J Paul Johnson
Director Marcus Vetter’s newest film, War and Justice, goes behind the scenes at an institution very few have witnessed in action: The International Criminal Court, or ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, where crimelords, warmongers, and traffickers stand trial. It is the single international court with jurisdiction to prosecute international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. There, the stakes are high, and though convictions may be few and far between, its mission is to bring to justice those who commit crimes against humanity.
Vetter is a veteran filmmaker who has mined similar terrain in his multiple award-winning documentaries. Since 1994 he has been working as a TV editor, producer, and director at ARD/SWR in Baden-Baden and Stuttgart. His films have received attention at national and international film festivals and won numerous prizes, including three Adolf Grimme Awards (the German equivalent of the Emmy), and the German Film Prize (the German equivalent of the Oscar). his films include The Tunnel (1999), My Father the Turk (2006), Cinema Jenin–The Story of a Dream (2011), The Court (2012), The Promise/Killing for Love (2017), and The Forum (2017).
Upon the theatrical release of War and Justice, Vetter spoke with Film Obsessive publisher J Paul Johnson about its production and its subject, the International Criminal Court. The transcript following below the video has been edited for space and clarity.
Film Obsessive: Marcus, the ICC, the International Criminal Court, is a 26-year-old institution. It’s one that has a difficult challenge in front of it in prosecuting international war crimes. Where and when did you become involved in or aware of their work for your film?
Marcus Vetter: Actually, I was directing another film, which is called the Heart of Jenin, which is about a Palestinian father, whose son was shot down by the Israeli Army and who then decided to donate his son’s organs to Israeli children instead of seeking revenge. And in 2009, I was premiering that film at the Cinema for Peace Gala where Luis Moreno Ocampo, the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, was invited. And he saw the film and he was so touched by it that he afterwards, he called me and asked me to come to The Hague.
And the reason why he was touched by it is because a delegation of Palestinians was at his office and in 2008 and 2009, there was already a Gaza war. I was witnessing it because I was refurbishing a cinema back then in Jenin in Palestine in the West Bank. And so the delegation came came to him and asked for intervention of the ICC. But as Palestine wasn’t a state, was not recognized as a state by then, the ICC couldn’t do anything. Moreno Ocampo was evaluating with his team the Palestinian case. And that’s why he was so touched by that man, by that father who reconciliated instead of seeking revenge. And so that’s exactly breaking the vicious cycle of violence is as well the task of the ICC. Those people who were asking for a criminal court for prevention and for holding accountable heads of state who commit war crimes instead of getting away with impunity was the main goal of the ICC. It’s about breaking the vicious cycle of violence.
That’s why he (Moreno Ocampo) asked me what I what I could do because he thought I’m a Palestinian specialist, and I said, okay, the only thing I can do is make a film about the ICC. And the first time when I went to The Hague to meet him, the taxi driver didn’t even know where the ICC was. So this was exactly in 1998, when the ICC was first established. In 2009, I was visiting the first time and nobody knew back then about the ICC. In 2013, we eventually had first film [about it] called The Court, and it was exactly like that. People weren’t interested because the ICC back then, I mean, they [were prosecuting] African leaders. One of them is Thomas Lubanga, who committed war crimes in the Congo, who is also part of the film. But the big countries, the the mighty countries, never accepted the ICC like the US or India or China. So people felt that it was considered as a teethless tiger. And but that has changed now.
And this is why this film is so important for me right now, with the arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin or a possible looming arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu and also against the Hamas leaders. Suddenly the people, especially in the West, they feel that it’s affecting them. The war is affecting us. It’s much nearer. And this is why suddenly interest in that court is it’s so much bigger, and the film is covering that.
And Moreno Ocampo becomes a primary subject or informant, if you will, in your film, and you’ve spent a lot of time with him. I take it over the course of filming. How would you characterize him?
He’s a fearless person. I would I would characterize him as someone fearless. At the same time, of course, he could be characterized as Argentinian Macho, maybe, which is which is his character and I love it. I mean, for any feature fiction film, you would say, that’s exactly the character you would want to have. For a documentary, some people may say, he’s too much or too full of himself. Maybe someone would say, but I think that’s what you needed exactly in that moment because he’s very open minded. He accepts everybody in his office. He was actually accepting us as a film team, as my film team was very young because they were all volunteers from the Cinema Jenin project. So they were very, very young, and he loved that young team.
