FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE
“Now my family has tossed me into a fiery sea and I am being consumed by the flames” ...
Minara, Bangladesh
That’s what I find so tragic – the violence simply continues. Generation after generation, it goes on...
Maya, Germany
My mother said: You know that you're not allowed to call the police on family members here...
Yolande, Benin,
Yes, my children laughed at me, avoided me and said: “She’s not a human being any more,” and I avoided them and cried.
Nakatya / Vumilia, Democratic Republic of Congo
Asia, Africa, Europe – in Benin, in Bangladesh, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet also in the heart of Germany: violence against women is ever present. “For all the World to see” delves into the lives of women who have been subjected to horrific violence, yet managed to fight their way free. They talk about the violence that has been inflicted upon them, their struggle for survival, their hopes and fears and their current attempts to build a new life beyond the violence. They have taken the initiative, and defended themselves in spite of the tremendous danger they faced.
And the men? Many of them describe violence against women as a normal part of their everyday lives. If a woman has been hit, she deserved it. A woman with a mind of her own makes them afraid, and must not be allowed. If she defends herself, he threatens to take away her children and throw her out of the house – without anything...
The most frequent and most severe human rights abuses of our time are still committed against girls and women worldwide. Women aged between 15 and 45 are far more likely to be beaten to death or crippled by their husbands than to die from cancer or malaria or in a traffic accident or war. According to UNIFEM and WHO in some countries, up to 70 percent of all women are victims of physical or sexual abuse at least once in their lives – usually at the hands of their husband or partner.
The film shows clearly just how violence functions. Against a background of different cultures, ways of life and social systems, the universal similarities in the mechanisms and structures of violence against and power over women are illuminated, and their causes are analyzed. The eye-opening message is that, in many cases, the structures of violence that exist in Europe are no less relentless than in African and Asian countries.
Film-maker Claudia Schmid spends intense moments with the women as they confide extensively in her, uses her camera to follow the perspectives, movements and actions of her impressive protagonists as they break free of the ties that bind them, and captures images of their painful memories, their desires and dreams – always within the immediate emotional orbit of the female protagonists and, in some cases, the perpetrators. The worlds in which the women live are often illustrated through poetic imagery.
It is only the strength of the protagonists that allows them to break out of a multi-generational cycle of violence.
Minara, Nakatya, Vumilia, Maya and all of the others ... they have achieved nothing less than changing the world just a bit with their hard-earned self-confidence.
FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE
(Unter aller Augen)
Documentary, Germany 2017, 90’ / 52’ /45’
Script and direction: Claudia Schmid
Director of Photography: Claudia Schmid
Editor: Kawe Vakil
Production managers: Monika Mack, Rolf Bremenkamp
Producer: Birgit Schulz
Commissioning editors: Andrea Ernst / WDR, Angelika Wagner / WDR, Barbara Denz / NDR
A Bildersturm Filmproduktion production in co-production with WDR and NDR,
subsidized by the Film und Medienstiftung NRW
