Broadcast Dates:February 16, 2007 (SRC)
March 1st, 2007 (CBC)
TBC (RDI)
DVD availability:
June 1st, 2007
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There’s a critical moment in human rights history; it’s happening right now, with many, tragic events coming together to give the human rights movement a real wake-up call. Darfur is a case in point. There are millions of right-holders all over the planet who know they have certain rights. They’re looking for someone to deliver. I met a group of old men in Darfur who had been driven from their village. I asked them who they expected to help them return home. One of the men looked at me and said, ‘Allah and Kofi Annan.’
Louise Arbour, in conversation in Quebec City, March 4th, 2005.
Louise Arbour has what her predecessor called “the job from hell.” She is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at a time when jihad and ‘the war against terror’ dominate world affairs and erode human rights.
Arbour is a Canadian who, as UN’s War Crimes Prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, indicted Slobodan Milosevic. She served four years on Canada’s Supreme Court before Kofi Annan gave her another platform for her activism and strong views of human rights.
Our film catches up with Arbour one year into her new job. The genocide in Darfur rages on. In Congo, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and Colombia, warlords and tyrants persecute and plunder. The UN embodies humanity’s most noble sentiments but when the politics get complex, as in Darfur, the world body is paralyzed, its legitimacy in question. In the meantime, innocent civilians, mainly women and children, are deprived of their dignity and of their most fundamental rights.
Arbour’s experience as War Crimes Prosecutor has given her a reputation for toughness. Her new job description is more complex and far-reaching. As Arbour tries to reform her office and the UN while herself under attack, the crisis in Darfur deepens and the world demands action. Arbour is caught in the crossfire between the best of our human intentions and the ugly reality of big-power politics. Her tenacity and strong moral sense, rooted in her Canadian heritage and strengthened by her previous work assignments, give us hope.
This film follows Arbour as she reflects, develops her strategies and organizes her troops and travels to places of crisis. The film also allows viewers to experience from within the step-by-step process of her battle for human rights. This vigorous and determined woman challenges each and every one of us with questions on how to confront today’s human rights crises with compassion and determination.
| Title: | IN THE CROSSFIRE
Louise Arbour and the Battle for Human Rights |
| Format: | 1 x 60 minutes |
| Shooting format: | DVCam |
| Locations: | Geneva, Montreal, Sudan, Uganda, New York
|
| Director: | Ole Gjerstad |
| Documentary Script by: | Ole Gjerstad |
| Narration written by: | Ole Gjerstad & Jon Kalina |
| Narrator: | Alain Goulem |
| D.O.P.: | Andrei Khabad
Bill Turnley
Gray Theobald |
| Editor: | Susan Shanks |
| Music composed by: | Dino Giancola and Janet Lumb |
| Sound Recordists: | Hubert Macé de Gastines
Steven Blatter |
| Sound mix: | Roger Guerin, MPSE
|
| Participants: | Louise Arbour
Mary Fisk
Fannie Lafontaine
Allan Rock
Kenneth Roth
James Traub
|
| Line Producers: | Sylvia Wilson, Natalie Dubois |
| Producer: | Francine Allaire |
| Executive Producers: | Francine Allaire, Arnie Gelbart
|
| Broadcast dates: | February 16, 2007 (SRC)
March 1st, 2007 (CBC)
TBC (RDI) |
| Broadcasters: | CBC; RADIO-CANADA; RDI |
Produced with the participation of CBC and RDI, Radio-Canada, the Canadian Television Fund, the Rogers Documentary Fund, the Film and Television Tax Credits - Quebec, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, and the interim financing of National Bank of Canada – TV and Motion Picture Group.
