Have you added the International Day of Peace to your list of activities? Peace Day is celebrated every September 21, an important commemoration in which people around the world are expected to “give peace a chance”.
Anyone, anywhere, can celebrate Peace Day. Some people join marches, forums, festivals or local events. Others prefer to celebrate privately, from the comfort of their own home. If this is the case for you, a documentary film marathon may be a great option.
In the following selection of documentaries, I have chosen sobering productions that invite us to reflect on the meaning of peace and our role in creating a more harmonious and tolerant world. Here are the must-see titles for this occasion:
Peace One Day (2004)
Director: Jeremy Gilley
After leaving acting in 1999, Jeremy Gilley dedicated the next few years of his life to establishing a year of ceasefire one day. Peace One Day portrays the British filmmaker and activist’s efforts at the United Nations to achieve the sanctioning of an official day of non-violence and world peace.
This 2004 documentary follows Gilley through a whirlwind of activities and relentless negotiations with UN officials. For more than five years, Jeremy Gilley met with heads of state, Nobel Peace Laureates, freedom fighters, media representatives and virtually anyone at the UN willing to consider his idea of discussing the possibility of renouncing all forms of violence for 24 hours.
Peace One Day features testimonials from the Dalai Lama, Judi Dench, John Mills, Kofi Annan (then UN Secretary General), among others; during 2001, activist Jeremy Gilley’s initiative resulted in the UN resolution to commemorate September 21 each year as the International Day of Peace.
One Peace at a Time (2009)
Director: Turk Pipkin
There is no doubt that all kinds of calamities are happening in the world. In this context, it is inevitable that we ask: what can we do to contribute to change? The documentary One Peace at a Time tells the story of the enthusiastic activist Turk Pipkin, who embarks on a global journey to explore how each country solves its most immediate problems.
One Peace at a Time is a thoughtful feature film that highlights solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. The film includes the views of Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate in Physics Steven Chu (Secretary of Energy under former U.S. President Barack Obama), Dr. Helene Gayle (Executive Director of CARE International), a special appearance by American legend Willie Nelson and many others.
Shot in 20 countries, the documentary explores powerful ideas about how to improve the world. Turk Pipkin, an actor, writer and filmmaker from Texas, organizes the production around the idea that children everywhere deserve the basic rights of water, nutrition, education, health care, opportunity, shelter and peace.
One Peace at a Time is brimming with good suggestions on how to participate in the world’s solutions. The documentary aims to inspire, and it succeeds.
Nostalgia for the light (2010)
Original Title: Nostalgia de la Luz
Director: Patricio Guzmán
For decades, the stories of Chilean master Patricio Guzman have been a powerful weapon against indifference and social injustice in his native country.
His piece Nostalgia for the Light, distinguished in Cannes, Abu Dhabi and Biarritz, has been considered an astonishing reflection on the impact of historical memory on the preservation of peace.
This feature-length documentary takes us to the Atacama Desert, “the driest non-polar place on earth,” and explores the painful connection between this natural region and Chile’s military dictatorship.
In this sense, the Atacama Desert is the place where astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent that astronomers examine the most distant and ancient galaxies. At the same time, Atacama is also the place where people search for the remains of political prisoners, “disappeared” after the military coup of 1973.
The film uses astronomy as its main metaphor to delve into Chile’s traumatic and unresolved past. In this scenario, mothers, wives and sisters search, even after twenty-five years, for the remains of their loved ones, with the desire to recover and bring closure to the history of their families.
Nostalgia for the light is a deeply personal, intelligent, poetic and, painfully political feature film. Guzmán’s work underscores the idea that no people can maintain peace if it lends itself to forgetting its tragedies.
Teatro de Guerra (2018)
Director: Lola Arias
Teatro de Guerra (War Theater) is an unpredictable and innovative proposal, based on the multi-award winning play Campo Minado (Minefield). The first documentary by Argentine Lola Arias crosses reality with fiction, achieving one of the most unprejudiced works of contemporary Argentine cinema.
More than thirty years after the Falklands War, the documentary filmmaker brings together three British and three Argentine veterans to reconstruct their war experiences and explore the meaninglessness of the battle.
The particularity of this piece is that by bringing together the “two sides” on the same stage, the ex-combatants question each other, while at the same time questioning the spectator about the war and the “enemy”. These men act, recite, sing, and draw from their entrails the traumas of the war.
Part Theater, part video installation, part experimental, Teatro de Guerra is a feature-length documentary of great emotional and narrative power. This work re-examines the Falklands conflict and teaches important lessons about the culture of peace.
Fragmentos (2019)
Director: Mayte Carrasco
After the peace agreements in Colombia, the national government entrusted the prestigious sculptor Doris Salcedo with an important task: she was asked to design a work of art with 37 tons of weapons handed over by the FARC guerrillas.
The intention of this work is to avoid the oblivion of an armed conflict that stopped the reconciliation of Colombia for several decades; it is then when the artist decides to invite 20 women victims of sexual violence by armed groups and make them co-participants in the creative project.
The documentary Fragmentos (Fragments) by Mayte Carrasco portrays the process of elaboration of the counter-monument or memorial by sculptor Doris Salcedo. In this regard, the production not only records the path and the casting of the FARC rifles, but also shows the catharsis of the victims who forged the metal.
“Weapons are no longer over us, now we tread on them and so we tread on pain. For days, we hammered this metal to mark the symbolic end of the relationship of power imposed by weapons,” commented a woman from the Network of Women Victims and Professionals, who supported this development.
This documentary seeks to raise global awareness of the opportunities created by peace processes, such as the one in Colombia.
Ahimsa – Gandhi: The Power of the Powerless (2021)
Director: Ramesh Sharma
Gandhi has left an indelible mark on the history of mankind. His thought is always relevant to all those who aspire for a better world.
Ahimsa – Gandhi: The Power of the Powerless chronicles the impact of Gandhi’s message of Nonviolence around the world. Ramesh Sharma’s film aims to capture the influence of Gandhi’s ideas on the major global movements that have arisen over time.
In this way, the film highlights how Gandhi’s teachings inspired great activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, among others.
It is worth adding that, the documentary was produced to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Indian lawyer, civil rights activist and politician (October 2, 2019). At the time, the release of Ahimsa – Gandhi: The Power of the Powerless was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Image: Zaur Ibrahimov