''Watchers of the Sky'' is a 2014 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by

Edet Belzberg Edet Belzberg is a documentary filmmaker. She won a 2005 MacArthur Fellowship. Biography Belzberg received a B.A. in 1991 from the University of Colorado, Boulder and an M.A. in 1997 from the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbi ...

. The film premiered at the

2014 Sundance Film Festival The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opened with '' Whiplash'' directed by D ...

on January 20, 2014 in the ''U.S. Documentary Competition''. It won the two awards at the festival. It went on to win the Jonathan Daniels Award at the Monadnock International Film Festival and the Ostrovsky Award for Best Documentary Film at the

Jerusalem Film Festival The Jerusalem Film Festival ( he, פסטיבל הקולנוע ירושלים, ar, مهرجان القدس السينمائي) is an international film festival held annually in Jerusalem, It was established in 1984 by the Director of the Jerusal ...

. After its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, ''

Music Box Films Music Box Films is a distributor of foreign and independent film in theatrical, DVD/Blu-ray, and video-on-demand markets in the United States. Based in Chicago, Music Box Films is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corpor ...

'' acquired the US distribution rights. The film was released in October 2014. Films We Like released it in Canada and

Madman Entertainment Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, is an Australian distribution and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising in feature films, documentaries and television series across theatr ...

released it in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and Australia.

Synopsis

The film depicts the journey of lawyer Raphael Lemkin and his efforts in lobbying the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

to establish the

Genocide Convention The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), or the Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to pursue the enforcement of its prohibition. It was ...

. The movie also focuses on four people inspired by Lemkin:

Samantha Power Samantha Jane Power (born September 21, 1970) is an American journalist, diplomat and government official who is currently serving as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development. She previously served as the 28th ...

, United States Ambassador to the United Nations; Benjamin B. Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen trial at

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

;

Luis Moreno Ocampo Luis Moreno OcampoMoreno Ocampo's surnames are often hyphenated in English-language media to mark Moreno as a surname, not a given name. (born 4 June 1952) is an Argentine lawyer who served as the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Co ...

, first Prosecutor of the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals f ...

; and Emmanuel Uwurukundo, head of operations for refugee camps in Chad set up by the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...

in the

War in Darfur The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups bega ...

. The film is based on Power's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ''

A Problem from Hell ''"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide'' (2002) is a book by American Samantha Power, at that time Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, which explores the United States's underst ...

''. The film discusses several instances of

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...

throughout history, including the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...

, the

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed H ...

, the

, and the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, among others. It features an extensive interview with former journalist and United States Ambassador to the United Nations

, as well as discussions with former ICC prosecutor

Reception

The film received positive response from critics. ''Dennis Harvey'', in his review for

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

, wrote that "Edet Belzberg's sweeping survey of global genocide is an impressive and artful cinematic thesis of palpable substance." ''Duane Byrge'' of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'' gave the film positive review and said that "An exhaustive, complex look at genocide with a sobering and historically predictable prognosis." ''Steve Greene'' from

Indiewire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...

, in his review, wrote that "As a documentary, "Watchers of the Sky” shows how even capturing that progress is a monumental task in itself." ''Amber Wilkinson'', in her review for Eye for Film, gave the film four stars out of four and said that "There is quite a lot of onscreen reading to be done as well as watching, but the passages of Lemkin that Belzberg chooses are always well-illustrated either by the animation or archival footage." ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'' called it "fiery" and "essential" and ''Joshua Brunsting'' of Criterioncast.com named it one of 2014's best and said it was "a tour-de-force." The film did also receive the Cinema for Peace Award for Justice in 2016.

Accolades

References

External links

Official website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Watchers of the Sky 2014 films 2014 documentary films American documentary films Sundance Film Festival award winners Documentary films about genocide Documentary films about law Works about the International Criminal Court 2010s English-language films 2010s American films