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Souleymane's Story (L’Histoire de Souleymane), directed by Boris Lojkine, is anchored by the powerful performance of Abou Sangaré as a delivery worker from Guinea who is seeking asylum in France. What begins as a story of daily survival becomes a story about the legal and administrative processes governing asylum and the often fragile line between recognition and rejection. The film foregrounds questions of identity, performance, and translation, as Souleymane must shape his story to fit the expectations of the asylum system. More broadly, the film invites reflection on the gap between lived experience and legal categories—as well as what gets lost when human stories are filtered through bureaucratic judgment. The guest for this episode is Sharon Weill, who serves as Professor of International Law at the American University of Paris and teaches at Sciences Po in Paris.  Time stamps: 0:00     Introduction 2:26      An urban story of 48 hours in a migrant’s life 9:45      Migrant housing 12:47     Separation from home              14:38     The legal categories of asylum 20:38    The asylum hearing 25:10     Souleymane tells his story and closes the door 29:32     Enforcement of immigration law 34:37     Abou Sangaré: the actor who plays Souleymane 37:08     The appeals process and limits on asylum 44:15      Giving a human face to migration Further reading:  Akoka, Karen, Asylum and Exile: A History of the Refugee/Migrant Distinction (Éditions La Découverte, 2020) Carpentier, Laurent, "Cannes 2024: Life imitates art for the star of ''L'Histoire de Souleymane,'" The Guardian (May 16, 2024) Chang, Justin, "The Piercing Immigrant Drama of 'Souleymane's Story,'" The New Yorker (Aug. 6, 2025) Dezalay, Sara & Weill, Sharon, Asylum Justice: Between Crisis and Crisis Routine: An Ethnography of the National Court of Asylum Law (June 17, 2026) Kobelinsky, Carolina, The Reception of Asylum Seekers: An Ethnography of Waiting (Éditions du Cygne, 2010) Lemercier, Fabian, "Interview with Boris Lojkine, Director of 'Souleymane's Story,'" Cineuropa (May 21, 2024) Weill, Sharon et al., Terror on Trial: An Ethnography of French Courts (2026) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

The Alabama Solution is a searing documentary about Alabama’s prison system and the broader crisis of mass incarceration. Directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, the film draws on years of secretly recorded cell phone footage made by incarcerated people, offering an unusually intimate and unfiltered account of violence, isolation, resistance, and survival inside one of the harshest prison systems in the United States. The film shows how contraband cell phones transform incarcerated people from subjects of documentation into documentarians themselves, while prisoners’ families emerge as advocates, investigators, and conduits to the outside world. Time stamps: 0:00   Introduction 3:48    Not an innocence movie 6:43    The cell phone footage 10:15    A system of dehumanization 17:37    The Free Alabama Movement 22:09   The declining federal presence and state prisons 25:48   "The Alabama Solution” 31:45     A legacy of slavery 38:30    The challenges of investigating abuses in prisons 42:26    The moral obligation of prison reform Further reading: Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010) Foreman, James, Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (2017) Lewis, Nicole, “‘The Alabama Solution’: A Humanitarian Crisis in Grainy Detail,” The Marshall Project (2025) Margulies, Joseph, Cast Out: A Call for a Forgiving Society in an Age of Incarceration (2026) Parker, Anabelle, “‘Let’s just shut down’: an interview with Spokesperson Ray of the Free Alabama Movement,” San Francisco Bay View (Dec. 2, 2014) Stevenson, Bryan, Just Mercy (2014) U.S. Dep’t of Justice Civil Rights Division, Investigation of Alabama’s State Prison for Men (July 23, 2020) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 film, Shadow of a Doubt (1943), sets a murder story inside what seems the safest place imaginable: an ordinary American family in an ordinary American town. But as suspicion gathers around Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton), the film slowly exposes something more unsettling than a single killer on the run. It reveals how charm, respectability, and social status can insulate wrongdoing from scrutiny — and how communities prefer comforting narratives to disruptive truths. The police investigate, but they move hesitantly; the town remains confident in its own innocence. The real drama unfolds not in the