BACKGROUND TO TALKWORKS

TalkWorks was launched as an independent initiative in January 2009 by Anne Piper and Rosie Houldsworth, former chair and former deputy director respectively of the Oxford Research Group, in order to help raise public awareness about the extreme dangers of the uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear weapons and technology, reaching what experts were describing as a ‘nuclear tipping point’.

Our purpose was to film and publish on the internet personal interviews with the leading politicians, military chiefs and independent experts alarmed that nuclear deterrence was no longer holding up and were calling for urgent measures on behalf of world governments to avoid imminent nuclear catastrophe. Former ardent proponents of nuclear weapons were calling for global nuclear disarmament, led by four respected senior US statesmen who had written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal of January 2008 setting out a concrete plan of action to be taken by the nuclear powers, to halt proliferation and reduce their own reliance on nuclear weapons leading to their ultimate elimination. They urged the US government to take the lead with Russia and the other nuclear weapon states to cut their nuclear stockpiles and to set in train a programme of steps leading to the goal of ‘Global Zero’, with all possible urgency. On 5 April 2009, US President Barack Obama gave a landmark speech in Prague issuing the same warnings and committing the United States under his administration to work with other nuclear nations to “reassert the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons” and take all necessary steps towards achieving that goal. The speech marked a turning point in global nuclear affairs that galvanised the disarmament community and political leaders across the world, but passed completely unnoticed by the vast majority of ordinary citizens.

The ‘nuclear disarmament spring’ of 2009/2010 coincided with the creation of TalkWorks. After piloting the project for 6 months in which we produce the first series of 16 films, we entered into partnership with independent filmmaker Andy Russell of Different Films and set about requesting interviews with the most senior spokespeople for the new nuclear disarmament agenda. With financial support from small charitable trusts and individual donors, TalkWorks has since produced over 70 short web-based films, made from interviews with individuals ranging from former military chiefs, international diplomats, senior political figures and top international security experts and scientists, as well as spiritual leaders and peace builders.  In April 2010 we produced a 20-promotional feature documentary entitled Signs for Hope  incorporating clips from TalkWorks interviews and the views of young students interviewed in Oxford Parks (available on DVD price £10 + P&P). 

Towards the end of 2009, we were invited to film individual members of the newly formed UK Parliamentary Top Level Group for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament & Non-proliferation (TLG), a cross-party initiative convened by former UK defence secretary Lord Browne to help promote the multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda from the British side. TalkWorks was given a letter of endorsement by Lord Browne, and in May 2011 we were invited to film George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn of the Nuclear Security Project when they came to London with Henry Kissinger under the auspices of the US Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) for a screening in parliament of their film Nuclear Tipping Point. TalkWorks produced a full-length film of the event allowing virtual participation in the high level discussions taking place on this subject by anyone with access to broadband. (We also produced a short trailer of the event entitled Three Friends for use as a promotional video on the NTI website.)

By December 2011, the signs for hope of 2009 were flagging, under the burden of multiple political global pressures. We invited former Swedish foreign minister, weapons inspector and international diplomacy expert, Dr Hans Blix to give his personal assessment of the achievements and failures of the disarmament spring, in which he outlines a disappointing picture and a rather pessimistic view of the prospects for disarmament in four short films entitled ‘Blix on Disarmament’. We also filmed a conversation with nonagenarian nuclear historian and author Dr Lorna Arnold OBE for three short TalkWorks Specials in which she reflects on the past, present and future of the ‘nuclear age’, from her unique perspective of working inside the nuclear industry and writing about it f0r over 50 years, from its earliest beginnings in 1944.

While keeping our central focus firmly on nuclear weapons, TalkWorks is expanding our scope in 2013 to place nuclear disarmament in the context of the bigger picture of the multiple emerging global threats in the 21st century. We are hoping to film some of the leading global thinkers about what they see as the greatest threats to human wellbeing and survival in the near and further future, and what needs to change. We have launched the new series under the title ‘Global Perspectives 2013’ with interviews with eminent British cosmologist and former president of the Royal Society, Lord Rees, author of ‘Our Final Century?’ (2003) and ‘From Here to Infinity’ (2011); and with world renowned international terrorism and global security expert, Professor Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace studies at Bradford University and Sustainable Security Consultant to the Oxford Research Group (ORG), whose briefing ‘Chances for Peace in the Second Decade—What is going wrong and what we must do’ was published by ORG in December 2012.

We have also begun work on developing of a full-length feature documentary film, which will draw on TalkWorks’ interviews, to be made by Different Films in association with TalkWorks entitled ‘Infinite Possibilities’, for which we are actively seeking development funds in order to get started on it in 2013.

We are enormously grateful to the charitable trusts and individual donors who are listed below for supporting us to establish TalkWorks and make our films. We are a small independent team operating on a modest budget with minimal overheads, but we urgently need further financial backing if we are to continue to make more films. If you support our aims and methods, and can make a donation to TalkWorks (sponsoring an individual film costs £700), or disseminate and promote the films, especially by embedding them in your own website and sharing them via your Facebook, Twitter and other social and professional networking sites, please get in touch with me, Rosie Houldsworth.