Monthly Archives: March 2013

Cinema and Human Rights Days

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This post was contributed by Dr Emma Sandon, Lecturer in Film and Television, Department of Media and Cultural Studies

What is the impact of cinema in raising public awareness of human rights? Can films about human rights make a difference and promote political change? These are some of the questions that the Cinema and Human Rights Days addressed at the Gordon Square cinema, Birkbeck, on 15 and 16 March. Timed to coincide with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in London, Birkbeck hosted a debate on human rights cinema, a screening of Salma and a Q & A with the documentary film director, Kim Longinetto, and heard John Biaggi, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival director and Nick Fraser, the BBC commissioning editor of Storyville, talk about their promotion of human rights films and programmes.

John Biaggi talked about how important it was that ‘good’ human rights films were selected for the Human Rights Watch Film Festival and he explained how that criteria was arrived at, whilst Nick Fraser, in his discussion of the importance of storytelling for any programme that television commissioned, admitted that ‘the spectacle of injustice is always gripping’. Rod Stoneman, former commissioning editor at Channel 4 and director of the Irish Film Board, presented a timely discussion and screening, in the week that Hugo Chavez died, of Chavez: Inside the Coup (also entitled The Revolution Will Not Be Televised|) (2003), a film that caused media controversy when it was screened on the BBC and which was turned down by the Amnesty International Film Festival in Vancouver for being biased in favour of Chavez. Participants then watched the Human Rights Watch Film Festival screening of Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s film, Fatal Assistance (Haiti/France/US, 2012), an indictment of the international community’s post- earthquake disaster intervention and the failure of current aid policies and practices. The screening was followed by a discussion with the director at the ICA.

Dr Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, from Birkbeck’s School of Law, and I asked participants to consider the politics of human rights discourse in film. What is a human rights film? How has the notion of a human rights film emerged? Can we talk about a history of human rights cinema? How are human rights films selected, promoted and circulated through film festivals, broadcasting, cinema theatrical release, dvd sales and internet distribution? What are the criteria by which a human rights film is judged?

I discussed how the human rights film has been constituted by human rights film festivals, first set up in the late 1980s and 1990s by human rights organisations, to promote human rights advocacy. The Human Rights Watch Film Festival and the Amnesty International Film Festival (now Movies that Matter), the two largest of such initiatives, then established the Human Rights Film Network in 2004, to ‘promote the debate on the ethics, professional codes of conduct and other standards regarding human rights film making.’ The charter of this network seeks to promote films that are ‘truthful’ and that have ‘good cinematographic quality’. It is these criteria of style and taste that become politically charged in the process of commissioning, selecting and curating films. If we look at a range of examples, it becomes clear that the subjects of human rights films are constituted in specific ways. However the way in which film represents human rights and engages viewers and audiences are complex. It is important that we understand the effects of the different audio and visual narrative and rhetorical devices used in films, be they feature films, documentary, newsreel, essay films, community or advocacy video.

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera reflected on the dimension of political agency shown in films that represent revolutionary struggle in Latin America. Drawing on his forthcoming book, Story of a Death Untold, The Coup against Allende, 9/11/1973, and screening clips from Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s, Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del Subdesarrollo) (Cuba, 1968) and Patricio Guzmán’s documentary, Battle of Chile (La Batalla de Chile) (Cuba, 1975, 1976, 1979), he weaved a layered narrative of the human potential for change. These important political films engage with the portrayal of what he termed the ‘discourse of anxiety’ and the ‘discourse of tenacity and courage’ in relation to people’s belief in the possibilities of social transformation and their ability to fight for freedom. These films are also tributes as well as memorials to those who have struggled for real social and political change.

The event was the result of a collaboration between Birkbeck, the University of Galway and Middlesex University and was supported by Open Society Foundations. The organisers hope to run this event in conjunction with the Human Rights Watch Film Festival again next year at Birkbeck.

The podcasts of this event are available on the School of Arts website.

