Amnesty! When They Are All Free (2011)

On the 28th May, 1961, a British lawyer named Peter Benenson wrote and published an article that began: "Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government...." Amnesty International was born. 50 years later, Amnesty International is now the world's largest human rights organization with dozens of offices and millions of members. But it began very simply with small groups of passionate and dedicated citizens writing to dictators around the globe demanding justice and the release of political prisoners. In one instance, a particularly determined Amnesty member called the Kremlin and asked to be put through to Nikita Khrushchev, and remarkably enough, they were. As Amnesty grew, launching global campaigns against torture, sexual violence and poverty, the complexities of maintaining a non-ideological stance in an increasingly politicized world threatened to sunder the very heart of the organization. Filmed with unprecedented access to Amnesty, the camera follows the new Secretary General, Salil Shetty, as he struggles with the changing reality of human rights around the world, from China's political prisoners to Rwandan genocide to Egypt's post-election revolution. Archival footage of Amnesty's greatest triumphs and worst defeats features a broad array of political leaders, activists and celebrities, including co-founder Sir Louis Blom Cooper, Sting, the cast of Monty Python, Bruce Springsteen, and Jack Straw, the former British Home Secretary who released General Pinochet. Amnesty International may have indeed changed the world, but the world has also changed Amnesty International.