Documentary on UK for Right makes festival debut in Amsterdam.

Exposing the Secret, Far Rightan investigative documentary on the work of British counter-extremist group Hope Not Hate, is finally getting its festival premiere, screening in the Front Light section of the 2024 International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IFDA).

Doctor of Havana Markings, which exposed the activities of a UK far-right network promoting “race science” and the support of Silicon Valley funder Andrew Conroe, was set to bow at the BFI London Film Festival last month but pulled out. Suddenly pulled from the schedule. The LFF cited safety concerns for audiences and staff. At the heart of the film were fears of reprisals by far-right factions.

“I found it very disappointing,” says the director of marking. “It was fear before anything happened. There was no real threat, just fear that something might happen. As the right wing emboldens, these things are becoming more and more common, people are more are becoming more and more fearful.”

secret Made over two years, Marking followed Hope Not Hate activists as they infiltrated far-right movements. The film explores how extremists mainstream their pseudo-scientific claims of racial superiority with violence, threats or real, sophisticated social media campaigns. The Channel 4-backed documentary, which airs in the UK on October 21, has had a real-world impact. Andrew Conroe pulled his support for the Human Diversity Foundation after it was revealed he had donated more than $1 million to the eugenicist research group. Extremist influencer Stephen Christopher Yaxley Lennon, aka Tommy Robinson, a British anti-Islam campaigner, was convicted based on evidence submitted by Hope Not Hate. He is currently serving 18 months in prison.

But talking to him The Hollywood Reporter ahead secretMarking, IFDA’s premier, said the growing power of far-right political parties in the US and Europe could make it harder to finance and release such documentaries in the future. “Public service broadcasters are becoming more risk-averse and worried about upsetting anyone in government if they lose their funding,” she says.

How has the reception of your film changed after Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections?

It’s a really interesting question because we’re trying to get this film into American film festivals and find an American buyer. And that expectation about it has completely changed. [following the election] And it seems unlikely that it will be sold in the US now. It’s been that way for a few years, actually, since the first Trump administration. Public service broadcasters are more risk averse and worry about offending anyone in government if they lose their funding.

Do you see a big difference between Europe and America on this front? Some European festivals now seem to be presenting themselves as “political resistance” to Trump and the far right.

Yes, there is some of that and it’s really interesting. Realizing again that we need to double down, that [political] Movies are now more important than ever. But with European film festivals, it depends on where they’re getting their funding from. I know, anecdotally, that some small festivals in East Germany, for example, where now they [far-right] The AfD party in charge of municipal state funding, that they are getting more nervous. It’s like going both ways. We are premiering. secret The IDFA and the Netherlands now have a far-right government, but the IDFA is very supportive of our film and is excited to show it, they feel it was absolutely necessary in the current times.
The environment in which they are.

Your film was supposed to premiere in London but was pulled at the last minute…

Yes, we had a situation where our film was funded by the BFI and the Doctor’s Society here, and we got a lot of support, but then the London Film Festival pulled us for safety reasons, which I Found it very disappointing. There was fear before anything happened. There was no real danger, just fear that something might happen. As the right wing emboldens, these things are becoming more common, people are becoming more and more fearful.

We’ve seen it at other film festivals, films being pulled out for fear of protests or disruption. Do you worry about a general risk-aversion policy on film themes, a kind of pre-censorship, to ensure there is no threat of violence?

This was our biggest fear with LFF, it might mean that they would now be afraid to even choose a film like ours in the first place. Ultimately, London Film Festival is not like IDFA or Sheffield Documentary Festival, which are basically doc festivals, they understand political films, they understand how to deal with horror, they know which places are safe. And which ones aren’t. The London Film Festival is more than a celebrity-led, red-carpet festival. I think it took them by surprise, and they just didn’t know how to deal with it. I hope that going forward, they will learn from the experience and put protocols in place to ensure that these films are not silenced.

Your film had real-world consequences. Andrew Conroe pulled his Human Diversity Foundation funding, and Tommy Robinson went to jail. But with the far-right winning the election, do you think naming and shaming can still have the same effect? Now we have the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, openly supporting Donald Trump, speaking far-right and seemingly unashamedly.

Yes, it’s an interesting and quite scary one. What’s really interesting about the far right is that they speak in code. Tommy Robinson is very clever at putting on a front and not actually saying what Hilo really thinks. Elon Musk has drawn his line in the sand where he stands politically, but he’ll still claim he’s not a racist. What our film and our journalism does is expose a lot of people who claim to be “just patriots”. who claim to be “just scientists”. We debunk these claims and show the real opinion behind it. In the film, the journalist, Harry Schickman, captures her on a hidden camera. There is no denying it. There is no “fake news” in it. There is no pretense that the film is biased. He said what he thought.

A lot of what Trump is saying is mirrored in the film – his constant saying that Kamala [Harris] He has a low IQ, he’s talking about Malik’s genes and being poisoned — these are straight-up eugenics dog whistles that I don’t think people in the wider world really understand. They are heavily coded dog whistles. It’s a movie, now it’s up to journalists to cut through the layers and expose what people think behind closed doors. That’s all we can do.

My own moral courage, my backbone, has been strengthened in making this film, because there is a real moral clarity in this case. From my perspective, you cannot be neutral about racism. You cannot be neutral about Islamophobia or antisemitism. The courage of the people in our film is the moral courage we need to demand from our institutions, our film festivals, our funders. This is not the time to wring your hands. It’s time to put things into practice.

The response to our film has been incredible. Five stars from us The Guardianleft-leaning press, and five stars from the Telegraph, which leans right. The audience response and engagement has amazed us all. Funders are more scared, but audiences are more daring than ever, they want to see these things.