World TB Day: Exploring new ways to fight a deadly menace

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This post was contributed by Arundhati Maitra, an associate research fellow, Department of Biological Sciences

World TB Day on 24 March marks the day in 1882 when Robert Koch discovered Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of one of the most dreadful infectious diseases known to man – tuberculosis (TB). This year, on 21 March, Dr Sanjib Bhakta (Academic Head and Director of the Mycobacteria Research Laboratory, Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, Birkbeck) chaired a conference organised by EuroSciCon which raised the question – ‘Mycobacterium tuberculosis…Can we beat it?’ The event at The Royal College of Pathologists brought together several great minds in the field of TB research in the UK and from around the world.

The conference began with an introduction to the raging issues in TB management. Dr Bhakta emphasised the fact that an integrative approach is essential to target the various physiological states the germ can exist in inside an infected patient: active state, causing full blown infection, and the latent state, also called persisters, lying dormant within the patient.  

In 1993, WHO reported TB as a global health emergency. The disease continues to remain a serious threat to mankind 20 years on.  Though the TB incidence rates remain constant in the Eurozone, rates in the cosmopolitan cities in the UK such as London, Manchester, etc. speak of a different story. In 2011 the number of TB cases reported in London was higher than that of reported AIDS cases.

In a hard-hitting presentation, Professor Graham Bothamley of Homerton University Hospital, UK, remarked that the failure to contain the disease is largely due to the lack of political commitment and roadblocks in health care delivery. A survey across Europe showed that not only are drugs unavailable in some regions, but the regimens followed in various countries do not follow the tested, WHO approved guidelines, putting many lives at risk.

The essential requirements to lessen the burden of TB are twofold – speedy and accurate diagnostics and development of novel drugs and treatment regimens.  

Diagnosis by sputum microscopy and culture tests are the predominant methods of TB detection. Professor Mike Barer from the University of Leicester reported an interesting finding which could have far reaching effects in latent TB detection. His group has recently discovered that sputum analysis, usually used to detect active infection could also give an insight to the level of persister population in the patient by detecting presence of lipid bodies in the bacteria.

Though remarkable, this still doesn’t answer the need for a rapid and accurate means of TB detection. That is what Christopher Granger, Director of Oxford Immunotech Ltd claimed to have achieved. He described the T Spot TB test, a simple test based on ELISpot assay, which is more specific than the regular tuberculin skin test, detects latent infection and is time as well as cost-effective. However, Dr Jayne Sutherland from the MRC Unit in Gambia mentions that a simple dip-stick test that can be available at the point-of-care is essential in the areas with highest incidences of TB. She described how many of the clinics are in remote areas and can only be referred to as ‘bush clinics’, lacking necessary infrastructure for TB detection. Her team is engaged in developing lateral flow based tests, something similar to the pregnancy test kits available today.

New diagnostic equipment to detect TB is being developed at the University of Amsterdam by Ngoc Dang. It detects biomarkers of lipid origins by thermally assisted hydrolysis and methylation followed by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy. This equipment, when available, would have positive implications in areas where a large number of samples need to be tested.

Moving on to drug development and treatment strategies, Professor Stephen Gillespie of the University of St Andrews discussed several new anti-tubercular drugs and shorter treatment regimens in various phases of clinical trials. He also emphasised the need to develop predictive models for regimens as newer drugs are being discovered.

Detection of targets specific to the infectious agent is essential for the development of novel drugs. A couple of these targets were discussed by Dr Luke Alderwick from Birmingham University and Professor Edith Sim from Kingston University. While Dr Alderwick focussed on a cell wall synthesising enzyme, DprE1 and its inhibitor benzothiazinone (BTZ), Dr Sim focussed on enzymes essential for the bacteria’s survival within host cells, N-acteyl transferase and HsaD. Dr Brian Henderson from UCL described the role of proteins that have more than one specific function (moonlighting proteins) in virulence of these bacteria and suggested that these could be potential targets.

A common theme was observed in presentations by Dr Anthony R.M. and Professor Tim Mc Hugh. Both were strong proponents for the need to monitor the progress of treatment in the earlier stages rather than the current practice of 18 months on. The former explained a ‘treat to test’ strategy following the belief that upon starting of treatment an initial burst of dead cells makes for easy detection of the kinetics of the response of the host to treatment. The latter suggested the use of various biomarkers obtained from the bacteria and the host such as colony counts to assess bacterial load, bacterial RNA and small RNA from the host, to indicate the effectiveness of the treatment and likelihood of a relapse.

