Witness Project is a short documentary series created in partnership with Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) that records the experiences of a number of individuals who were – and in some cases still are – victims of persecution by collectivist regimes in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Each video aims to cultivate empathy and understanding from a wider audience that may be unfamiliar with the history of collectivist tyranny, dramatizing each witness’s experience and wisdom in an easily understood personal narrative.  Smock Media has found that this approach is much more effective at drawing viewers into the reality of these stories rather than numbing the audience with a catalog of unspeakable horrors from yesteryear that may shock but ultimately are so outside viewers’ personal experiences that they fail to truly inform the audience’s worldviews.

WITNESS PROJECT 08 | NORTH KOREA | JI SEONG HO

WITNESS PROJECT 07 | ROMANIA | DAN NOVACOVICI

WITNESS PROJECT 06 | VENEZUELA | DAVID SMOLANSKY

WITNESS PROJECT 05 | POLAND | WANDA WOS LORENC

WITNESS PROJECT 04 | CUBA | ROSA MARÍA PAYÁ

WITNESS PROJECT 03 | CHINA | ANASTASIA LIN

WITNESS PROJECT 02 | CAMBODIA | NAL OUM

WITNESS PROJECT 01 | HUNGARY | DÁNIEL MAGAY