courtroom, but at the dinner table. The film explores law’s capacity — and its limits. How does misogyny operate not just as motive but as ideology? What happens when loyalty to family collides with loyalty to justice? And in a film released at the height of World War II, is Hitchcock warning that the most dangerous threats to democracy are not always foreign invaders, but may also be charismatic figures embedded within everyday life? Timestamps: 0:00     Introduction 2:13     Teaching law students through film 5:54     Shadow of a Doubt and law’s inadequacies 11:11   The film’s setting and Santa Rosa, CA 14:54   Imagining the perfect crime 21:21   Misogyny in Shadow of a Doubt 27:48   Playing with crime genres and narrative structures  32:58   Hitchcock’s cameo 35:16   Doubling and other filmic techniques 48:19   Complicity in covering up the evil 51:11   A critique of wartime idealism and the narrative of the enemy within 56:17   Questioning American institutions Further reading: Eggert, Brian, Shadow of a Doubt, Deep Focus Review (Mar. 2, 2013)  Hughes, Rowland, “Shadows and Doubts: Hitchcock, Genre, and Villainy,” in The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film (Stacy Gillis & Philippa Gates eds. 2001) Modleski, Tania, The Women Who Knew Too Much (1988) Scovell, Adam, “Why the sinister Shadow of a Doubt was Hitchcock’s Favourite,” The Telegraph (Feb. 7, 2023) Truffaut, Francois, Hitchcock (Simon & Schuster, 1985) Wood, Robin, Hitchcock’s Films Revisited (2002) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

This episode we look at Blade Runner (1982) (dir. Ridley Scott) and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (dir. Denis Villeneuve), two films that imagine a world where the line between human and machine, creation and creator, has all but vanished. Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic depicted a rain-soaked dystopia where “replicants”—bio-engineered beings—fight for recognition, identity, and life itself. Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 sequel deepens that vision. Law operates in the shadows across both films: as surveillance, classification, and control. The “blade runners” themselves enforce a form of administrative violence that exposes the limits of legal personhood. What does it mean to have rights without recognition, or to be alive without legal existence? And conversely, what are the implications of recognizing rights and legal personhood in robots? In this episode, we’ll examine these and other themes around artificial intelligence, migration, colonization, and bioethics as well as the way films themselves can contribute to and shape public perceptions about these issues.  Timestamps: 0:00     Introduction 2:45      Emotion and memory in robots 8:08      Slave labor and robot rebellion 9:54      Generative AI and other changes since the first Blade Runner  15:16      Robots giving birth 20:19     Robot rights 24:17      A new category of companion 32:56    Filmic depictions of AI 38:01     “Time to Die” 43:21     The political economy of AI development 47:22     A dystopian vision of data and surveillance 52:18     A positive post-human future? 57:58     Concepts of immortality Further reading: Almog, Shulamit, “When a Robot Can Love – Blade Runner as a Cautionary Tale on Law and Technology,” in Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice (Jan. 1, 2013) Birhane, Abeba, van Dijk Jelle, and Pasquale, Frank, “Debunking Robot Rights Metaphysically, Ethically, and Legally,” 29(4) First Monday (2024) Darling, Kate, The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots (2021) Dick, Philip K., Do Androids Dream of Sheep (1968) Lewis, C.S., Abolition of Man (1943) Oliver, Kendra H., Higgs, Oliver S., and Clayton, J., “The End of Genetic Privacy in the Blade Runner Canon,” 14 (1/2) Journal of Literature and Science 108 (Dec. 2022) Pasquale, Frank, “Cultural Foundations for Conserving Human Capacities Amidst Generative Artificial Intelligence: Toward a Philosophico-Literary Critique of Simulation,” in Being Human (B. Roessler & V. Steeves, eds, 2024)   Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

