By Natasha Ciesielski
Documentary filmmaker, journalist and author John Pilger has curated a documentary film festival that will screen in Sydney from November 28 to December 9.
The Power of the Documentary: Breaking the Silence, is a collection of 26 documentary films from the past 70 years, including retrospectives of his own work.
The documentaries selected cover global issues such as the impact of war, human rights and the abuses of power by governments and corporations.
The aim of the festival is to inform people and give ‘a voice to the voiceless’.
Pilger will also give a keynote address on why we need critical debate.
Why do we need more spaces for critical debate and how will the Festival address this?
We need critical debate for the same reason we need real democracy; the two are indivisible. We imagine we have both in Australia, and in a limited sense we do, but the boundaries are becoming more defined and confining. In the world, Australia does what it is told, although the rapacious great power that directs this nation’s actions seldom has to issue orders. To paraphrase Orwell, we know when to jump. This ‘knowing’ permeates our political and intellectual life: the media, the arts, as if independence is not for us. Perhaps that’s why a mostly mythical Australian distinction is promoted so relentlessly. A number of films in The Power of the Documentary challenge this strange state. Alec Morgan’s Lousy Little Sixpence was considered subversive in the 1980s when it revealed the suffering of the Stolen Generation. Dennis O’Rourke’s Half Life told an unpalatable truth about the nuclear age. Truth is always subversive.
You first screened The Power of Documentary in Britain, why have you now chosen Australia as a Festival destination? Do you believe Australians are likely to challenge the system and act?
A short version of the festival was staged by the British Library in London. The original idea was conceived in Sydney when I took it to Robert Love at the Riverside [Theatre] and Liz Ann Macgregor at the MCA. Liz Ann had put on my Reporting the World exhibition in 2002.
You once said: “a documentary breaks a silence and challenges authorised wisdom, elevating its audience almost to participants” – is that the aim of your film festival? To provoke the audience into action?
The aim of the festival is to inform people: to connect the past with the present and try to make sense of the news that doesn’t make sense. The power of true information is such that, without it, people barely have a choice whether to take action or not. The propaganda of governments and their vested interests, especially the corporate world, has never been more ubiquitous and, with it, a creeping authoritarianism. It’s still our choice if we accept this, or not. Documentaries can play a critical role in breaking down the ‘groupthink’ that says we are apathetic and encourages us to do nothing.
When Death of a Nation was aired in Britain, people wrote to the Foreign Office to protest against British policy; what actions are you hoping audience attending takes?
The response to Death of Nation in Britain was extraordinary. Thousands of people phoned ITV, which broadcast it. The British Government was then licensing Hawk fighter-jets for sale to Indonesia and these were used devastatingly against the villages of East Timor. Of course, Australia played the most critical role in supporting the dictator Suharto, in its pursuit of the oil and gas of the Timor Gap. The popular movement in Australia to free East Timor was one of the most inspirational and effective in our history; Death of a Nation merely supported it. Where is the equivalent of that movement today? Watching the film at the festival, people can still draw valuable conclusions; the Australian Government has barely changed its policies, as the outrageous prosecution of the whistle blowers, Bernard Collaery and ‘Witness K’, should alert us.
Will there be any spaces at the Festival for audience interaction/discussion?
Yes, there are Q&As, for example; Alec Morgan will discuss his work and Mark Davis will introduce his ground-breaking film on the Rohingya [Journey into Hell].
You’ve covered a lot of issues over the last few decades – Vietnam, East Timor, Latin American politics and more recently America’s war with China – what’s the biggest issue you see in our time?
The insidious and violent imposition of great power on others – imperialism. At the moment, the world stands on a nuclear edge as the United States beats its chest and demands a return to its dominance of almost everything: economies, the lives of millions and the future of our natural world. More precisely, the issues beyond all others are war and peace and the extinction of our world by wilfully accelerating the changes in our climate. It is remarkable that Australia plays no positive part in resolving either. How long do we accept that? And that is the most important question.
For the full program and tickets visit www.thepowerofthedocumentary.com.au
