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Bio:

Fabienne Lips-Dumas is an internationally awarded producer, director, writer and journalist. In 2015, she wrote and directed a feature documentary for ARTE, RTBF and YLE on the proliferation and the legacy of chemical weapons arsenals, În addition to being broadcasted by channels worldwide, Winds of Chemical Warfare has been shown at the United Nations and OPCW. Ms. Lips–Dumas’  also produced and directed Noir Soleil, a documentary on the impoverished community of Cité Soleil in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Her award winning feature documentary, Children of Armageddon exposes the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific, and discusses the risks of proliferation. Children of Armageddon received multiple awards including the International Federation for Human Rights Award, the Golden Palm in Mexico, the Audience Award at the Kansas International Film Festival, the Grand Prize in Port-Neuf, and the Outstanding Feature Documentary Award at the Non-violent Film festival. She has authored a film on science and religion with the National Film Board of Canada, and among others two films on the Pacific Northwest and the Arctic. Born in Paris, France, she  became a filmmaker in Vancouver, Canada where she lived for many years before moving  to Washington DC.

Title: Indifference and the issues that never go away

Abstract:

One of the main challenges of making a film about weapons of mass destruction is to energize a public that seems to find the subject lacks novelty or belongs to another era. Although  the threat posed by nuclear and chemical  weapons  has been  covered, this threat has not dissipated. It has even materialized.  Here, the mission of the documentary filmmaker is to refresh our collective memory and add relevance despite a media saturated world.  My experience making Winds of Chemical Warfare and Children of Armageddon has given me a strong baseline to highlight this challenge. Each time, it was essential that both films appeal to a large public and when possible, a younger audience  because those issues are also the legacy to another generation.