Burma / China / Côte d’Ivoire
Film with Freemuse Award winner
Tiken Jah Fakoly, who received the Freemuse Award 2008, is one of the main characters in a new documentary film, ‘An Independent Mind’ — about freedom of speech and how far individuals in different countries will go in order to preserve it.
The 90-minutes film ‘An Independent Mind’ describes different kinds of artistic censorship in countries such as Burma, China and Côte d’Ivoire – interviewing artists who have faced oppression and censorship for expressing unpopular or radical opinions, and exploring the state of freedom of expression around the world. During the production of the film, Rex Bloomstein co-operated and consulted with Freemuse, among others.
“I wanted this to be as global an exercise as possible. It would have been easy to focus on certain parts of the developing world while ignoring our own Western democracies. But we are also seeing a gradual erosion of this freedom in the West through the broadening in scope of what is deemed unacceptable speech’. This is an age of extraordinary mass communication, yet Article 19 seems to be an area that is increasingly bitterly contested,” said Rex Bloomstein when the film premiered in England. “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
— Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression under Article 19.
The interviewees in ‘An Independent Mind’ include:
• Tiken Jah Fakoly, a reggae star from Côte d'Ivoire
• Soziedad Alkoholika, a Basque rock band
• The Moustache Brothers, a comedy troupe in Burma
• Ali Dilem, an Algerian cartoonist
• Marielos Monzon, a Guatemalan radio journalist
• Faraj Bayrakdar, a Syrian poet and journalist
• David Irving, a British writer and historian
• Mu Zimei, a Chinese sex blogger
Premiere in Denmark in October
Director Rex Bloomstein will introduce the film when it is screened first time in Denmark on 26 October 2008.
This event in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 26 October 2008 is organised by Danish PEN in LitteraturHaus, Møllegade 7, at 2 PM til 5 PM. Entrance fee: DKK 40.
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Rex Bloomstein
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