An interesting Q&A session began with a question regarding the importance of point-of-care diagnostics and was led by Dr Bhakta to touch on the other issues plaguing TB management today. Dr Juan D Guzman from ISMB, Birkbeck was asked to comment on the scaffolds found in natural and synthetic compounds that are especially effective as anti-tubercular drugs.

Poster presentations were invited and the top prizes went to Ngoc Dang, University of Amsterdam for her work on TB diagnostics and Dr Tulika Munshi from ISMB, Birkbeck, for her poster on ATP-dependant Mur ligases as novel therapeutic targets for TB drug development (http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0060143).

On the whole, the conference was one step towards defeating TB as interdisciplinary research, collaborations and alliances are urgently required to fight this menace.

Chris Marker Study Day

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This post was contributed by Ricardo Domizio, an MPhil candidate, in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies

The Chris Marker Study Day held in Birkbeck Cinema on 23 February was the inaugural event of the newly formed Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image (BIMI).

The event was organised and hosted by Dr Michael Temple, and was kicked off with a few introductory words by Professor Laura Mulvey. She indicated how apt it was to initiate BIMI’s programme of research symposia with a day dedicated to a filmmaker who worked so creatively and conceptually with the complexity of cinema – a kind of “patron saint,” as she said, for cinephiles everywhere. Structured around a cluster of short screenings, the day proved a fascinating insight into Marker’s lesser known collaborative works, interspersed with commentary and discussion from invited speakers.

Chris Darke, who is writing a new book on Marker’s most famous work, La Jetée, took over to introduce two short, relatively unknown film essays, with commentaries written by Chris Marker. The first, Three Cheers for the Whale (Mario Ruspoli, 1972, 17m), is mostly composed of a series of still pictures depicting man’s age-old relationship with the whale. The word ‘still’, though, should not be confused with ‘static’, as the means by which Marker and his collaborators put the stillness into motion (physically via rostrum work, and metaphorically through the poetics of commentary) was one of the issues picked up in the following discussion. The next screening, A Valparaiso (Joris Ivens, 1963), is a quirky documentary about the eponymous Chilean port town, exhibiting a similar ecological edge as the Whale film, but one gradually displaced by a more anthropological eye.  The initial idiosyncrasy of the images (women walking pet penguins down the street!) is gradually overtaken by a more serious and political slant, as the film begins to focus on the plight of the poor and the desperate. One of the more interesting lines of discussion afterwards explored Marker’s political sensibilities in the post-war period generally, and the ways in which his films might speak a non-doctrinaire politics of the left during the heady decade of the 1960s.

The morning sessions were now and then seasoned with tantalising snippets of information about Marker’s famously eccentric, if not mythologized, personal history. The fact that this master essayist of French cinema was elusive about his place of birth, and refused to be photographed or interviewed, increased his enigmatic aura. On the other hand, the fact that he fought in the French resistance and the US Army during the war, and that he was inseparable from his pet cat, Guillaume, made him seem truly human. The traces of this unique persona were vividly in evidence in the next screening of the afternoon, a UK premiere of Agnès Varda’s visit to Chris Marker’s studio (2011). A long standing friend, Varda was granted special access to film the sacrosanct space of the artist’s studio (which doubled as his home). The result was rather like a home video that voyeuristically but affectionately rifled through the jumble of assorted hardware, software, books and trinkets. Naturally, Marker himself did not want to be filmed, but his disembodied voice did embellish the production, cutting a rather understated and avuncular figure. We learn, not surprisingly given his predilection for travel, that Marker exists as an avatar on an archipelago in Second Life.

Next on the agenda was a screening of Remembrance of things to come (2011), a documentary made by Marker and Yannick Bellon on the life and work of the photographer Denise Bellon. A pioneer of photojournalism, Bellon’s photographs evocatively capture an extraordinary period in French culture and social history from the 1930s to the 1950s. An aspect of Marker’s work that has perhaps not had the attention it deserves, but which is made explicit in this film, is its empathy with surrealism. Bellon not only documented the first surrealist exhibition in 1938, she was also a friend and associate of the leading lights of the surrealist movement. Marker’s pithy and redolent commentary (read by actress Alexandra Stewart), brings forth a kind of ominous surrealism that marks the whole of the pre-war situation in France. After the screening Professor Janet Harbord gave a talk on the film that picked up the theme of surrealism and its paradoxical use in Marker’s work, which is often classified as ‘documentary’. She also spoke about other important features that run through the film and the wider oeuvre: a fascination with the sensuality and movement that lies within the supposedly ‘cold’ and ‘still’ photograph; and the possibility of achieving the complex personal and political truths that reside between narrative, memory and history.

