"HARD TO BELIEVE" Special Screening in Hurstville, Sydney
—Includes Q&A panel discussion
A documentary film by Two-Time Emmy Award-Winning Director, Ken Stone, on the killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs in China.
Supported by:
The International Coalition To End Organ Pillaging In China
Hosted by St George Greens and David Shoebridge MLC
Guest Speakers
David Shoebridge MLC:
Member of New South Wales Legislative Council, Greens NSW spokesperson for Justice, Forestry, Industrial Relations, Planning and Heritage, Firearms, and Local Government.
Prof Maria Fiatarone Singh FRACP:
Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences and Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Medical Advisory Board Member of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting
Prof Wendy Rogers FRACGP, PhD:
Professor of Clinical Ethics, Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics
(See further below for detailed speaker biographies)
"This documentary is extremely important for those involved in organ donation and transplantation, human rights, healthcare, ethics and the law... The credentials of the interviewed experts is impeccable."
~ Journal of Bioethical Inquiry
“An important, timely and deeply disturbing account of one of the great human rights abuses of our time.”
~ Dr. Arthur Caplan, PhD, Founding Director of the Division of Medical Ethics, NYU
"This film shows us the dark face of human rights abuses, of what can come to pass when individuals are reduced, literally, to the sum of their parts. The participation of medical practitioners in the harvesting of organs breaches all ethical codes, and is impossible to reconcile with the role of physicians to heal rather than harm."
~ Wendy Rogers, Professor of Clinical Ethics, and Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics
FILM SYNOPSIS
IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE: Governments killing their own citizens for their political or spiritual beliefs. But it’s never happened like this.
It’s happened so often that the world doesn’t always pay attention. But is economic influence the reason, that this time, it’s going largely unreported? It’s hard to believe that doctors would carve up innocent people so their organs could be sold. It’s even harder to believe that major media are not investigating. Yet it happened tens of thousands of times, and may be happening still.
Hard to Believe is a documentary that examines the issue of forced live organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners of conscience, and the response—or lack of it—around the world. Produced by Swoop Films, two-time Emmy Award-winning director/producer, Ken Stone, and Irene Silber.
For trailer and more info, visit: www.swoopfilms.com
AWARDS
Winner of Best Documentary, 2016 HOBOKEN Film Festival
Winner of Outstanding Achievement, Accolade Global Film Competition 2015 Humanitarian
Winner of Outstanding Achievement, 2015 Global Film Awards Humanitarian Award
Six Awards of Excellence, 2015 Accolade Global Film Competition in the categories of: Documentary Program / Social Change / Religion / Ethics / Health / Medicine
Award of Excellence, 2015 IndieFEST Global Film Award in the categories of Liberation / Social Justice
DETAILED SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES: Q&A PANEL
Prof. Maria Fiatarone Singh MD FRACP
Professor Fiatarone Singh is a geriatrician whose research, clinical, and teaching career has focused on the integration of medicine, exercise physiology, and nutrition as a means to improve health status and quality of life across the lifespan. She has held the inaugural John Sutton Chair of Exercise and Sport Science in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and Professorship, Sydney Medical School, at the University of Sydney since 1999, and has been awarded many grants from the government and other funding bodies to conduct research into exercise and aging.
She is the founding director of the Fit for Your Life Foundation, an international non-profit organisation, and co founded the STRONG Clinic at Balmain Hospital. She has published extensively in the area of health implications of exercise and nutrition, is actively involved as a Medical Advisory Board member of the international group DAFOH (Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting), and has been actively involved in opposition to the detention of asylum seekers and refugees in Australia, leading the group “Doctors and Allied Health Professionals Against the Border Force Act”.
Prof. Wendy Rogers FRACGP, PhD
Prof. Rogers is a Professor of Clinical Ethics and Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics. She has a long-standing interest in the ethics of organ donation and transplantation.
While a member of the Australian Health Ethics Committee (2003-2006), she served as deputy chair of the working party responsible for developing the National Health and Medical Research Council’s guidelines for organ and tissue donation. She also served on working parties developing national guidance on donation after circulatory death. Her current research interests include organ donation, research ethics, ethics of surgical practice, and overdiagnosis. Wendy’s work is widely published in international journals and she is the co-editor of a recent collection on Vulnerability (published by Oxford University Press). Professor Rogers recently spoke at the Scottish Parliament on a panel addressing the issue of forced organ harvesting in China.
For trailers and more information, go to: www.swoopfilms.com
----------------------------
ALSO SCREENING AT:
CANBERRA CENTRE (Dendy Cinemas)
Tuesday, 22 November 2016 from 6:30
Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter
Canberra Centre 148 Bunda St Canberra,
ACT 2601 Australia
hard-to-believe-canberra.eventbrite.com.au
Macquarie University, 23 Nov 2016 (Details TBA)