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Seventh Annual Festival

03:55 min
Documentary
Producer: WITNESS, The American Friends Service Committee, ACLU

Winner of the Immigration Award
Sponsored by SEIU

FILMMAKER BIOS

WITNESS, Producer

WITNESS was founded in 1992 by musician and activist Peter Gabriel and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation as a project of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). Today, WITNESS is an independent nonprofit organization with offices in Brooklyn, New York, and human rights partners based around the world.

WITNESS partners fight for the rights of indigenous people, for an end to systemic gender violence and the use of children as soldiers, and for environmental protection where human communities are at stake. They work with diverse groups from all over the world, carefully selecting their partners based on the strength of their human rights work and the clarity of their mission. Using video to enhance their campaigns, they make sure their voices are heard. Even more importantly, they help empower these groups by mobilizing a response to right the wrongs they document.

Pedro Rios, Co-Producer

Pedro is the Program Director at AFSC, San Diego. Pedro’s office helps lead Project Voice, an AFSC initiative designed to strengthen the voices of immigrant-led organizations in setting the national agenda for immigration policy and immigrants’ rights. Project Voice combines local and national organizing, education, and outreach campaigns to foster a fuller integration of immigrants and refugees in their new communities and to achieve a strategic impact on immigration policy in the United States.

Ray Ybarra, Co-Producer

Ray was named as one of six Ira Glasser Racial Justice Fellow by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2005. He focused on documenting the actions of vigilantes, including intimidation, physical abuse, and the unlawful imprisonment of border crossers and worked with AFSC and WITNESS to produce Rights on the Line. He is currently finishing his degree at Standford Law School where he has been recognized as a Public Interest Fellow, an Allen E. Broussard Scholar, a recipient of a Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) Law School Scholarship. Ray works to defend the civil rights of Latino communities across the nation.

Tamaryn Nelson, Co-Producer

Tamaryn is the Program Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean at WITNESS. She has experience working at NGOs and inter-governmental agencies in both the Americas and Africa. Prior to WITNESS, Tamaryn served as the Secretariat Coordinator for the Inter-American Coalition for the Prevention of Violence and previously worked at the Center for Justice and International Law, an NGO primarily dedicated to bringing human rights cases before the Inter-American System of Human Rights. Tamaryn has a degree in International Relations from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. A native of Brazil, she speaks fluent Portuguese, Spanish and English.