He was the prosecutor in the in the Junta trial in Argentina. And he was working with a group of very, very young young lawyers. There’s a fiction film called Argentina, 1985, and in that film, that’s the subject matter, why he was actually working with such young people. So imagine when we were there was a group of lawyers from the ICC when they saw the film the first time and they were they were not always happy because the film is showing some very intimate moments. But Luis Moreno Ocampo always said, that’s art. I mean, you have to accept it. That’s what these guys are telling and it’s no problem. He was very, very open minded.
You see there is a scene, for example, when we are driving in a taxi in New York, when Moreno Ocampo is having his decision about not accepting the Palestinian case and handing it over to the United Nations Assembly. We were witnessing exactly that very moment in the taxi. And he didn’t want to give it over to Fatou Bensouda, the next prosecutor. He wanted that [it was] a hot potato, how we call it. He wanted to take the decision himself. So witnessing these key moments is so essential for a documentary, where you’re promising your audience really to look behind doors in order to understand certain things.
And I know for a fact that each prosecutor is defining the ICC. The ICC for itself, it is defined by its chief prosecutor. So you have a Luis Moreno Ocampo eight years. Then you have a Fatou Bensouda, another eight years. And now you have a Karim Khan from England, who is now the current prosecutor. I would say that each of these prosecutors has own character and is defining the ICC. So the ICC is not an anonymous institution, it’s defined by its people. And this is why I always think even though the ICC has flaws, of course, and the film is showing that clearly there are flaws, and I see those flaws, but it’s the best institution we have.
There are 123 member states, but two thirds are from the Global South. One side often says the court is biased, and then the other side says, the court is biased when an arrest warrant from the other side is coming. I think the court is not finished. It’s not a finished institution. It’s evolving, and it’s going with the audience, with the people with the societies. I think there was never a moment when the people in the world could understand that this is really an important institution which could make a difference.
Do you think that there is a chance that in the future the ICC will gain greater acceptance worldwide? You mentioned that there are key countries who are not participating and will not participate in the ICC—Russia, China, India, the United States, obviously. Do you foresee a future in which they might?
You see it depends. It depends. So first of all, with war crime, crimes against humanity and genocide, you don’t need all the countries to accept the ICC, the mighty countries. They will be held accountable even so they haven’t accepted and ratified the ICC. With the war of aggression, meaning to start a war, it’s different because here both sides, the attacker, so the one who is attacking country and the attack one have to be member states of the ICC. Here mighty countries can escape from being held responsible.
But with war crimes, genocide and war and crimes against humanity, this is not the case. The mighty countries, like you see now with Benjamin Netanyahu or (Vladimir) Putin, they can’t get away. So meaning they cannot travel to one of those 123 countries who have accepted the ICC. They can travel to other countries when there is no execution of those rights. If the mighty countries in the future would accept, I think it depends thoroughly if the ICC is perceived as a neutral institution. And the film shows that very clearly: we have there a Pakistani taxi driver who is who’s driving Moreno Ocampo when he’s going when he’s traveling to The Hague. And the taxi driver puts the finger in the wound because clearly he’s defining the flaws.
And yes, exactly, the flaws are that the mighty countries haven’t accepted it. And what can you do if they haven’t accepted it? So it’s all about the perception of neutrality of the court. This is what’s in my eyes: what is it all about? And once the world sees that they have a stake in it, that they can play a part in it, that that those 123 countries they could change the Rome statute, for example, and change, um this little thing, how Luis Moreno Ocampo is calling it, which have to be changed that, for example, a country that is attacking another one in a crime of aggression is held accountable. So those 123 countries, they have it in their hands, possibly to be free of such constraints.
You mentioned the courts taking up the question of genocide. And I’m reminded of the presence of the former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz in your film, too, who is a remarkable man, and you have footage from his work during those trials in the early 1960s. And I would just like you to speak to your work with him in the film as well.
Oh, Ben Ferencz is such an incredible personality. Unfortunately, he passed away within the three last year, but we were really very connected to each other. And what is remarkable, I mean, he he was working all his life to let the world know that that the biggest war crime is the war itself. And he is explaining it because there is no war without atrocities. There is no “just” war. There is no ethical war because you will you will always commit atrocities in a war. That’s the nature of war. So he was of he was always promoting to stop wars at all costs.
And with diplomacy, his idea was to stop it with having justice prevail. Because you have always victims, and once they’re victimized, they want to revenge or they want to do something with their trauma. And one thing is revenge. But revenge lead begets more revenge and violence begets more violence. So he was of the belief that with a mutual and just institution, that justice could replace war. And obviously people are not believing in it anymore because what we think now, is we have to finish the other side.
