volunteering opportunities, organisations that they can get involved with. So, for example, this year we had a take action postcard you take home from the festival. So you take that when you're using the screenings as a platform. Exactly, yeah, because you're inspired after the session or you've got this really great energy at that moment. So we want to connect people or give them the options. And there's such a notion of community itself and the experience of actually seeing the film. So it's something that would manifest in that way as well. And certainly the speaker component of the festival where you have panel discussions and you get experts into, you know, really debrief after the film and pick apart those topics from different perspectives, people working in the field or, you know, hopefully disagree or debate those conversations that the filmmaker, which, you know, is one perspective on some of these issues, to have that really robust discussion, I think makes you also feel part of that community or that experience. You've just seen something very powerful and you've had to be able to talk about it. And some of the testimonials from the festival is a really good indication. One of my favourites last year was someone came and said, thank you, Haraf, I now know what I want to do with the rest of my life. And I just was like, that is a highlight, I think for us, where you think it can change, you know, it's an it's an extra experience that could lead you in a really great direction. For others, it might just be a conversation you have with your conservative dad after the film that's, you know, with her testimonies from that saying, I bought my dad along. Can you even know what the legal system in Africa was like or, you know, what voting was like for one of the particular. Filming itself, there's an there's an evidentiary component to film. I'm thinking at one level about the audience perception, because, you know, it's there's so much less of an interpretive component to what you see visually. It's so multi sensory, which at one level can impact. I would imagine your average Joe blogs on the street in one way. But similarly, I mean, that suggests at least an opportunity for the collection, the documentation of human rights abuses. We know, for example, within the human rights NGO sector, one of the major challenges that it's had has been in one of the things that's been recognized is the importance of being fastidious when it comes to the documenting of abuses, particularly when you're looking at confronting a state itself with these sort of notions. I mean, has it have you seen film being used more and more in that capacity? I mean, I certainly there's so many films out there. And when we're curating the festival, you're choosing from abundance of film. And one thing that always sticks with me is also how long it takes to make to make these films. You know, these are seven to 10 year projects for so many filmmakers. So completely admirable in that sense as artists. But yeah, I think it's a really good point of the documentation of these abuses, that there's a platform for these stories, whether it's festivals like us, but also just the just media being massive and so much a part of our lives. So when you've got a platform for it, there's an audience for it. That's really important. But really, it's the truth, you know, you film when you film and it's the truth, it's there, it's happened. And that's a really important part of documenting human rights abuses and telling these stories to the world. And then raises that really interesting question of comes up a lot. But now we know about these things and what are we going to do about it? So, you know, as time has gone on and now everything is so accessible, it is filmed, everyone can see it really easily. Now what do we do? Because there's no excuse really. Well, the movement itself has really relied so much on that moral authority. And that's really been, I think, one of its essential powers in affecting state change. And when, as you say, it's it's it's so in your face, it's so confronting. And particularly, I think in this day and age, we're in the last decade really, where we've had technology itself, not only at one level, it's made cameras and capturing equipment a lot cheaper and more accessible. But then when you plug that into the the social media sphere, which, you know, I mean, people with mobile phones can be there and capture the material. And five minutes later, it's on the web. Exactly. I mean, one of the things that there's a couple of a couple of examples that have have really struck me, one would be the the Arab Spring, where journalists were often not able to get access to a lot of the sites that this place was that these abuses were happening and you're getting citizen journalism, definitely. And I guess we've had some really good films on the on that topic of citizen journalism. One that springs to mind is Words of Witness, which looked at which was followed a young woman, young female journalist, aspiring journalist. Her mother thought it was absolutely was definitely not a good idea. But she was she was there for the duration of the Arab Spring and basically tracked the whole revolution in the square and with their interviewing people. Oh, yes, I remember that one. So if you've seen that and another one, High Tech Low Life actually looks at censorship in China and that really focused on bloggers and citizen journalists and and how, you know, with the strict censorship, none of this would get out if it wasn't for the that ease of technology to be able to shoot it on your phone to get get get past the great firewall of China, they called it in the film to actually post it and be online. And I guess what's what's also really interesting in that conversation when you talk about documenting or citizen journalism for us, specifically as a festival, where really what's really important to us is that the films, I guess, of, I guess, a really high quality, very well put together, very well made films in one sense with an extraordinarily powerful story, which I guess is a little bit different to investigative journalism where you can use film as a platform. So us as a, I guess, arts and film festival, it's really important so that we can reach the masses and reach everyone. It is about quality, but a lot of these, say, High Tech Low Life was able that they were able to do both use these examples of people with their phones, but turn it into a really powerful film. Well, you're also finding the, you know, the top end equipment that documentary makers are employing itself is not only becoming more accessible to financial level, but it's it's becoming so much more compact. Definitely, hidden. