Ross Kauffman burst onto the documentary scene with his captivating film Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids – which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Since then he’s gone on to produce and direct several more documentaries and discusses his latest project E-Team, which profiles an amazing group of emergency workers dispatched to dangerous hotspots to investigate human rights crises around the world.
The film focuses on a four-person team for the private watchdog Human Rights Watch – Anna, Ole, Fred and Peter – who are very different in personality, but share a fearless spirit and deep commitment to exposing and halting human rights abuses all over the world.
The film – which deals with human rights operations in Syria, Libya and Kosovo – sheds light on the complexity of today’s world events. “It’s interesting with ISIS, it’s interesting with all these incredibly complicated subjects. The one thing you learn is how complicated they really are,” Kauffman said.
“We all look at this as black and white – obviously ISIS is doing horrific things, we all know that. But these investigations are very clear, there are atrocities going on on both sides. They look at both sides of every single conflict, they really try to cover their bases.”
The documentary also delves into the incredibly detailed and complex research that goes into the team’s work to uncover human rights atrocities. “It’s not just about the death and the destruction, it’s about the laughter, it’s about the joy, all these things come out,” he said. “We really wanted to focus on the humanity and let people relate to these incredible characters as human beings.”
In the full episode, Kauffman also recalls working in hotspots including Libya at the height of that country’s civil war.
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