Jane I. Wells

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Jane I. Wells
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Documentary filmmaker
Activist

Jane I. Wells is a documentary filmmaker and activist [1] whose films focus on global human rights and social justice issues. [2] She has produced over 40 short films including the award-winning shorts I'm a Victim, Not a Criminal (2010), Lost Hope (2012) and Native Silence (2013). [1] She is also a producer of the feature documentary films The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), Tricked (2013), A Different American Dream (2016), [3] [4] and Lost in Lebanon (2017).

Contents

Career

In 2005 Wells became involved with The Devil Came on Horseback a feature-length documentary about the genocide in Darfur. [5] Ultimately she became a producer of the film, travelling to Darfur with her son to bear witness to the state of affairs.

In 2007, she founded 3 Generations, a non-profit organization that uses film to document stories of witness to crimes against humanity, through documentary film, oral history, witness testimony and creative writing. [6] Wells' articles on genocide and human rights have appeared in British Vogue, [7] Diversion [8] and Weston. [9] She is a regular guest blogger on the Huffington Post [1] and the HUB. [10]

Wells has said that making films that document crimes against humanity is “deeply connected to the family heritage”. [2] Her father, Sidney Bernstein, filmed the liberation of concentration camps at the end of World War II. [11] Wells has said that it was her father's greatest regret that the footage was never shown publicly, as he hoped it would serve as evidence for mankind of these atrocities. [2]

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Throughout the ongoing Darfur genocide in the Darfur war there has been a systematic campaign of rape, which has been used as a weapon of war, in the ethnic cleansing of black Africans from the region. The majority of rapes have been carried out by the Sudanese government forces and the Janjaweed paramilitary groups. The actions of the Janjaweed have been described as genocidal rape, with not just women, but children also being raped, as well as babies being bludgeoned to death and the sexual mutilation of victims being commonplace.

<i>Tricked</i> (film) 2013 American film

Tricked: The Documentary is a 2013 American documentary film directed by John-Keith Wasson and Jane Wells. It documents human sex trafficking, and its presence within the United States, from the perspectives of the victims involved in sex trafficking, the “johns” who pay for the sex and the pimps responsible for instigating the illegal business. It was produced by 3 Generations and distributed by First Run Features in Canada and the United States.

3 Generations is a non-profit documentary film production company based in New York City.

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The Darfur genocide is the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people which has occurred during the ongoing conflict in western Sudan. It has become known as the first genocide of the 21st century. The genocide, which is being carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, has led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.

Ricki Stern is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, most known for her documentarian work, and author. She works alongside Anne Sundberg. She is most known for The Trials of Darryl Hunt (2006), The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), The End of America (2007), Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010), Surviving Jeffrey Epstein (2020), and Surviving Death (2021).

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Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. It is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) of 1948 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group's conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Jane Wells". Huffington Post. Retrieved 26 June 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 Izikovich, Gili (17 July 2014). "Hitchcock's secret horror film of the Holocaust". Haaretz .
  3. The Devil Came on Horseback at IMDb
  4. Jane I. Wells at IMDb
  5. Steidle, Brian and Wells, Jane. Kathleen Dunn. Kathleen Dunn. Wisconsin Public Radio. October 18, 2007.
  6. Bruce Northam. "Helping Rwanda." June 10, 2008. Forbes Best Traveler.
  7. “Eye Witness.” Vogue (British). October 2005: 141-142.
  8. “A Doctor’s Life: Dedication in Darfur.” Diversion. August 2006: 24-26.
  9. “Three Generations: Is Bearing Witness Genetic?” Weston. Summer 2008: 153 – 157.
  10. Jane Wells on the HUB
  11. "Piece » Like Father, Like Daughter (Voices on Genocide Prevention)". PRX. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 26 June 2010.