Yesterday I watched Eric Daniel Metzgar’s newest film Reporter, which follows Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof as he traverses the world to cover human rights issues and conflict. The primary journey profiled in the film is a 2007 trip to the Congo. That country has been plagued by poverty and fighting between a multitude of local militias that answer to no government. As Kristof is best known for raising the Darfur genocide to public awareness in the West, so he is trying to do again with the Congolese conflict, where some 4 million have died due to fighting, rape and starvation. One of the most tense scenes in the film is when Kristof, traveling with two aspiring reporters and the film crew, meet with one of the leader of the most feared militia, General Nkunda.

Much of the fighting in Congo is a remnant from the Rwandan conflict of 1994. Some Hutus, the aggressors in the genocide there, fled to Congo and angry Tutsi fighters followed to continue the fight. Nkunda and his followers are Tutsi, and so they would have us believe in their meeting with Kristof, Christians on a divine mission. They proudly sport their “Rebels for Christ” pins in one of the few humorous moments in Reporter.

The year that I went to The Flaherty Seminar, it was programmed by John Gianvito. The theme was “Witnessing the World” and Gianvito was described to me as a programmer interested in social documentary and political action. Indeed, with filmmaker guests like Avi Mograbi (Israel), Franny Armstrong (UK), Paul Chan (USA), Peter Wintonick (Canada) and Tsuchimoto Noriaki (Japan), the line-up was heavy on human rights, politics and the environment. What I remember most about the experience was at some point through the week of intense screenings and discussions, seriously reconsidering if film could make any change in the world. After all Tsuchimoto was documenting the Minimata mercury disaster in the 60s and to watch Armstrong’s Drowned Out about dam construction in India, it was clear that governments still hold economic and corporate interests over the lives and health of citizens. If those images of suffering children in Japan couldn’t make change, what could? It was depressing.

But, good programming means taking your flock on a journey. So, as difficult as the issues we were confronting were and are, Gianvito had some hope to share with us. We watched some WITNESS films that included the work of Joey R.B. Lozano. He was a journalist and WITNESS partner (and board member) in the Philippines, where he covered indigenous rights and the environment, which nearly cost him his life on many occasions. In the film we watched, we see Joey training villagers how to use their video cameras to document when the overlords came to brutalize them to silence their land rights claims. While training them, an attack happens and while Joey survived, a villager was not so lucky. He died right in front of the camera. It was a profoundly sad story.

Sami Al-Arian was a tenured professor at the University of South Florida. His family immigrated to the US after the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians from Israel. Al-Arian was 17 years old when he began his life in the United States. During his adult life, he remained concerned about the fate of Palestinians and was an activist on behalf of his homeland. Using the Patriot Act, the US government listed many foundations, activist organizations and nonprofits working on behalf of Palestinians as terrorist organizations. The government then used Al-Arian’s association with some of these groups as the basis for prosecuting him. And though he was found not guilty by a jury, the judge in the case took the unusual step of overriding the jury’s decision and keeping him in prison. His and his family’s story is recounted in USA vs. Al-Arian by Line Halvorsen.

Steve Kurtz awoke to find his wife of 20 years, Hope, dead beside him. He called an ambulance in an attempt to save her, but when the paramedics arrived, they saw scientific implements that worried them. Not understanding what they were seeing or why it would be in a private home, they called in the haz mat team and FBI to investigate potential bioterrorism. Kurtz is, in fact, an artist whose work examines genetically modified foods and demystifying germ warfare. His work has been exhibited at venerated institutions such as Mass MoCA and the Corcoran Gallery in DC. And while all evidence points to Kurtz’ using benign materials, and being trained and supervised by respected geneticists, prosecutors are pursuing prosecuting Kurtz for criminal mail fraud–an unprecedented legal action with far-reaching implication should they succeed. His case has not yet gone to trail. He is a professor at SUNY Buffalo, and his story is recounted in Strange Culture by Lynn Hershman Leeson.