The Palestinians think about the Israelis, for example, we have to finish them because we cannot, we cannot live with them, and the Israelis say we have to get rid of Hamas. So we can’t accept that anymore. This is when both sides get very extreme. And it happens once you don’t believe anymore in diplomacy, in justice. So it’s a very dangerous time right now. And you could see that with the ICC when the arrest warrants were asked for. In Germany, I could see that how the media was suddenly very against the ICC and they opposed because they said, Okay, how can you put Hamas leaders on the same level with a democracy like Israel. So they were complaining very much. On the other side, I could see people complaining about the arrest warrants with Putin because they said, Okay, possibly war crimes are committed as well by the Ukrainians. You can see how everybody is fighting for to be for being for having an institution.
Ben Ferencz in my eyes, I think, makes the film so strong. He’s a personality with very, very good arguments that you have to think twice and you have to rethink your stance towards war. And he has a historical perspective that sometimes I think we too frequently lack.
And he has the charisma also to really get his point across! I’d like to shift gears to ask you about your work here as a documentary filmmaker and the choices that you make in assembling this long history of the ICC and these very complex cases that they face into a digestible format, something that’s 90 minutes long. Maybe another way of asking that is, what do you do, Marcus Vetter, as director of a documentary?
Oh, you know, this subject matter is so dry and so complex. And to get a layman understand it, it was really a very difficult task. But there’s, for example, a scene with a doctor in Gaza, it’s an archival scene, a doctor in Gaza, who by coincidence, was interviewed by an Israeli TV station, a moderator. And while the interview was running, he was hit by by grenades and three of his girls we were killed in that incident. And this shows you these kind of scenes show you how unjust war can be and how all these atrocities is deliberately or not deliberately happening to you, how unjust they are to normal people, to civilians.
So this is one thing to let the audience understand what’s at stake. Because we tend to sit there and think, yeah, with all those arguments, which we have for war, because we think, yeah, we have to stand in solidarity with Ukraine and the appeasement politic, which we fell into that trap with Hitler. So there’s so many good arguments why we maybe now we have to do it. Now it’s the right thing to do. And so we had to put the film, we had to draft it in a way that not only you understand what is the institution, what are they doing? But as well, the most important thing is that as an audience, that after having watched the film to say to yourself, wow, here are so many arguments presented that I can rethink what I have thought so far. And be neutral, be really neutral. Try to really not to fall in that trap to please one side or the other side.
And for that, we were very lucky having a prosecutor like a character like Luis Moreno Ocampo who was so open to us who accepted us as a team. So it was really carving out the dramaturgy of the film so that a layman can understand that. And that means a lot of screenings. I work with a lot of screening, so I have a normal audience sit there and I can see how they receive the films and I can see when they do not understand something. I think the most important thing is make it understandable. And the second important thing is, make it make it like that yet that you open your hearts to accept the film and and the message of the film.
Well, I think that through the stories of Ben Ferencz and Luis Moreno Ocampo, we’ve certainly come to understand the importance of the work of the ICC and the hope for what they can do. Let me ask how and where our viewers and readers will be able to see War and Justice.
First of all, it’s in cinema, it’s in festivals. Two days ago, it won Best Direction at the New Zealand Doc Edge Festival, which is great because it’s an Oscar qualifying festival. We are getting it to as many festivals as possible. But even more important is that we are getting it on Amazon so that everybody can see it. Very, very soon, you can see it on our website as well, so that you can purchase it and you can see it on our website. Right now in Germany, we have our theatrical release, it’s in cinemas. But really, I’m telling you I have never worked so much on distribution and on marketing for a film. No film got so much attention from my side because for me, even though there may be more emotional films like Heart of Jenin, like the film about my Turkish father, these are very emotional films.
But this film, I would say it’s the most important film because it’s so much at stake right now. The world is heading towards maybe a real total war. And I think the people in the world, they have to know more about the ICC, and especially they have to get the chance to enough arguments to make a decision.
You know, I hope that’s the case too. No that we are headed towards war, but more people will learn about the ICC, invest their hopes in its potential to prosecute crimes against humanity. And I’m going to wish your film the very best and you the very best, Marcus, and thank you for talking with us at Film Obsessive today.
Thank you so much, Paul. I enjoyed the interview very much.
