Arabian Sights Film Festival

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The Florida Project: Q&A with Director Sean Baker and Actresses Bria Vinaite and Brooklynn Prince

Human Flow: Q&A with Director Ai Weiwei

By Ron Gordner, DC Film Society Member

A preview screening of the new film Human Flow (Ai Weiwei, 2017) was held September 25 at Landmark's E Street Cinema. The film documents the many global refugees from countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Myanmar, Subsaharan African countries, Mexico and other areas and their survival to find a peaceful life for their families after fleeing war-torn homelands. Ai Weiwei spent a year travelling to 23 countries to make the documentary. The moderator was Ishaan Tharoor, a foreign affairs reporter from the Washington Post and two Congressmen: Randy Hultgren (R-Illinois) and Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission; and Ted Lieu (D-California) also on the Executive Committee of the Commission. This Q&A has been edited and condensed.



Ishaan Tharoor: This is an incredibly important film with human and political dimensions but is also artistically stunning. What was the genesis of the film and how long did it take?
Ai Weiwei: Thank you, it took one year to shoot and about 5-6 months of editing and post-production. It started as a personal journey when I had a vacation with my son and used my cell phone to capture what was happening. We had many teams in about 23 countries or locations and interviewed over 600 people. We had 900 hours of footage, but we gradually found what became the film’s structure.

Ishaan Tharoor: I was really struck with the moment when you were on the road with Syrian refugees and exchanged for a moment your passports. You told him to “respect your passport”, can you tell me what that meant to you at that moment or what you were trying to communicate?
Ai Weiwei: These refugees really sacrificed much to travel so far away, but the one part of their identity to their self and country is their passport.

Ishaan Tharoor: You are a known artist and also political dissident and have taken up residence now outside China in Berlin. Do you consider yourself as a refugee?
Ai Weiwei: I never thought about it much, but yes I am a type of refugee as was my father who was a poet.

Ishaan Tharoor: A question to the Congressman, given the current issues with refugees and our country’s stance; now it seems somewhat contrary to others views on refugee assistance. Can you give any discussion about the issue and if you have other questions for Ai Weiwei.
Congressman Randy Hultgren: Yes you have made a beautiful film but at times we feel hopeless about the situation. We need to bring more dialogue and help. It was just mind-blowing the scenes with the piles and piles of life jackets and also the hopelessness. And also the beautiful aerial shot that looked like bugs on a wall that we realize these are refugees moving about. We do have some hope as in the past when John Portos and Tom Lantos were forming the Human Rights Commisson. We continue to have ways to find how Congress can inform or help on the refugee situations, even if it is sanctions on the offending countries. Ai Weiwei’s fantastic exhibit at the Hirshhorn also is the art that shows how political, social and religious sanctions are taking place. I am grateful for his shining a light on this problem.
Congressman Ted Lieu: I also want to thank Ai Weiwei on his amazing film. When watching the kids in the film I thought about these innocent kids born or brought into difficult situations and how blessed we are in our country. Also watching Weiwei in these places and their worlds so different but standing together in the same place as the refugees showed the great difference in our lives. Also the Commission is a bi-partisan commission so we hope this kind of cooperative work will continue and in areas where the U.S. has interests or has been involved.

Audience Question: Ai Weiwei, I thank you. Your art is an inspiration for me to be be active in this kind of lawmaking and to be an activist.
Ai Weiwei: Thank you it takes more people to stand up and advocate for human rights of all kinds.

Audience Question: What can we do to help the U.S. address these issues?
Congressman Randy Hultgren: Seeing movies like this and advocating for rights. I don’t always agree with the Administration and not on this issue and in my state of Illinois, World Relief is doing amazing work. Also to help see refugees dreams and to try to realize some of them. We hope we can be more open to incoming refugees from Syria and other places. Talking to the refugees, they are happy for the support America provides but still wish they could go home. I was in a large refugee area in Algeria that has been there for years and the Moroccans there want to go back.
Congressmen Ted Lieu: I also think dealing with facts is important. You need to know your enemy to defeat them. The enemies are ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc. not the people fleeing from them. The chance of you being killed by a terrorist in the U.S. is something like 1 in 1.3 billion but the chance of you being struck by lightning twice is 1 in 9 million. We have not had people killed by refugees here. Even if the U.S. doubles its taking in of Syrian refugees, it would still be a drop in the bucket. We could try to fund schools and food in these refugee camps or we will have an entire generation of children without education. The refugees may be there a real long time, so I support bringing in more refugees but funding education in the camps may be a much larger contribution.