Erin Brockovich (2000) (directed by Steven Soderbergh) is based on the true story of Erin Brockovich, a legal assistant without formal training, who uncovers one of the most significant environmental lawsuits in U.S. history: the case against Pacific Gas and Electric for contaminating groundwater in Hinkley, California. The film, which features an Oscar-winning performance by Julia Roberts in the title role, explores the role of lawsuits in exposing truth and gaining compensation for victims, the gendered dynamics of legal advocacy, and the challenges of taking on entrenched power structures in society. Timestamps: 0:00     Introduction 1:59       Who is Erin Brockovich? 3:11       Obstacles to holding corporations accountable 5:49      How Erin Brockovich overcomes those obstacles 8:10      Imbalance of power and resources 14:40    Hinkley, California 18:00    Accessing records 21:16     Tort reform, punitive damages, and proportionality 27:10     States and environmental regulation 32:22    Causation and attribution science 37:30    Whistleblowers               41:17      Finding the “smoking gun” 42:53    The practice of law and parenting Further reading: Banks, Sedina “The ‘Erin Brockovich Effect’: How Media Shapes Toxics Policy,” 26 Environs Env’t L. Poly’ J. 219 (2003) Brockovich, Erin and Eliot, Marc, Take It from Me: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win (2002) Chen, Sarah Small, “Toxic Film: Analyzing the Impact of Films Depicting Major Contamination Events on the Regulation of Toxic Chemicals,” 35 Georgetown Env’t L. Rev. 561 (2023) "'Erin Brockovich’ Made their Town Famous: They Still Don’t Have Clean Water,” Wash. Post (Dec. 27, 2024) Martens, Daniel L. “Chromium, Cancer, and Causation: Has a Death-Blow Been Dealt Chromium Cases in California?” 16 Natural Resources & Env’t 264 (2002) McCann, Michael McCann & Haltom, William, “Ordinary Heroes vs. Failed Lawyers – Public Interest Litigation in Erin Brockovich and Other Contemporary Films,” 33 Law & Soc. Inquiry 1045 (2008) “Still Toxic After All These Years,” Grist (Jan. 29, 2019) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

This episode examines a case that sits at the uneasy boundary between criminal adjudication, media power, and moral authority: the prosecution and execution of Aileen Wuornos, labeled the “first female serial killer. We look at two documentaries by Nick Broomfield—Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)—alongside the feature film Monster (2003), written and directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Charlize Theron in an Oscar-winning role. Broomfield’s documentaries are less about guilt or innocence than about process: who controls the narrative, how legal representation operates, and what happens when a defendant’s life becomes an object of transaction, between lawyers, media, and the public. The films also penetrate the issues around the application of the death penalty in the United States, and the problems that arise when the state seeks to executive individuals who are themselves victims and suffer from severe mental illness. Monster  approaches the same facts through dramatization. It also raises important questions, including how far context should matter in judging criminal responsibility and construction of narratives around crimes. Timestamps: 0:00   Introduction 2:58   Capturing law on film 5:24   The two Nick Broomfield documentaries 11:16   Addressing Aileen Wuornos’s murders 14:04  The flawed defense strategy 18:47  The depiction of Tyria Moore (Aileen Wuornos’s girlfriend 20:55  Selling the Aileen Wuornos story 23:09  The theme of the “monster” 28:29  Themes of betrayal and self-defense 31:53   Nick Broomfield and an outsider view of the American legal system 34:56  Mental illness and the death penalty 37:39  Media coverage of sensational murders  39:22  Failures of the legal process 44:26  A critique of the death penalty 47:00  Exoticization in the films Further Reading:  Cavanaugh, L. Sheila, “‘White Trash:’ Abject Skin in Film Reviews of ‘Monster’,” in Skin, Culture, and Pscyhoanalysis (Cavanaugh, L. Sheila et al. eds.) (2013) Dargis, Manohla, “Life and Death Issues,” Los Angeles Times (Jan. 9. 2004) Diamond, Suzanna, “‘A Flower in a Hard Rain’: Melodramatic Storytelling by, and About, Aileen Wuornos,” Anthurium, vol. 15(2) (2019) Horeck, Tanya, “From Documentary to Drama: Capturing Aileen Wuornos,” Screen, vol. 48(2), pp. 141-59 (Summer 2007) Pearson, Kyra, “The Trouble with Aileen Wuornos, Feminism’s ‘First Serial Killer,’” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 4(3), pp. 256-75 (Sept. 2007 Smith, Abbe, “The ‘Monster’ in All of Us: When Victims Become Perpetrators,” 38 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 367 (2005) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

