'Watchers of the Sky' looks at high-profile figures working against genocide
Edet Belzberg鈥檚 documentary 鈥淲atchers of the Sky,鈥� which was a decade in the聽making, reclaims the reputation of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Holocaust聽refugee who not only coined the term 鈥済enocide鈥� but also invented聽the concept of categorizing mass murder as an international crime. He聽asked, 鈥淲hy is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of聽an individual?鈥澛�
Lemkin died in 1959 in obscurity, but his dogged efforts聽while he was still alive led to the creation of the International Criminal聽Court in The Hague. Belzberg profiles the ongoing efforts of four of聽Lemkin鈥檚 spiritual heirs: Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of聽the ICC; Ben Ferencz, a former US prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials聽who still lobbies at the United Nations for an end to genocide; Rwandan 贰尘尘补苍耻别濒听鲍飞耻谤耻办耻苍诲辞, UN Refugee Agency field director in Chad, whose dispassionate聽account of the massacre of his family is beyond comprehension; and聽Samantha Power, whose prize-winning book, 鈥淎 Problem From Hell,鈥澛爄s the template for much of this film鈥檚 discussion. Belzberg intercuts聽interviews with these people with archival footage of Lemkin and the聽atrocities he witnessed as well as modern ones he would have been聽aghast to observe. Grade:聽A- (Unrated.)聽
