The event will feature presentations and discussion on topics such as:

• active open media standardization projects
• seeking consensus in audiovisual preservation strategy
• examination of open media use in film and video digitization
• validation and conformance checking of audiovisual formats
• integration of open source tools into archival workflow
• examples of cross-community collaboration and skill-sharing
• developments in open media

If you can’t make it to the conference, make sure to sign up as a “remote participant” and catch the livestream! You can register for the livestream here and find more details of the conference here.

Getting Real is a biennial conference on documentary media. The three-day conference attracts over 800 participants and is the only gathering of its kind in North America. Palika participated in a panel titled, Journalists Under Threat and spoke about best practices for being safe while reporting on critical human rights abuses.

Today, Palika will be moderating a panel titled, Duty of Care – Protecting Vulnerable Sources, which will focus on protecting sources who report on human rights abuses from the frontlines.

You can follow Palika on Twitter here.

The program aims to foster participatory and critical thinking on urgent human rights issues, debate with experts and filmmakers from all over the world during the 75th Venice International Film Festival and learn how to use films as a tool for social and cultural change.

Our Senior Attorney and Program Manager Kelly Matheson will conduct a few sessions on how to use video for change, advocacy and evidence for human rights.

The screening was followed by a conversation on the importance of storytelling, documentation and knowing your rights in the current immigration landscape. This conversation was led by Emma Whitford, a journalist focusing on the human impact of immigration enforcement, and featured filmmaker Abby Goldberg, Supervising Attorney of Immigration at BDS Nyasa Hickey, survivor of family separation, Carlos de Jesus, and our very own U.S. Program Coordinator Palika Makam.

After the panel, our U.S. team held an impromptu training on how you use your cell phone to document abuses against immigrant communities, learn more about your rights, and how you can support grassroots organizations working on the frontlines of immigration justice.

Head over to our Facebook page to watch a video recap of the event.

In the article and accompanying video, we share practical tips for those who may be most vulnerable to these increased ICE raids and arrests, as well as practical considerations for any of us who may be witnesses to these events.

Through the strategic use of eyewitness video, we are creating a new era of transparency and pathways to justice. Visit our library to check out free resources on how to deal with ICE officers and how to document their abuses safely, ethically, and effectively. 

In the article titled, “YouTube keeps deleting evidence of Syrian chemical weapon attacks,” Dia along with our partners at the Syrian Archive, spoke about the importance of these videos and the complexity of the Google algorithm.

“Algorithmic transparency, in general, is a huge issue, but even more for content takedowns. They don’t have any outside auditing, and that’s a basic necessity of transparency. We don’t know the details of the algorithm: we have pushed and pushed, but we still don’t know,” Dia said.

To read the entire article, click here.

We will cover:

– Overview of Video Advocacy Methodology

– Best Practices for Filming for Advocacy & Evidence

– Basic Digital Security Tips

– Mobile Equipment Recommendations

If you’re interested in learning how to use video to raise awareness, share important stories, or document violations against Indigenous peoples and territories, this will be a great introductory workshop!

For more details on the event, and to RSVP, click here.

The article, “A Step by Step Guide to Filming an Injustice as a Bystander,” is part of the cover story feature “What Would You Stand Up For?” and highlights our guidance and resources on safe and ethical filming and provides insight on how to use the technology at our fingertips for human rights change and justice.

“Recording human rights abuses on video has the power to counter misleading narratives, spark investigations, and mobilize people. Video can even be used as evidence in court to secure justice for victims,” our U.S. Program Manager, Jackie Zammuto told the magazine.

The article dives into all the things one should account for before filming and sharing. To read the full article, click here.

This past year has been a game changer for women all around the world. On January 21, 2017, the Women’s March on Washington, D.C, drew a historic public display of support for women’s rights in a global mass protest, estimated to be the largest mass demonstration in U.S. history, which inspired women all around the world to march as well. Last fall, millions of women took to social media to share their experiences with sexual harassment in the workplace. The #MeToo campaign inspired women to share personal accounts of sexual harassment in 85 countries and counting. A Hindu woman from a lower caste has been elected to the Senate for the first time in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country where religious minorities have long suffered intimidation and violence. In Mexico, a project by the name of Voces de Mujeres continues to highlight women’s stories of struggle and social transformation through visual mediums. 

This year, WITNESS teamed up with the multitalented Agunda Okeyo to produce a video on five things to never do when interviewing survivors of sexual violence. When conducting these interviews, it is important to get it right from the start. For more tips, click here.

Okeyo is a writer, producer, filmmaker and activist who was born in Nairobi and raised between New York and the Kenyan capital. Okeyo has been featured as a rising producer and activist in Time Out New York, The New Yorker, Essence, The Root, Black Enterprise, Forbes, Huffington Post and NBC. In 2016 she was named a Progressive Women’s Voices fellow with Women’s Media Center and joined the NYC board of Women, Action and the Media (WAM!NYC).

Read more about how WITNESS’ program teams from each region have been inspired by women and organizations across the world here.

Here are some sessions that we will be a part of:

• Anti-oppression Principles for Global Internet Freedom and Human Rights Work – Monday, March 5, 2:30-4:45 p.m. with Dia Kayyali, (WITNESS),  Kaustubh Srikanth (Totem), Elizabeth Rivera (IFEX/Global Voices/WITNESS), Sarah Aoun, (Mozilla Open Web Fellow/ Tandem)

This 2-hour long workshop will focus on finding solutions to the ways in which we recurringly see various privileges – such as being from North America or Europe, having light skin, or being a man–exert themselves in the human rights and internet freedom community.

Full description can be found on the IFF schedule here.

• Going beyond Values Statements: Prioritizing Healthy Organizational Cultures – Tuesday, March 6, 12:15-1:15 p.m. with Nicolas Sera Leyva of (Social Media Exchange/SMEX), Dragana Kaurin (Localization Lab) Nathalie Marechal (PhD Candidate, USC Annenberg) Dia Kayyali (WITNESS)

This panel will be “an intentional conversation about the impact of organizational working cultures on the ability of individuals to go about their work in a healthy, positive, constructive manner. The ultimate goal of this session is to ignite a conversation which leads to a series of collaboratively developed standards – standards which organizations of all shapes and sizes in our community should embrace to demonstrate their commitment to we the individuals who advance their causes and serve our communities.”

Full description can be found on the IFF schedule here.

• Right to Record – Wednesday, March 7, 10-12 p.m. with Dia Kayyali and others.

What is the right to record? We’re glad you asked. We see the right to record as the right of everyone, not just credentialed press,  to film the police and military when they are carrying out their duties.  If you are interested in learning more about the right to record or our research so far, want to join this work, or want to share your experiences with filming the police, please stop by!

• WITNESS the Apps – Thursday, March 8, 12-2 p.m. with Dia Kayyali and the Guardian Project

We will be discussing the Android apps we have been working on with the Guardian Project. We will provide demos, and we would also love your feedback. We’ll have some special treats for folks who take a few minutes to chat with us about our apps. You can download ProofMode here and ObscuraCam here.

See you in Valencia!