My Undesirable Friends: Part I—Last Air in Moscow (2024) is Russian-language American documentary film written and directed by Julia Loktev (with co-director Anna Nemzer). The film describes the effort to maintain press freedoms in Putin’s Russia in the period leading up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The documentary provides an intimate portrait of independent Russian journalists—mainly young women—who risk everything to pursue truth and accountability amidst escalating repression under the Putin regime. Filmed in late 2021 and early 2022, the documentary captures how the legal machinery of censorship, surveillance, and state-harassment converged to crush internal dissent and incapacitate civil society. It not only provides a profoundly disturbing account of what has occurred in Russia but also serves as a broader warning about the fragility of press freedoms and in a time of rising authoritarianism worldwide.  Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 2:45       How the film came about 5:25       A primer on Russian censorship and repression 15:15      “Foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations” 23:32     Social marginalization through the creation of an enemies list  28:46     State persecution of TV Rain and other independent media  32:45     The manipulation of language 36:30     Identifying the pivotal moment  43:36     How the film captures the elimination of press freedoms 48:26     Courts and lawyers 53:27     The Kremlin’s public mobilization to support the war in Ukraine 58:53     Independent journalism in exile 1:02:17   Parallels to the United States under Trump Further reading: Chang, Justin, “‘My Undesirable Friends: Part I’ Is a Staggering Portrait of Russian Journalists in Dissent,” New Yorker (Aug. 14, 2025) Edel, Anastasia, “Putin vs. the Press,” Foreign Policy (Oct. 3, 2025) Human Rights Watch, Russia’s Legislative Minefield: Tripwires for Civil Society Since 2020 (2024) Human Rights Watch, Disrupted, Throttled, and Blocked State Censorship, Control, and Increasing Isolation of Internet Users in Russia (2025) Krupskiy, Maxim, “The Impact of Russia’s ‘Foreign Agents’ Legislation on Civil Society,” Fletcher Russia & Eurasia Program (2023) Troinovski, Anton & Safronova, Valeriya, “Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage,” New York Times (May 18, 2022) Yablokov, Ilya & Gatov, Vasily, “Broadcasting through the (New) Iron Curtain: Practices, Challenges, and Legacies of Russia's Independent Media in Exile,” Journalism Studies (Feb. 11, 2025) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

Small Things Like These (2024), adapted by Edna Walsh from Claire Keegan’s 2021 novel, tells the story of how coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) uncovers disturbing secrets in a small Irish town in the mid-1980s. While going about his job delivering coal, Furlong discovers the truth about the Magdalene laundries—the abusive asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996. During this period, thousands of girls and women were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labor and subjected to severe psychological and physical maltreatment. Furlong’s discovery about the local convent in his town parallels the story of his remembering and having to come to terms with his own traumatic childhood. The film provides a powerful and moving depiction life in a small Irish town, the role of the Magdalene laundries, and the power of the Roman Catholic Church to enforce a code of silence about the abuses taking place within a community.  Timestamps: 0:00   Introduction 2:14     The Magdalene laundries 6:39    Laundries in a broader social context 13:02   The convent’s power and secrecy 17:18    The absence of guilty men 18:31   The banality of evil 20:34  Why the laundries lasted so long 24:00  How they ended 26:02  Inquiries and accountability 28:16   Focus on the laundries in films and popular culture 30:38  The Bill Furlong character 36:20  Ireland in the 1980s Further reading: Seán Patrick Donlan, “Screening for Help – Irish Care and Confinement," Film Ireland (Nov. 21, 2025) Keegan, Claire, Small Things Like These (Faber & Faber 2021)  McGourty, Courtney, “Not Merely a Shameful Past: The Case for State Responsibility in the Magdalene Laundries,” Opinio Juris  (Aug 11, 2023)  Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalene Laundries (2013) Smith, James M., Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment  (Univ. Notre Dame Press 2007) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

