Experiencing the brand-new “Alternate Realities” programme at this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest—the UK’s largest documentary film festival—was dizzying and diverse. Following on from Sundance and Cannes, which have recently made their first serious forays into virtual reality, Doc/Fest curators put 12 major VR and other interactive projects into their programme this year.
Twenty-three years since Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, he hasn’t stopped collecting testimonies of firsthand accounts from Holocaust survivors.
Today, these stories and more, totaling 53,000 tales of horror and survival, have been documented and archived at the USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education, which Spielberg founded, housed at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
In the 1990s, the USC Shoah Foundation conducted video interviews with thousands of Holocaust survivors, so that their stories are never forgotten. The nonprofit's digital library currently houses 53,000 video testimonies, and in recent years has expanded to capture testimony from those who witnessed the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide, the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, and the Armenian Genocide that coincided with World War I.
The USC Shoah Foundation announced Wednesday it is broadening access to its archive of genocide testimony by partnering with a technology company that connects researchers at universities, libraries, schools and organizations around the world. Starting immediately, ProQuest will become the exclusive distributor of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education’s Visual History Archive to colleges and universities around the world, except in China, according to foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith.
Nearly 80 years later, Liu Suzhen could still recall her ordeal. And when she did, her ruddy cheeks burned. She shielded her face with chapped, swollen fingers as though Japanese bombers were zooming down as she spoke. "My neighborhood was among the last to fall. When the sirens sounded, my aunt and I'd run and duck inside the bunker," said Liu, now 84, leaning on her dragon-head walking stick. "This is the history that my granddaughter has been passing on to her son."
ABINAL, Guatemala (AP) — Juan Chen Chen lit up as he recalled a childhood spent romping in the Guatemalan countryside, playing soccer and spinning tops while his parents harvested maize and squash. But his voice turned somber and his eyes wandered blankly to focus on a nonexistent horizon as he described the events of March 1980, when the army came to town. Chen managed to hide, but others weren’t so lucky.
The Schindler’s List director and founder of the USC Shoah Foundation explains why we must confront the origins of hate with new focus and new tools
Seventy years ago, the Holocaust ended. Only 11 people who lived through it remain from the world of entertainment. Now, in gripping video testimonies, Oscar winners, actors, Dr Ruth and even Judy Garland's hairstylist tell their personal stories, filled with hope and horror, one last time and their themes of genocide, displacement and discrimination continue to resonate today.
More survivors of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre will be interviewed this year as part of a collaborative oral history being jointly conducted by Chinese and US research instititutes.
Neuroscientists have mapped how the human brain experiences gratitude by using the testimony of Holocaust survivors Experts used recordings of victims from archives to test and track the emotions in people who had no personal connections to mass slaughter of Jews.
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the end of the civil war in Guatemala. During the conflict that spanned more than 3 decades, tens of thousands of indigenous Mayans were killed in what is known as the "Guatemalan Genocide." Researchers are now collecting video testimonies of the survivors to preserve their memories of what happened. Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith appears on Spotlight on the News to discuss the Institute's upcoming gala in Detroit with host Chuck Stokes. Smith's segment begins at the 16-minute mark.
On Sept. 10 at a fund-raising gala at The Henry Ford museum, film maker Steven Spielberg will present the 2015 "Ambassador for Humanity" award to Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor, on behalf of the USC Shoah Foundation, which uses visual testimonies from survivors to educate people about the Holocaust and other genocides.
"If you have a story you want future generations to hear, you can always write a memoir. But modern technology is on the verge of enabling a much richer experience: a holographic display that makes it appear as if you're in the room with the viewer, and a life's worth of stories available for the asking.That's the promise of the University of Southern California's New Dimensions in Testimony project, and while the recording process is strenuous, the results are remarkable."
Snow brings a strange silence. No more so than in the vastness of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where on Jan. 27 we all began several months of remembering the unfolding of the liberation of the Nazi camps 70 years ago. That day, I walked alongside Los Angeles resident Dario Gabbai in the soft glow of candles and the shuffle of feet in freshly fallen snow.