Audience Question: We should be dealing with helping the infrastructure and issues in the countries where the refugees are coming from so they can return and rebuild their lives again.
Congressman Randy Hultgren: That sounds wonderful but involves many complex issues that need to be addressed.

Audience Question: How did your art influence the film?
Ai Weiwei: I am an artist using my art to also address imprisonment and the plight of the refugees. How to find the language and communicate the issues is always a difficult decision of what art or film to use.

Audience Question: Where will this film be shown later?
Ishaan Tharoor: It will be released in theaters around October 13th and also will be available on Amazon and other venues later.

Audience Question: How did you decide what poems to use?
Ai Weiwei: I love poetry and we researched many poets from the included countries. We looked at the history of humanity and it is not really about regional warfare, there will always be those in danger. I hope the film encourages others to see if some people’s rights or treatment seems wrong that those of us in better situations will recognize this and advocate for those wronged.

Human Flow will be shown at Landmark's E Street Cinema starting October 13.

Trophy: Q&A with Film Directors Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau, and film Subject Chris Moore

By Annette Graham, DC Film Society Member

An advance screening of Trophy (Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau, 2017) was shown September 6 at Landmark's E Street Cinema. The two co-directors, film subject/anti-poaching agent from Zimbabwe Chris Moore, and Sue Lieberman, Vice President of International Policy at Wildlife Conservation Society were present to discuss the film. The discussion was moderated by Alex Dehgan, CEO and co-founder of Conservation X Labs.

Endangered African species like elephants, rhinos and lions march closer to extinction each year. Their devastating decline is fueled in part by a global desire to consume these majestic animals. Trophy investigates the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation. The film grapples with the consequences of imposing economic value on animals. What are the implications of treating animals as commodities? Do breeding, farming and hunting offer some of the few remaining options to conserve our endangered animals? This Q&A has been edited and condensed.

Alex Dehgan: That was an incredible, emotionally charged, beautifully shot film and beautifully put together. Cecil the Lion was so emotionally charged for us and for the international community. Trophy hunting and trade itself has been emotionally charged. But is it worth that investment? Because when we look at what is taking out lions around the world, it is not going to be the 220 lions that we lose every year to hunting. It's going to be factors like the bush meat trade, loss of habitat, and endangered species, poaching of bones. But is this the right thing to focus on?
Shaul Schwarz: I think it partially is because it gets more air in the room than other issues. Poaching and encroachment are bigger threats at large, but I think we need everything we can and to work together to get to a place where we can really affect this. And we tried to show it here. Hunting has some pluses and minuses and we leave it to you the viewer to take home what you want, but in terms of focus, it does take more attention than other issues that are bigger but I wouldn't brush it aside. Chris is from the area, he never knew who Cecil was, so it's a little bit taken out of proportion when we sit here.
Chris Moore: To be honest, I'd never heard of Cecil. There are a lot of big lions around and Cecil was another big lion. We worry a lot more about poaching than we do about the trophy hunting which is very closely monitored. American Fish and Wildlife has done a lot to put the hunting industry under pressure to insure that their numbers are correct. At the moment I'm doing a predator survey in the Zambezi Valley. So the pressure from Fish and Wilflife, maybe not so welcome by the hunting community, but for conservation is a good thing.

