January 20 – My Brother’s Keeper

The Program for Torture Victims & USC College Commons
Present a Film Screening of

My Brother’s Keeper
Directed by Jørgen Flindt Pedersen Produced by Mette Heide.

Followed by a Q&A with Jørgen Flindt Pedersen and staff members of the Program for Torture Victims (PTV).

DATE: Thursday, January 20, 2011
TIME: 6:00pm
LOCATION: USC Campus, Doheny Library, Room 240, 3550 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089

ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
To secure your spot for this event, RSVP to [email protected]. Click here to download flyer.

PTV is hosting a screening of “My Brother’s Keeper,” a documentary portraying the travels and work of the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak. On his missions to countries around the globe he all too often finds clear evidence that torture is commonplace in today’s world.

Nowak’s job is fraught with obstacles. He must confront representatives of some of the world’s most powerful governments and struggles with a UN system with several member states that are very critical of his work.

In the film survivors from China, Zimbabwe and Moldova tell their stories about torture used to create fear and obtain confessions – true or false. And a former US interrogation officer talks about how he tortured a detainee in Fallujah in Iraq, thereby destroying the values from his own upbringing, namely to be “my brother´s keeper.”

About the Filmmaker

Jørgen Flindt Pedersen is a documentary filmmaker whose coverage of issues of torture and wartime violence has earned him worldwide renown. For many years, Flindt Pedersen has worked for Danmarks Radio, Denmark’s national television and radio corporation, and also for TV 2, a publicly owned Danish television station, as a journalist, as a foreign correspondent in London, New York, and Saigon, and as a director.

As a staff member and for the last ten years as an independent filmmaker, he has been responsible for more than 100 documentaries, many of them claiming national and international awards – among them the Mannheim documentary award for Your Neighbour’s Son (1982). Other productions include: The Torturer as Victim, Paris, Tennessee, a Small Town in the US,Diary from Beirut (about Sabra and Shatila), The Seveso-Heritage, When the State Kills, Love on Death Row, The Boys from Vollsmose (Best TV Programme, Copenhagen TV Festival, 2002), and Occupied (Grand Prix at Odense International Festival, 2003.)

Flindt Pedersen’s film A Family at War was shown on Danish Television in September 2004 and in November 2005 it premiered nationwide in the US on the prestigious PBS film seriesIndependent Lens. His most recent film, My Brother’s Keeper was released in December 2008 and has worldwide distribution through the International Rehabilitation Council for Victims of Torture (IRCT).

He was editor-in-chief of the newspaper Aktuelt from 1987-1993 and served as director general of TV 2/DENMARK from 1993-2000. At present, he owns the independent production company, Far Film.