Past Events Archive

Join us for the launch of Democracy on Screen — a film series presented as part of the Ford School's Resilient Democracies initiative. This series celebrates the role of storytelling and creative expression in shaping, challenging, and expanding our understanding of democracy and civic empowerment. Through powerful films, we’ll explore how everyday people and grassroots movements drive change, amplify marginalized voices, and reimagine what democracy can be.

Shin Godzilla is a 2016 Japanese action film that reimagines the classic monster as an endlessly evolving, disaster-causing force. Unlike many Godzilla films that focus on the monster-versus-monster spectacle, this entry is a chilling political satire, with the central conflict revolving around the Japanese government's bureaucratic, slow, and inadequate response to the crisis. The narrative unfolds with a palpable sense of escalating dread, emphasizing how political indecision and red tape can compound a disaster, making the human element a reflection of real-world anxieties rather than just a dramatic subplot.

In Argentina alone, 30,000 persons were forcibly disappeared, and 500 children were taken from women in detention and placed with families favorable to the military regime. During this time, Chilean Dictator, Augusto Pinochet, launched Operation Condor, a secret, multi-lateral counter-intelligence program that came to include military governments in Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador. Their collaborations led to hundreds of international kidnappings, torture, and assassinations of civilians, human rights activists and political refugees within the region, U.S., and Europe. Yet, through a combination of domestic resistance and mobilization by activists and international pressure, countries like Chile and Argentina transitioned to not only thriving democracies, but global leaders in human rights education.

Join us to learn from Chilean activist and Manager of Archives at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile, Juan Carlos Vega Briones and the former Executive Director of the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory of Argentina, Mayki Gorosito.

Event presentations are in Spanish with English translation.


Co-sponsors:
Donia Human Rights Center, Center for Emerging Democracies, University of Michigan Global Engagement, Office of the Provost.

Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Email: -- [email protected]

Vladimir Kara-Murza, Russian politician, author, historian, and former political prisoner, will receive the 2025 Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan on November 4th at 4:30PM in Rackham Auditorium. A close colleague of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, he served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian Parliament. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, Kara-Murza played a key role in the adoption of Magnitsky sanctions against top Russian officials by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia. Magnitsky sanctions are governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. For this work he was twice poisoned and left in a coma; a joint media investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel has determined that officers of the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) were behind the attacks.

In April 2022, Kara-Murza was arrested in Moscow for publicly denouncing the invasion of Ukraine and war crimes committed by Russian forces. Following a closed-door trial at the Moscow City Court, he was sentenced to 25 years for “high treason” and kept in solitary confinement at a maximum-security prison in Siberia. He was released in August 2024 as part of the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War negotiated by the U.S. and German governments.

Kara-Murza is a contributing writer at the Washington Post, winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his columns written from prison, and has previously worked for Echo of Moscow, BBC, RTVi, Kommersant, World Affairs, and other media organizations. He has directed three documentary films and is the author or contributor to several books on Russian history and politics.

Kara-Murza serves as vice-president at the Free Russia Foundation, as senior advisor at Human Rights First, and as senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal. He was the founding chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and has led successful international efforts to commemorate Nemtsov, including with street designations in Washington, D.C. and London. Kara-Murza is a recipient of several awards, including the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, and is an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

“Like Raoul Wallenberg, Vladimir Kara-Murza has dedicated his life to defending democracy and human rights, exhibiting extraordinary courage and vision,” said Sioban Harlow, chair of the Wallenberg Medal Executive Committee and Professor Emerita of Epidemiology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Global Public Health.

From animal rights activists to domestic violence awareness campaigns, to the thousands that took to the streets in cities throughout the island in July 2021, these activities have been organized and documented primarily through new independent digital means. Many young people, intellectuals and artists have developed a whole sector of unique digital spaces for national debate and dialogue to advocate for a more inclusive Cuba. Join us for a dialogue with Dr. Michaelanne Thomas (UMSI) and Harold Cárdenas Lema, co-founder and former director of one of the foremost digital spaces for Cubans by Cubans on the island, La Joven Cuba.

Accommodation: If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary, as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Email: -- [email protected]

Join us for the launch of Democracy on Screen — a film series presented as part of the Ford School's Resilient Democracies initiative. This series celebrates the role of storytelling and creative expression in shaping, challenging, and expanding our understanding of democracy and civic empowerment. Through powerful films, we’ll explore how everyday people and grassroots movements drive change, amplify marginalized voices, and reimagine what democracy can be.

The documentary film Slay the Dragon (2019) is about the history and destructive impact of partisan gerrymandering in the United States and the grassroots efforts to fight against it. The film highlights how gerrymandering—the manipulation of voting district maps to give one party an unfair advantage—has become an extreme threat to American democracy. It explores how a well-funded, coordinated initiative following the 2008 election used data analytics to redraw district lines with extreme precision, cementing a partisan advantage in many states for years to come.

Join us for the launch of Democracy on Screen — a film series presented as part of the Ford School's Resilient Democracies initiative. This series celebrates the role of storytelling and creative expression in shaping, challenging, and expanding our understanding of democracy and civic empowerment. Through powerful films, we’ll explore how everyday people and grassroots movements drive change, amplify marginalized voices, and reimagine what democracy can be.

TRUE FALSE HOT COLD is a documentary series about climate, beliefs and better conversations. Filmed in Emery County, Utah, a region with high levels of climate skepticism, the series features short episodes with candid interviews and slice-of-life vignettes of local residents, including farmers, ranchers, and coal miners, to understand their perspectives and find common ground. The goal is not necessarily to achieve agreement, but to practice empathy, curiosity, and dignity in conversations across divides.