The event was brought to a close with another UK premiere, To Chris Marker: An Unsent Letter (2012). As the title suggests, the film is an homage to Marker made by an erstwhile production colleague, Emiko Omori. It consists of a collection of interviews with Marker’s friends and collaborators animated with musings and vistas relating to his life and work. A tender and heartfelt farewell to an admired friend, the film exhibits a similar tone of remembrance and mourning that permeated much of Marker’s own work, but with a sentimental edge that Marker largely eschewed.

Overall, the day was mostly effective in widening the field of study from the rather narrow set of films that constitute the more conspicuous Marker canon, and in providing a tiny (and necessarily partial) insight into the personal life and working methods of this most private and ‘unclassifiable’ of French post-war auteurs.

Manga Studies come to Birkbeck

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This post was contributed by Novella Gremigni, a PhD student in Japanese Cultural Studies in Birkbeck’s Department of Media and Cultural Studies.

Lately two events about manga culture have shown fresh views on the growing influence of Japanese popular culture. Organized by Dr Shinji Oyama (Birkbeck), and co-hosted by the London Asia Pacific Cultural Studies Forum (LAPCSF) and the Centre for Media, Culture and Creative Practice, both events were quite successful in terms of audience and participation.

The first of the two manga-related events was designed to welcome visiting scholar Mariko Murata into the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck College.

Dr Murata described her fascinating research in front of more than fifty attendees. She graciously introduced us to the world of Japanese comics and their museums. As she illustrated her impressive work, for which she spent a considerable amount of time going around museums and conducting surveys, I learnt that a growing number of institutions are dealing with the world of Japanese comics in Japan, and attract both tourists and local visitors every year. Themes, approaches and exhibition layouts vary across museums and galleries. Some exhibitions focus on the historic or artistic value of manga and, in some cases, one can come across the pre-printed version of a comic, or take a look at the original draft drawn by the manga artist. Moreover, quite a few manga museums incorporate libraries and archives, documenting manga related materials and also offering visitors the chance to enjoy comics on site. Dr Murata explained that while it is not an easy task for museums to ‘exhibit’ manga, it gives the media a new way of appreciating them. Being culturally and demographically diverse, visitors of the manga museum can also actively interact with the works on display and ‘consume’ the exhibition material, perhaps with a different type of pleasure from reading their favourite comic book.

The discussion was moderated by Dr Lorraine Lim, lecturer in Arts Management at Birkbeck, who prompted a very interesting and active Q&A. She raised ideas and issues about the arrangement of space for a manga exhibition, about the propriety of mundane objects such as mangas for a museum environment, but also about the learning experiences these exhibitions may provide. 

The second manga event once more confirmed the never-failing interest in all things manga. Organized by Dr Murata, it was set out to give an overview of contemporary manga studies. Four speakers were invited to give short presentations on a variety of issues concerning Japanese comics. Dr Ryuichi Tanigawa, Dr Chie Yamanaka, Mr Yu Ito and Dr Sonoko Azuma were all very pleased to welcome some ninety manga enthusiasts. Simon Turner, a PhD student in Japanese Cultural Studies at Birkbeck was the discussant for this session.

The diverse nature of the presentations created a vibrant picture of the world of Japanese comics. Spanning across different areas of manga studies, the four speakers illustrated the role of architecture in the comic Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the reception of Naruto in South Korea, the educational function of the pacifist manga Barefoot Gen, and the modalities of consumption of the female otaku (manga fanatics) who read yaoi (a manga genre depicting homosexual relationships). The audience was receptive and quite involved; questions and comments flowed from side to side. Many attendees eagerly contributed to the discussion, and stayed on for refreshments and for a chat with the speakers.