World Film for Equal Dignity


Tina Ottman, Director and Coordinator

 

Ulrich Spalthoff, Technical Director and Coordinator

 

Dharm P. S. Bhawuk, Advisor

List of other people contributing

Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HumanDHS) is primarily grounded in academic work. However, we wish to bring academic work into "real life" as well. Our research focuses on topics such as dignity (with humiliation as its violation), or, more precisely, on respect for equal dignity for all human beings in the world. This is not only our research topic, however, but also our core value, in line with Article 1 of the Human Rights Declaration that states that every human being is born with equal dignity (that ought not be humiliated). We agree with Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, who advocates the building of bridges from academia as follows, "I have always believed that good scholarship can be relevant and consequential for public policy. It is possible to affect public policy without being an advocate; to be passionate about peace without losing analytical rigor; to be moved by what is just while conceding that no one has a monopoly on justice." We would like to add that we believe that good scholarship can be relevant and consequential not only for public policy, but for raising awareness in general.


Dharm Bhawuk describes the World Film for Equal Dignity initiative as follows: "We start sharing the story of films, and how humiliation is depicted in the films we have collected, and how the characters deal with it, or live with it. From a research perspective, we explore what topics are covered in the films in a particularly country and why, and then we examine international similarities and differences. We follow the "emic + etic" approach that cross-cultural psychologists recommend. The "emic" refers to the culture-specific aspects, and the within country analysis could highlight it. The "etic" refers to the culture-general or universal concepts, and the analysis of the films between or across countries helps us identify common themes. Based on the findings, we envision developing an intervention strategy. We plan to write in popular press complementing the film makers, and thus encouraging others to fund such films in future."
The aim is to collect the following coordinates of each film:
•  film title
•  duration (minutes)
•  producer
•  director
•  actors
•  theme
•  abstract
•  key words for search





List of people contributing


List of films that we have identified so far

Filmdays



Links

Please note that the entire HumanDHS website is maintained by volunteers, since its inception in 2003, and this is mainly done by Evelin Lindner. Until 2012, she usually pasted interesting news into this Links section. From July 2012 until 2017, she tagged interesting information on delicious.com. From 2017 onward, you see Evelin's personal list of interesting web links on Twitter:

Zheng Yun Mini Film - Works Oriented to the Grassroots of China
The Zheng Yun Studio is a producer of mini films that was established in 2008. It has put out more than 300 mini films, mostly satirical comedies. These mini works are not only viewed on the Internet, but are also downloaded by mobile phone users and broadcast on TV on buses and trains. Since the content is very relevant to the daily lives of the ordinary people, the mini films are widely popular among the Chinese masses. So far, the Zheng Yun Studio's website boasts over 2000 million person/time clicks, averaging over 3 million person/time clicks each day. The Studio has more than 10 million fans. The mini films can be viewed on YouTube.com at the following address: www.youtube.com/user/zhengyunchina. Soon, Zheng Yun will provide the English subscripts for the mini films, so as to clear language barriers for non-Chinese speakers. Zheng Yun's mini films reflect the mentality of the Chinese people who are located at the lower echelons of society and represent grassroots culture. Such mini films are widely popular at a time when the Chinese society is shifting from a traditional to a modern way of life. This phenomenon reveals a tendency that the population is seeking a more independent identity and a reconstruction of their own culture. It can be anticipated that the Internet will provide more possibilities to the large population at the grassroots level of society.

donkeysaddle projects
'donkeysaddle projects' combats inhumanity through exposing the humanity of those who have been marginalized and oppressed, through platforms such as writing, film and theatre.

Far-flung Families in Film: The Diasporic Family in Cinema
'Far-flung Families in Film: The Diasporic Family in Cinema' is a website that provides information about the scope, aims and objectives of this project and a small but growing database of films about the diasporic family in contemporary cinema, a blog and details about forthcoming events. Further features such as podcasts and additional interactive functions will be added in due course.
See www.farflungfamilies.net and www.migrantcinema.net.

Video Peace Art Gallery
The Peace Support Network's first annual YouTube video collection and contest has concluded. There are 49 videos representing "Create Peace." These videos have been received from several different locations on the globe, and have been created in languages from those countries. These short peace presentations range in scope, and many are more than appropriate for small group discussion and inspiration. The peace video art collection can be seen here - http://www.youtube.com/group/peacesupport.

2007 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan

Image, Identity and Culture in Narrative and Documentary Cinema
Visual and narrative strategies in the representation of culture and identity
A Postgraduate Film Studies Symposium
March 30th/ 31st 2007

Cinemas, Identities and Beyond: St. Andrews-Glasgow Postgraduate Conference
University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 10 November 2006
The exploration of identity is one of the most contested and thought-provoking contemporary subjects. As a dominant and penetrating cultural form, cinema conditions and shapes the manner in which we interpret issues of identity and space. Our understanding of representation, narrative conventions, film form, industry issues and a host of other socio-political factors related to cultural production and consumption powerfully define our ever changing ideas of identity.

Cicada Films
Cicada is an award-winning, London-based, international production company, specialising in quality television documentaries.

Earth Report by Television Trust for the Environment (TVE)
Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) is an independent, non-profit organisation, which promotes global awareness of the environment, development, human rights and health issues through the platforms of broadcast television and other audio-visual media. A UK-registered charity, TVE fulfils an international remit in association with offices and networks of partner organisations in Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean.
TVE works above all to promote informed debate, public awareness and practical solutions to the growing challenges of human development.
TVE was set up in 1984 with the support of WWF, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Central Television (now part of ITV).