We return to Syriana, a film we discussed previously in Episode 40, but one that feels newly urgent in light of the current war with Iran. When it was released in 2005, the film offered a dense, unsettling portrait of a post-9/11 world shaped by oil, covert operations, and overlapping networks of state and corporate power. Today, Syriana reads less as a product of its time and more as a reflection of a sharp turn in U.S. foreign policy, shaped by the erosion of institutional guardrails and a naked military imperialism—with the current reality even more dystopian than the one depicted in the film. 0:00     Introduction 1:15        Why Syriana is so relevant to the U.S. military action in Iran 3:20      "The Committee for the Liberation of Iran” 6:47       Syriana as Dubai 9:15       Corruption moves from sidelines to the cabinet under Trump 12:06     The continued vulnerability of migrant workers 14:03     The loss of U.S. omnipotence on drone warfare 16:29     The involvement of Israel 18:33     The authoritarian turn in U.S. foreign policy 21:20     Syriana: a must watch now Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

This episode looks at The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s haunting exploration of surveillance, complicity, and the brittle architecture of authoritarian legality in the final years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany). The critically acclaimed 2006 film examines how law can be co-opted into an instrument of domination, how bureaucratic routines of “security” normalize repression, and how small acts of resistance acquire profound moral weight under systems built on fear and an extensive system of informers. The Lives of Others raises enduring questions about the ethics of observing and informing in Cold War Eastern Europe. To help unpack these themes, I’m joined by Mark Drumbl and Barbara Holá, whose recent book Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (Oxford Univ. Press) offers a deeply researched, empirically grounded look at informers within repressive regimes and transitional justice processes.  Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 4:23       East Germany in 1984 6:32.      The timelessness of informing 7:35.      The surveillance state in the Eastern bloc 13:27      Informers and informing 19:36.    Informing's afterlife 23:26    The book’s methodology and illustrative cases 33:26    The corrosive impact on social relations 35:02    Who becomes an informant and why 38:22    Informers and transitional justice 44:57    The opening of the secret files 50:39    Informers and agents 55:54    Resistance and historical revisionism 1:00:46 How the book came about Further reading: Ash, Timothy Garton, The File (1997) Burkhard, Bilger, “Piecing Together the Secrets of the Stasi,” The New Yorker (May 27, 2024) Cords, Suzzane, “Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance,” DW (Aug. 1, 2025) Drumbl, Mark A. & Holá, Barbora, Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (2024) Alford, C. Fred, Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power (2001) Lindenberger, Thomas, “Stasiploitation: Why Not? The Scriptwriter’s Historical Creativity in ‘The Lives of Others,’” 31 (3) German Studies Review 557 (2008) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

The Killing Fields (1984), directed by Roland Joffe, depicts the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and the genocide that followed, which resulted in the death of approximately 2-3 million people. The film is based on the experiences of New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson) and Cambodian journalist Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor). It provides a haunting depiction of mass violence as well as a moving story about these two colleagues and friends. In the wake of the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, it is worth revisiting a film that is as powerful and relevant today as when it was released. Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 2:16       The Khmer Rouge and Year Zero 6:04      The U.S. contribution to the Cambodian genocide 8:14        The role of journalists in Cambodia and conflict zones 17:34      The treatment of journalists under international law 18:46     The killing fields and the film’s impact 24:08    Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran, and journalistic ethics 34:10     The ECCC and transitional justice in Cambodia 42:44     Journalists and international criminal proceedings 47:50     Haing Ngor and his tragic fate 53:26     Civil society endeavors to bring history to life 55:21      The fall of Phnom Penh  59:03    The failed attempt to get Dith Pran out 1:00:15  The risks facing journalists today   Further reading:   Becker, Elizabeth, When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution (1988) Brown, Mark, “Genocide Films, Public Criminology, Collective Memory,” 53 (6) The British Journal of Criminology (2013)    Chandler, David P., The Pol Pot Regime (1991) Kiernan, Ben, Genocide in Cambodia (Revised ed. 2008)  Ngor, Haing (with Warner, Roger), Survival in the Killing Fields (1987) Nunn, Nora, "Rose-Colored Genocide: Hollywood, Harmonizing Narratives, and the Cinematic Legacy,” 14(2) Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 65 (2020) Schanberg, Sydney H., The Death and Life of Dith Pran (1985) Shawcross, William, Sideshow (1979)   Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

