LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Indentured servitude in Saipan. Murder of indigenous people in the Philippines. Abuse of psychiatric patients in Paraguay and around the world.
Not your typical holiday movie fare, yet these and other disturbingly true stories have been captured on video as the nonprofit group Witness pursues its goal of using visual media as a positive force for change.
And though Witness has loaned equipment to professional filmmakers, like the hidden-camera technology used to obtain brothel footage in the Emmy-nominated PBS documentary "The Day My God Died," Witness executive director Gillian Caldwell emphasizes the organization's principal mission of putting user-friendly, inexpensive and portable filmmaking technology into the hands of people seeking to document inequities.
"We help frame compelling human stories about human rights injustices," she said, expanding on the meaning behind Witness' tagline, "See it. Film it. Change it."
Since its founding in 1992 by British musician Peter Gabriel, footage produced by the nonprofit group has aired on the BBC, CNN, Oxygen and ABC, and an available video archive is maintained at http://www.Witness.org. Witness also has attracted involvement from such celebrity activists as Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Angelina Jolie.
"It's an unprecedented opportunity," Gabriel said about how technology is affecting the media landscape, "with the average person able to record and distribute their own media, easily and affordably, with something as inconspicuous and convenient as a cellular telephone."
The inspiration came to Gabriel in 1988, he said, while he was on a world tour sponsored by Amnesty International. He met victims of human rights abuse and was appalled that the perpetrators went unpunished. Caldwell said the national outcry on race and police brutality ignited by the Rodney King video and Gabriel's acquisition of funding from the Reebok Human Rights Foundation were the final factors in establishing the nonprofit organization.
"Witness was really founded ahead of its time," Caldwell said, referring to the nonprofit's Internet-based nature. "But we're at a point now where digital, Internet and mobile technologies are converging. An example of that is what we saw during the bombing in the London tube. It's changing the whole face of the citizen-journalism landscape."
Thirteen years and 200 partnerships in more than 60 countries later, Caldwell said Witness has evolved into more than just a Web site supplying video cameras and has become a conduit for technical training and distribution assistance.
She is particularly proud of Witness' work with the Global Survival Network, a collaboration that she said helped lay the groundwork for U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to address the international trafficking of women with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1997.
In addition to nurturing core partnerships, providing advocacy and seeding short-term training, Caldwell said, the organization is creating a video portal to which anyone can upload content from around the world via cell phone or the Internet for others to see.
Witness maintains campaigns in 13 countries, ranging from a collaborative effort with the local Congolese group Ajedi-ka to expose children forced to become soldiers in the Congo, to a partnership with the advocacy group Books Not Bars on the film "System Failure," which documents abuses in California youth prisons.
"Most Californians have no idea that the state has the most abusive youth prison system, but the reason they know now is because of our film and because of Witness," Books Not Bars director Lenore Anderson said. "They talked to us about how to write a script, use a camera, do an interview and how to edit. They taught us everything."
