This documentary was part of the Movies That Matter festival 2024 in The Hague. Upfront, I was a bit wary about this screening, which form the filmmakers would have chosen to present their point. But it all went much better than expected. Documentaries can be boring, repeating itself, pushing talking heads in abundance, or over-selling the message ad nauseum. Neither was the case here. The filmmakers found nice ways to avoid those boring pitfalls. For example, we see Rachita pondering aloud what to do, involving a passing street dog (interested in the cookies, not in her reasoning) during her deliberations.
There is more like this. The conversations with her legal advisors we witness a few times, are wrapped in a way we can understand what precisely the issue is. Take her question whether the three offending cartoons (the ones the court case is about) can be shown in this documentary. It would have been nice for us, yet they reached a conclusion to leave them out, however tempting to do anyway. Caution is the keyword here. Legally, this is uncharted territory, without clear precedents that might offer a guideline how to proceed.
The lasting impression that sticks with me is that the only objective of the court case is to create FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), having a mere purpose to stifle creative people, be it filmmakers, writers, cartoonists, and others along that line. Though not explicitly stated, I deduce this given the obvious time span of this court case, dragging on forever so it seems, given reports that the hearings are continuously waiting to be scheduled, without any clarity how much longer they have to wait for the procedure to really move forward. The potential verdict is hanging over her head for ever and ever.
All in all, perfect documentary covering much more than the court case at hand. Can also serve as a conversation starter about censorship in various forms. Firstly, how it works in the "usual suspect" countries like Russia and China. But secondly, we had a recent case where Israel banned Al Jazeera out of the country, contradicting our thought that Israel belonged to the western "democratic" countries, not doing such a thing unless via a legal procedure, not just a pen stroke from the government, obviously missing the usual checks and balances of the Trias Politica.
By the way: This documentary ranked 9th for the audience award in the Movies That Matter 2024 festival in The Hague.
There is more like this. The conversations with her legal advisors we witness a few times, are wrapped in a way we can understand what precisely the issue is. Take her question whether the three offending cartoons (the ones the court case is about) can be shown in this documentary. It would have been nice for us, yet they reached a conclusion to leave them out, however tempting to do anyway. Caution is the keyword here. Legally, this is uncharted territory, without clear precedents that might offer a guideline how to proceed.
The lasting impression that sticks with me is that the only objective of the court case is to create FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), having a mere purpose to stifle creative people, be it filmmakers, writers, cartoonists, and others along that line. Though not explicitly stated, I deduce this given the obvious time span of this court case, dragging on forever so it seems, given reports that the hearings are continuously waiting to be scheduled, without any clarity how much longer they have to wait for the procedure to really move forward. The potential verdict is hanging over her head for ever and ever.
All in all, perfect documentary covering much more than the court case at hand. Can also serve as a conversation starter about censorship in various forms. Firstly, how it works in the "usual suspect" countries like Russia and China. But secondly, we had a recent case where Israel banned Al Jazeera out of the country, contradicting our thought that Israel belonged to the western "democratic" countries, not doing such a thing unless via a legal procedure, not just a pen stroke from the government, obviously missing the usual checks and balances of the Trias Politica.
By the way: This documentary ranked 9th for the audience award in the Movies That Matter 2024 festival in The Hague.