In Conclave (2024), Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) organizes a conclave to elect a new pope. Key candidates and factions vie with one another as the process plays out until finally a new pope is elected. The film was directed by Edward Berger from a script by Peter Straughan (based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris), and features an all-star cast including Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini. The film provides a window into the process for electing a new pope, along with the legal, historical, and political forces that have shaped it.   Timestamps: 0.00    Introduction 2:32     The origins of the conclave 5:29    Electing a new pope 8:03    The College of Cardinals 10:23   The Apostolic Constitutions 14:46   The contentious conclave in the film 21:05   Naming a new cardinal in pectore 24:51    Leo XIV, the new pope 26:58   The Roman Curia 26:38   The nuns in the film 30:05  Symbol and ritual: the smoke from the chimney 32:17    The custom of a new pope choosing a name 36:55   Struggles over different visions of the church 40:58   How accurate was the film in capturing a conclave? 42:39   How the conclave has changed 45:04   Possible future changes to the papal selection process Further reading: Allen, John L. Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election (2002) Baumgartner, Frederic J., Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections (2003) Harris, Robert, Conclave (2016) Povoledo, Elisabetta, “A Papal Primer That’s Fiction, but Also Rings True,” N.Y. Times (Mar. 2, 2025) West, Morris, L., The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

Inglourious Basterds (2009), written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, revolves around two plots to assassinate Nazi leaders during the closing years of World War II. One plot centers on a secret band of Jewish-American soldiers under the command of Ltn. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt)—the “Basterds”—who terrorize Nazis. The other involves Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), a young Jewish woman who narrowly escapes death at the hands of notorious “Jew hunter” Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and flees to Paris where she runs a cinema under a false identity. The plot lines converge at the Paris cinema where the Basterds and Shosanna are each separately plotting to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders while they are attending the premiere of a German propaganda film. The film utilizes alternate history to explore themes surrounding the pursuit of justice against the perpetrators of mass atrocities and the complex relationship between law and vengeance. Timestamps: 0:00    Introduction 2:37     Reimagining the arc of justice 8:00     Alternatives to the progress narrative 16:51     The power of violence and revenge 21:56     Counterfactuals and alternative histories 27:03     The limits of legalistic responses to atrocities 32:24     The role of cinema in Nazi Germany 39:00     Narratives of progress 44:10     Ending with a primal moment of revenge   Further reading: Hussain, Nadine, “‘Inglorious Basterds’: A Satirical Criticism of WWII Cinema and the Myth of the American War Hero,” 13(2) Inquiries Journal 1 (2021) Jackson, Robert H., Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal, Robert H. Jackson Center (Nov. 21, 1945) James, Caryn, “Why Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece,” BBC (Aug. 16, 2019) Keydar, Renana, “‘Lessons in Humanity’: Re-evaluating International Criminal Law’s Narrative of Progress in the Post 9/11 Era,” 17 (2) J. Int’l Criminal Justice 229 (2019) Kligerman, Eric. “Reels of Justice: Inglourious Basterds, The Sorrow and the Pity, and Jewish Revenge Fantasies,” in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metacinema (Robert Dassanowsky ed., 2012) Tekay, Baran “Transforming Cultural Memory: ‘Inglourious Basterds’”, 48(1) Film Criticism (2024) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles, 2024) is based on the true story of the enforced disappearance and murder of former congressman Rubens Paiva by the military dictatorship in Brazil. The