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Interview with the film director Philip Cox
Director, producer and freelance cameraman, Phil Cox, was the first filmmaker to enter the troubled state of Darfur in Western Sudan at the beginning of 2004. His film Sudan: The Darfur War offers a human insight into an unreported and devastating conflict now widely recognized as the world's greatest humanitarian disaster. Since then, Cox´s production company Native Voice Films has been nominated for several awards for its filming and producing in Darfur and keeping the Darfur tragedy into the media spotlight. One World Slovakia also screens another successful documentary of Phil Cox, We are the Indians, which offers a unique look at the conflict between the traditional Indian culture and the white civilization.
• Were you shooting a new film about Sudan during your last visit there?
My first film in Sudan was a news reportage of 12 minutes. This latest film, at 30 minutes, is a documentary about my return to find some of the people I met before and to learn what was happening more than a year on from my first visit. Also I wanted to know about the impact of the African Union and the continuing violence on the ground.
• Did you have problems with local authorities?
It was impossible for me to have access with the Sudanese government, so I had to enter through Chad. I am also a principal witness for the International Criminal Court in the Hague for the War Crimes Tribunal now in progress. When I was with the African Union in Sudan, I actually had no visa to be in Sudan and it became dangerous for me to do filming there as the Sudanese forces do not like cameras. At the end, they discovered I had been in the AU camp and came to get me, but I managed to escape over the Chadian border before they arrived.
• Did your film “The Darfur War” provoke a broader public campaign? What was your feeling when you appeared before the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva?
Actually, I am not sure how much my first films from Darfur provoked a public campaign. I am always quite skeptical on such things, perhaps the films provoked a dialogue which might be all one could hope for – or at least people learnt that something was happening in Darfur, a name of the place they had not heard before – but the name that will soon become synonymous with Rwanda and Bosnia for recent failures by the international community to act as tens of thousands of people are murdered. 'Never again' is a term that nobody can utter anymore with any credibility.
I appeared before the EU and UK Parliaments, as well as the Prevention of Genocide Committee and last month as the first witness testimony at the ICC. It is not something a filmmaker is get used to! I am not an 'activist filmmaker' or even a really 'news filmmaker'. I love cinema, the beauty of an image and things such as pacing and character and am frustrated by the sound bite style of news. But the experience of Darfur was hugely important for me, it shows the power of a camera and the image in the modern world and how it can be used for better or worse. There were many Red Cross and Amnesty documents, which nobody was interested in reading, about the US prisons in Iraq, and months before a few images of Darfur allowed the press to run with the story which later forced the politicians to answer the questions.
Journalistically there is the argument that one should not testify before courts such as the ICC or the UN as it undermines one’s 'neutrality' as a journalist , then it will be dangerous for other filmmakers working in such environments as people will see the camera and know they can be prosecuted from it. This was certainly the debate in the Balkans conflict. My opinion is that a case such as Darfur represents the most heinous crimes known to humanity, this is murder and calculated killing on a massive scale, it is not a car theft or a petty criminal 'source' that one should protect. How can I possibly film the tragedy of desperate women and children and massacres putting my own sense of importance as a filmmaker before their suffering?
To be involved in the Darfur story before it has become world news all the way, before it became CNN prime time with big 'Genocide statements' from politicians, and yet see how for the people on the ground nothing much changed, has left me with a revealing experience of media and political reaction and their actual effect on the ground for the people living through the tragedy.
My film “We are the Indians” is very different work from more raw reportage of Darfur - it is more of a 'film' in the cinematic way, with a sense of pacing time and style. This work in the Argentine rainforest with the Guarani Indians had a large impact on Argentina. From the release of the film, there has been great press interest and for the first time a recognition that Argentina actually has had indigenous peoples. 3 years ago I filmed the white owners of the Guarani land promising the Guarani that they could have it as soon as they could sign the papers. Four years on, nothing has been done and the film has embarrassed the white owners into other meetings. I cannot really say that films such as “Sudan: The Darfur War” and “We are the Indians” have not really changed anything for the people on the ground, but they did start a dialogue - perhaps with that one should be happy.
• Do you believe in power of the international society responsible for adherence of human rights in different less-fortune countries?
An outcry of core voter public opinion and action is the only thing that can move some western politicians to act – other than economic interest. If it happens, it is immensely powerful, but it rarely happens.
• Do you think G8 and African Union will act in response of the call for action letters from the International Crisis Group?
Thinking specifically of Darfur, there will be political gestures but no solution of the problem – unless 20,000 troops are prepared to go immediately to Darfur.
• Do you think citizens of democratic European countries should not be indifferent but more engaged in creating public pressure over people responsible for adherence of human rights and peacekeeping processes when lives of innocent people are endangered?
We as filmmakers have to find new ways to bring across the essential humanity of our subjects in order to be able to move people in other cultures and countries sitting in front of their television sets. It is not easy and one does not always wake up each morning with a desire to make people become more engaged with human rights and innocent deaths. It is not an easy business to be constantly working in these areas.
• How did you manage to get so close to events in Sudan?
I first came to the Sudan story when by chance I was walking down a corridor in Amnesty International in London and overheard a lady mentioning that 'nobody knew what was happening in Sudan'. I finished my other work there and then went and asked the lady about Sudan. She told me some staggering figures and stories that everyone was ignoring. I tried to get the networks interested, but they were not convinced it was a 'story', so I began months of research and went on my own smuggling myself into Darfur in January 2004.
• What was your first intention when you decided to start the film shooting about Sudan?
Really to find out if the rumors were true about what was happening in Sudan, and to base my filming in journalistic evidence if it was to stand up to the scrutiny of accusing a sovereign state of murdering tens of thousands of its own population.
