Screening of the documentary Sea Sorrow followed by a discussion and Q&A with Vanessa Redgrave, Carlo Nero and Carlotta Sami. Moderated by Barbara Serra. Sea Sorrow marks Vanessa Redgrave’s deb...
Vanessa Redgrave
actress
Vanessa Redgrave is an Oscar, Golden Globe, Cannes Film Festival, Tony, and Olivier winning actress. Since 1990 she has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and for over three decades has produced numerous films, documentaries and events that deal with human rights and social justice issues, most notably: The Palestinians (1978); she supported the perestroika & glasnost of Mikhail Gorbachev and financed & produced the first visit to London of the Russian Jewish Theatre company Shalom (1988); in November 1989, when she was acting in Orpheus Descending in New York, she financed & produced a benefit concert The Wall Breaks with major American and Russian artists. In the 1990s she sought to help the children in the republics of former Yugoslavia with initiatives such as the production of a film about this war (Letters from New York to Sarajevo with Carlo Nero) based on a concert she produced in New York to help the children under siege in Sarajevo via UNICEF. She went to Kosovo before and after the Liberation to help the refugees. In 1998 she visited asylum seekers in many prisons in the United States under the sponsorship of Women’s Commissions for Refugees & Amnesty International. In 2001 she went to Moscow & then to Ingushetia to the refugee camps for the Chechens & Ingush.
Vanessa Redgrave and Carlo Nero made their first Dissent Projects documentary Russia/Chechnya: Voices of Dissent with the assistance of Russian filmmakers and human rights colleagues. In 2005 they raised the funds to make a film Wake Up World as a tribute to the work of UNICEF. This was shown in December 2006 at UNICEF House in New York.
In 2007 The Fever directed by Carlo Nero, based on the cult play by Wallace Shawn, was televised for a month by HBO Films. This film was co-produced by Vanessa, in which she played the main role, and garnered her a Screen Actors Guild award nomination for best actress.
In 2009 she produced & performed in her last fundraiser for UNICEF & UNRWA in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.
In 2010/11, with Carlo Nero, she co-produced the eco-documentary The Killing Fields. At the end of 2014 she returned to Sarajevo with Carlo Nero to screen their documentary Bosnia Rising.
In 2015 she co-produced Eyes of St John with Carlo Nero, a documentary for St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. It won ‘Best International Documentary’ at the London International Short Film Festival, along with ‘Best Shorts – Award of Excellence’ and the ‘Humanitarian Award – Outstanding Achievement’ at the Global Film Awards.
In 2016/17 she directed her first feature-length documentary Sea Sorrow, about the current international refugee crisis, which was officially selected for the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Rome Festa Del Cinema along with invitations from numerous other international film festivals. In 2018 it will be distributed in the US by Kino Lorber and in Italy by Officine UBU.