Alex Dehgan: Chris, you have put yourself in dangerous situations, dangerous for you and your colleagues. But it seems like the Red Queen hypothesis: We run as fast as possible only to stay in the same place. And you stated the irony that you are protecting animals only to see them killed. How do you deal with that?
Chris Moore: I think you just have to look at the numbers and be realistic about it. Dangerous, yes, sometimes. At one stage I felt like we had our fingers in a dike and we are never going to stop it. We officially lost two elephants in the last four years. And they were shooting probably about one elephant every second day when I first arrived. It's not me, it's the young community members; education and social outreach work has far more implications than running around trying to arrest people--certainly in my experience.
Sue Lieberman: Thank you for a difficult but provocative film which raises critical issues. In a sense it's important to differentiate between issues of trophy hunting and issues of commercialization, which is what some of the issues of the rhino horn trade in South Africa bring up. It isn't the question should we be looking at trophy hunting. For me, it's should we be looking at conservation. If we are looking at conservation of species and habitats and benefits for local communities, what are the threats to the species and what works? In some countries, if you look at the individual animal, obviously it doesn't benefit the individual animal that is killed. We can relate to that; there are some difficult scenes. But what is the future for the species? I would rather see a habitat where there might be some trophy hunting even if it's something I would never do and don't think is particularly wonderful. But it's more wonderful than cow grazing and agriculture, or building a shopping mall. So I think we need to look at a conservation picture and look at what are the threats. How can we maintain species in intact populations in their ecosystems and what are the solutions? The greatest threat is conflict with people. Conflict with pastoralists, livestock and revenge killings. Yes there is poaching and bone trade, more for other big cats than lions and it's a growing problem. But the threats from agriculture and livestock grazing are far greater to lions than trophy hunting. For me, the response to the film is "What works where?" My personal and organizational views are very different on trophy hunting in general than commercialization of rhino horn.
Shaul Schwarz: I agree. Early on, I hated hunting guys; it's not my cup of tea, you'll never catch me doing this. People have asked me if I think it's psychotic to enjoy it; I think it is. But it's not really interesting. Does it work? Where does it work? We need to take away the emotion and think when it comes to the model in general of "If it pays, it stays." Conservatives have lately called global warming a hoax; liberals don't call this a hoax. The South African model is a fact. You can be uncomfortable with this; you can decide that you'd rather see rhinos go extinct than run around without a horn. But understand what you're choosing. What we wanted to do is create a serious dialogue about this, that is not led by emotion, but led more by facts.
Sue Lieberman: But an important thing to understand is that if a particular model works in one country, that doesn't mean it works everywhere. There are countries that utilize trophy hunting or sport hunting as an effective conservation tool with science and enforcement, and there are countries that use it and are incredibly corrupt and it's not benefitting anyone except the industry.
Shaul Schwarz: The problem is that emotion takes over and we have two sides that scream at each other and think it's a black and white issue and that doesn't get us very far.

Alex Dehgan: One thing that wasn't mention in the film is the demand side. Think about the fact that the rhino horn costs more than gold, heroin or cocaine. What does that play in to for conservation efforts? If there's always demand and the demand is outstripping the supply then is there something that gives us hope? Chris, you pointed out that at least on elephants you've been able to protect them.
Shaul Schwarz: You can't farm elephants. The fact that the rhino has the world's most expensive animal commodity is what kills it. And John and I agree that is what could save it. You mentioned drugs. I've dug deep into the war on drugs and people say just go to war and fight them, just kill the poachers. I understand why it's emotionally hard. I don't know why we want to supply rhino horn from dead rhinos when we can supply from live. I think that to pretend it's going away is nonsense. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again expecting different results. That's what we are doing with the rhino. I know people will disagree at the end of the day. I didn't make this film to make you think that way or another. We have an opinion, we want you to have a dialogue. We are going to try to involve much different dialogue in this movie. I'm very conflicted about a lot of hunting; people who are against it have no solution, rhino is going to go away. Pretending that pushing it into being a black market is going to work is nonsense. It's exactly like saying the drug war is going to work.
Sue Lieberman: I respectfully disagree with you. I think that's based on an assumption that demand in Asia is increasing, that there's no way that you will ever affect Chinese or Vietnamese people's use. Rhino horn sales and use are illegal in China and Vietnam and there are a lot of efforts there to crack down. I agree that general awareness and demand reduction isn't going to do anything, but enforcing the law will. Back in the 1990s everyone said the rhino horn demand in Yemen was the threat. There wasn't the medicine market. There was nothing in Vietnam, that's all new. They said, "You'll never affect it; you have to legalize it." What happened? Probably no one knows that there was a market [for rhino horn] in Yemen for the handles of the daggers. Yemen cracked down. There was a lot of international pressure. They passed a law and enforced it. You don't see it now; it's not a problem in Yemen. I believe that with effective enforcement it will happen in Asia. I believe it is happening in China. I disagree that China doesn't know how to enforce.
Christina Clusiau: But is there enough time? Will China enforce the law to a certain point before these items are gone?
Sue Lieberman: I think if you commercialize and allow those rhino horns to be sold, the only rhinos left will be the southern white rhinos in South Africa and you can say goodbye to any rhinos in India or Nepal. Those aren't rhinos that you can farm. You have to look at this from a global perspective across both continents not just the narrow focus on rhinos on game ranches in South Africa. If you allow commercialization, you are telling countries like China and Vietnam that are trying to enforce, never mind, give in. The experiment that was run on ivory, let's legalize some of the ivory trade, it'll suppress the price. The result was the opposite.

Audience Question: Why can't we farm rhinos in Nepal and India as you can in South Africa?
Sue Lieberman: Hypothetically you can. But you don't have the land available and you don't have private ownership of wildlife like you do in South Africa. There's a unique land tenure system in South Africa.
Shaul Schwarz: It's doable, it's just a legal issue. You can farm them in Texas.