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Well, actually, the square is a really fantastic example. And you've seen the square. So it was our opening night film last year and it was nominated for an Academy Award and just tracked, you know, Egypt over the last three or four years from. Oh, yes, no, I have seen it. That was brilliant, wasn't it? And, you know, the very as soon as it started, they just went, here is your take your camera and film everything. And I think it's a really good example of the in terms of an artistic sense, how the filmmakers then edited together a Academy Award nominated film compared to, you know, you've got an abundance of footage. A lot of it's not not going to be very good. It's just handheld running around the streets, capturing these things. And I think that's kind of, I guess, interesting for us in an artistic way of because in a film, the way it's edited could be a great film or a not so great film. But certainly that is just not our filmmakers making that film, just the average person on the street. But even with filmmakers, it's so much more accessible for who can become a filmmaker who can go out into the field and capture and actually capture that top quality material. And I think that's why there's so many films to choose from from the program that, you know, and it's inspiring. I mean, you know, five broken cameras sent in Palestine. It felt like the Palestinian farmer, he was a filmmaker himself, but he knew that what he was filming was really important. But I think that's an interesting intersection because it's it's it's an example where at one level you're getting the citizen journalist, but you're also getting, if you see that, look at the work, for example, of Bet-Salam, where they are intentionally taking this cheap device and giving it to the local population so they themselves can actually document the abuses. And so, yeah, then it's it's it just proves how powerful film can be because, you know, it's a record of it. It's there. What you then do with it, I think, is really interesting to turn it into a more commercial project of a film that you want to go into festivals. Do you try and do more of an investigative report? Do you submit it to Human Rights Watch and make sure something gets done about it and give it to the NGOs like Amnesty? But I think it just shows how the fact that you can reach different audiences by the way that material is repackaged again, that emotive, that that effect of power of film. Yeah. And I just, yeah, we I guess we can just see that in the cinemas. You've got a packed cinema. Yeah. They're completely all engaged in the story. You get to meet these people on the screen and then hopefully you get to meet the director or you have a conversation with them afterwards. Last night, as part of the festival, we had The Bee Keeper, which is a really beautiful film about a Kurdish refugee setting, living in in Switzerland and kind of facing a lot of family separation and all those kind of things. But to have the filmmaker there afterwards and just explain that seven year process and how you get people to open up on film is also really interesting conversation where these are really intimate thoughts and feelings and to have a camera in your face. How do you build that trust as a filmmaker? I say certainly they're the most remarkable artists, I think, so much admiration for filmmakers. And the movement, I mean, the human rights movement in a way has really been one of the real success stories of the last few decades. And one of the things that I find fascinating is that in that respect, in a lot of ways, your audience at the festival is a mirror of that. And almost at a professional level. I'll be interested, you know, how have you seen, have you seen any change in the cross section of the audience? Yeah, it's an interesting one. I think it is tricky. I think we've got quite a diverse audience, which is only a good thing. Yeah, definitely. And certainly previously, it's, I guess, a large percentage, 60, 70 percent of our audience is maybe under 35. It's quite a young audience. But the festival's been around, say, eight years. And I think each year it broadens in its scope and its reach because it's certainly not just young people coming to the festival. People that I know that started going to it earlier, still going to it. Yeah, exactly. You're growing your audience, literally. And we have things like other NGOs. You know, for example, we have a big gala, which is a very different audience to our core film festival audience. It's a very expensive ticket price, and you come and you do auction items and all the rest. And through those kind of other avenues, we bring them into the festival. So kind of a different audience that would be able to get a traditional core audience of young students or professionals. I mean, that's an interesting, just to go back to something you said there. Obviously, at one level, it's a commercial enterprise. It has to pay for itself to exist. But at the same time, in a sense, it is part that the festival is part of it almost as an NGO. Does the festival itself see it in that way? I would hope so, in a way. Yeah, I guess, yeah. We see ourselves as an arts organization first, as a not-for-profit arts, as a creative organization. That's been really important for us to separate the two as well, because rather than being human rights organization first, we're an arts and film festival first. And that's why, I guess, in terms of the content and the curation of the program, it is about quality. It is about programming films that someone isn't interested in human rights if they want to see. Exactly, I was just... That's kind of the point, because people that are interested in human rights, we're not going to have an... We don't really need to have an impact on them. It's great to have a community. If it came from a fundamentally NGO perspective, it would bring a particular lens to film, whereas what you're suggesting. And in fact, what, if you think about it at a pragmatic level, the angle that you guys are taking, really does open up an entire new audience to the human rights movement. Exactly. And I think, hopefully, if you think about, well, why do we do it? We want to have an impact. How are you going to have an impact? It's because it's not just the people that care about human rights. It's everyone else. And, you know, there is a commercial aspect of it when you think about the marketing and the branding and the positioning of your organization. It's about being really accessible, you know, the kind of visuals that we use around it and the music and all those kind of things so people walk on the streets and go, that looks great. And then go, oh, it's human rights. We tricked them. Great. Yeah, that seems to be working. Oh, well, best of luck to the continuing success of the festival and just thank you so much to the festival for everything that's done. Oh, thank you for this wonderful department with Aeney. Thank you.