film opens in Rio de Janeiro in 1970, where Rubens lives with his wife, Eunice, and their five children. Their lives are forever altered when the military government arrests and disappears Rubens. The film describes Eunice’s attempt to find out what happened to Rubens and to rebuild her life and raise her family in his absence. The film is based on the memoir of their son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, who was a young boy when Rubens was disappeared. I’m Still Here provides a harrowing account of Brazil's military dictatorship and a moving story of a woman’s struggle to overcome adversity and obtain justice. Timestamps: 0:00    Introduction 2:16     The military dictatorship in Brazil 4:38     Living amid contradictions 6:52     The kidnapping of the Swiss ambassador 8:33     Rubens’ arrest and disappearance 12:38   Authoritarian legality 14:18    The arrest and mistreatment of family members 17:16    Covering up state crimes 19:29    Exile as another tool of repression 23:08   Enforced disappearances 27:18     Leveraging international pressure 29:08   Eunice Paiva’s struggle and success 33:15    Support for the military dictatorship 36:01   Finally obtaining Rubens’ death certificate 25 years later 40:10   Brazil’s National Truth Commission 48:39   Authoritarian threats to democracy today Further reading: Atencio, Rebecca J., Memory’s Turn: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil (2014) Filho, Paulo Coehlo, “Truth Commission in Brazil: Individualizing Amnesty, Revealing the Truth,” The Yale Review of International Studies (Feb. 29, 2012) Lima, Ana Gabriela Oliveira, “Corrected death certificates for Herzog, Rubens Paiva,and one hundred others are celebrated in a ceremony,” Folha de S. Paulo (Oct. 8, 2025) Paiva, Marcelo Rubens, I’m Still Here (2025) Pitts, Bryan, Until the Storm Passes: Politicians, Democracy, and the Demise of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship (2023) Weinberg, Eyal, “Transitional Justice in Brazil, 1970s–2010s,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia (2022)   Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

This episode explores An Officer and a Spy (J’accuse in French), Roman Polanski’s 2019 film about the Dreyfus Affair in France. The Dreyfus Affair is one of most significant events in late 19th/early 20th century, an event whose implications reverberated for decades in France and around the world. The Dreyfus Affair centered around the military trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus on charges of treason. Wrongly convicted based on secret evidence and false information, Dreyfus’s case would become a cause célèbres and synonymous with a miscarriage of justice. It also exposed and exacerbated tensions within French society while underscoring deep and pervasive levels of antisemitism.  Based on Robert Harris's 2013 novel of the same name, An Officer and a Spy focuses on the role of George Picquart, the military officer who helps uncover the truth behind Dreyfus’s wrongful conviction, and Picquart’s complex relationship with Dreyfus himself. Hewing closely to historical fact, the film highlights critical issues around law, truth, and justice, at the heart of the Dreyfus affair and why it remains so relevant today.  Timestamps: 0:00     Introduction  3:02      An overview of the Dreyfus case and key players  5:54.     Georges Picquart  13:14.    The struggle to overturn Dreyfus’s conviction  17:54     Tensions over the Dreyfus affair and a lack of accountability  20:48    The “evidence” in the Dreyfus case  25:38     How the Dreyfus affair divided French society  30:16     Other films about the Dreyfus affair  33:54     The controversy around Roman Polanski as director  39:21      Legacies of the Dreyfus affair  45:13      The role of Colonel Henry  Further reading:  Begley, Louis, Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (2009)  Bredin, Jean‑Denis, The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus (1986)  Doherty, Thomas, “From Méliès to Polanski: The Dreyfus Affair on Film,” Cineaste (2020)  Harris, Robert, An Officer and a Spy (2013)  Read, Piers Paul, The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal That Tore France in Two (2013)  Samuels, Maurice, Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair (2024)  Zola, Émile, The Dreyfus Affair: J’Accuse and Other Writings (1998)    Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.  For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at [email protected] You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz  You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast