Created in 2009, the Rights! Camera! Action! film series features documentaries that focus on human rights related themes across the globe. Each year, there are at least four film screenings, followed by panel discussions with Duke faculty or students, community activists, and occasionally the filmmakers themselves.

Our first film, “Bedlam,” explored the deep rooted relationship between mental health, imprisonment, and human rights violations in California. If you missed the screening and accompanying panel discussion between Duke student Billy Cao and mental health professional Jae Richardson, read our summary here.

Our second film, “The Art of Political Murder,” focused on Guatemalan Bishop Juan Gerardi, who was murdered in 1998 for his role in publishing “Guatemala, Never Again!,”a document that described the atrocities committed by the Guatemalan Army during the country’s Civil War. The photo below shows panelists Emily Taylor (left) and Dr. Nina Balmaceda (center) with moderator Robin Kirk (right) holding copies of this powerful document.

Earlier this month, we had the privilege of partnering with NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP), Southern Coalition for Social Justice, and The Center for Death Penalty Litigation to screen “Love Lived on Death Row,” which focuses on the story of Elias Syriani and his four children. Meg Eggleston (below, center) and Henderson Hill (below, right), who played pivotal roles in the Syriani family’s story, spoke to a packed audience after the film. They were joined by Andy Van Pachtenbeke (below, left), political counselor at the Embassy of Belgium in the U.S., who was visiting North Carolina in support of NCCADP’s campaign to get Gov. Roy Cooper to commute all of NC’s death sentences to prison terms. You can learn more about the campaign here.

This spring, we'll feature a film that highlights the creativity and bravery of a group of LQBTQ youth in Nigeria ("The Legend of the Underground") and a documentary shot from the lens of a filmmaker in a wheelchair ("I Didn’t See You There.") More details about these events will be released soon.

The Rights and Humanities Annual Series is jointly sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) and the Duke Human Rights Center @ FHI. The series was launched in 2019 to address the links between ideas of rights and the humanities - and to more fully explore the intellectual possibilities of housing a human rights center within a humanities institute.

This year's lecture, THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: MADE POSSIBLE BY THE DECLINE OF A PUBLIC MORALITY, will be given by Professor Katherine Franke. In June 2022, in a 24 hour period, the US Supreme Court issued two very significant decisions: one that read the text of the constitution to provide extremely strong rights to carry guns in public, and the other declaring that the constitution provides no protection for the right to an abortion. Professor Katherine Franke will discuss how these two cases stand for a larger trend in the conception of rights in the US at this time in which the right has successfully captured a classically liberal conception of "rights as trumps”. In cases involving gun rights, religious liberty, and the right to resist public health measures during the COVID pandemic, fundamental constitutional rights have been successfully deployed to deconstitutionalize the state’s power to regulate in the name of public welfare. 

Have you written an interesting, thought-provoking, or otherwise exemplary essay/paper for one of your courses? Or perhaps created a documentary video, phone app, short story, or some other alternative project about a human rights theme? If so, consider submitting your work for the Koonz Human Rights Prize.