Audience Question: I think it's a hopeless proposition to think that laws and controls are going to alter the Asians' obsession with these traditions. It would take another 1,000 years.
Sue Lieberman: Let me give an example. Rhino horns as a cure for cancer is five years old, That's not an ancient deep tradition. Some of the organized crime groups involved with this created the mythology around that to increase the price. And rhino horns are not used as an aphrodisiac, it's just a fever reducer in true traditional Chinese medicine. In Vietnam they banned firecrackers. People were using them all the time for New Year's blowing off their hands, killing their children; they were using firecrackers all the time. Government banned it and and everyone said you can't change behavior, this is an ancient tradition, on New Year's we blow up firecrackers. Government cracked down and enforced it and it's working. It hasn't affected demand because if they changed the law they would all buy firecrackers tomorrow. This can work if there's true enforcement.

Alex Dehgan: There's a company called Pembient which makes synthetic rhino horn and part of their goal is to collapse the price for the poaching market. What are your thoughts about that?
Shaul Schwarz: I think we need to be a lot more creative. If the Asian market will bite on that, I'm a huge fan. I don't think there's one right or wrong. I think we have to stop being emotional and we have to stop pretending. So my opinion is that if it helps, God bless. I want to see rhinos. South Africa has proved something. Rhino is a shit magnet. If you have a rhino, you have bad guys with guns, coming to your farm, shooting your rhino and your daughter too. If they make money out of rhinos, everyone would want to have one, because they can make a lot of money.
Alex Dehgan: Chris?
Chris Moore: I wish we could do it for elephants; just the natural growth process of ivory doesn't work as quickly. I don't have the depth of knowledge of international trade, etc. We have to try different things. Maybe in the process we might lose something that humanity will regret.
Alex Dehgan: Some of these practices are not long-held practices and in fact the shift from health to wealth is more ostentatious. One of the interesting things [Pembient] did is test the market. They tested consumer demand and found that the medicinal uses for the horn were much less than the carving market and that is what they started producing--synthetic rhino horn.

Alex Dehgan: Are we at the end of wild? There are very few places that are wild. Our national parks are fragments. Is there still wild? Is there still ability to protect the wild? Or is everything managed? Maybe the only future is rhinos on plantations.
Shaul Schwarz: It's not the only future. It's a way to keep rhinos in the world.
Chris Moore: There's definitely wild, huge wild. There are different ways to do it, not just law enforcement. The film doesn't show it but 85-95% of my work was law enforcement when we first started. And now it's maybe 20%. It's more social work, teaching values, sustainability, agricultural practices. I find that in some ways more effective than law enforcement and transfer of this natural resource wealth, you have to deal with this on a multi-level, you can't be narrow minded about your approach to such things.
Christina Clusiau: I think there is more wild, but the idea of what is wild is changing. When you look at the idea of preservation of the wild "leave the wild wild" is a very utopian ideology because of human interaction. There is loss of habitat, there is human encroachment, there's poaching, there's wars, our use of animals. We use animals in every way, shoes, food, hunting. That idea of wild is shifting. It's important to think that maybe it is not as bad. If you fence an area it's not necessarily as bad because you're not only keeping the wild out you are keeping the humans out Perhaps we can conserve some of these large areas. It can be large or small.
Sue Lieberman: I think there's still wild. There is still wilderness. There are still large tracts of our planet that are what we call ecologically intact. Some of those most intact places on earth are those places where indigenous communities are dependent on natural resources. These areas are not areas completely devoid of people. It's incumbent upon us to protect the wilderness; the last places on earth that are truly intact ecologically whether they are on the land or in the ocean. They do exist. There are areas that are deeply, seriously impacted negatively by our species including most of this country except maybe Alaska. So we need to recognize this. And those areas have different conservation solutions. So I think we need to protect what we call the last of the wild.

Audience Question: Chris, on the enforcement side, what sort of penalties do poachers receive?
Chris Moore: In Zimbabwe, it's based on the value of the animal. A small gazelle may attract a penalty of a short jail sentence or a $300-400 dollar fine. What we aim for is the serious elephant poaching (they've killed all the rhino where I come from). We try to pick up their illegal firearm, evidence of where the elephant was poached and if we can tie the weapon, the ivory and the dead elephant we are now managing to attract a prison sentance of 18-20 years. The Zimbabwe government has really cracked down on illegal poaching. Yes, there's corruption. We are now getting the right sentences. We weren't in the beginning; it has taken a lot of work. Most of my work is talking with people. Talking with people seems to go a long way and gets progress.
Alex Dehgan: This movie definitely pushes people to talk and think. It's a a highly provocative movie. This a topic the conservation community, the countries and people are contending with every day.

Trophy opened September 29 at the AFI Silver Theater.

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