Jasmina Bojic

Jasmina Bojic is a Lecturer in International Relations and has been teaching at Stanford for the last twenty-seven years. She is also the Director of the Stanford Arts Camera As Witness (CAW) Program and Founder and Executive Director of the United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF) at Stanford. She spoke with us about her background in filmmaking and journalism, her favorite courses to teach, and what she likes to do outside of Stanford!

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

In addition to teaching at Stanford, I have been working as a journalist for more than thirty years, covering many political and cultural events, including the Academy Awards, Cannes, Sundance, Venice and Tribeca film festivals. I have also worked as a producer/director on several documentaries and TV Programs dealing with human rights issues. Additionally, 25 years ago I founded the UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival) www.unaff.org in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

What are some of your favorite courses to teach?

I have been teaching INTNLREL 141A: Camera as Witness: International Human Rights Documentaries for the last twenty-seven years using documentary filmmaking to leverage the appeal of visual information as an educational tool about a number of topics and disciplines, ranging from international relations to the environment, from energy policy to human rights.

What do you like to do outside of Stanford?

Both my husband and I are passionate about classical music and enjoy our collection of more than 4000 CDs that we are now transferring to digital, which is a great way to listen to them again and again. Also, I enjoy traveling very much, particularly when we have the UNAFF Traveling Film Festivals around the world, which connect me with the filmmakers in-person and with our students from the Bing Overseas Studies (Berlin, New York, Paris…)