The Humanitarian Lab | Cinémas du Grütli

The Humanitarian Lab is part of the public outreach project Beyond Compassion: Gender and Humanitarian action, funded by the University of Geneva and the Swiss National Science Foundation and organized by principal researcher Dolores Martín Moruno, and her research team Marie Leyder and Brenda Lynn Edgar (Institute for Ethics, History and the Humanities, University of Geneva). Theproject, composed of a series of public events and an exhibition at the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, aims to create a space in which science enthusiasts, humanities scholars, field experts and professionals can exchange and create new knowledge and understandings of gender issues in humanitarianism.

The Humanitarian Lab consists of a series of film screenings and round-table discussions held over four evenings. Aiming to bring public attention to films about women humanitarians made by women filmmakers it features three documentaries by the Swiss anthropologist-filmmaker Jacqueline Veuve (1930-2013), and another by American filmmaker Julia Newman. Gathering personal testimonies of women humanitarians, these documentaries bring to light the important contribution of women in different humanitarian actions of the Spanish War and the Second World War. Despite being crucial frontline workers who voluntarily risked their own lives to save others, these women, marginalized even at the time of their engagement, remained in the shadows of history until very recently. As such, these documentaries have an important historical value that testify to the political engagement of women, their awareness of critical issues such as the implications of the Spanish Civil War would have for the Second World War as well as the awareness of mass deportations at the very beginning of the Holocaust. Other potential discussion points could address what has changed, what has not, political powers and above all, gender issues in how messages get across.

Dates: 3, 7, and 8 April 2022.

Place: Events will be held at the Grütli Cinema Centre is a strategic public forum for reaching a broad, international and local public. Located in the heart of Geneva’s cultural district, just minutes from the opera, concert hall, art museum, historic Bastions Park and Geneva University, Grütli Cinema Centre also hosts the myriad of other film festivals that come to Geneva, including the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights.