Misan Harriman and Javier Bardem on the Cost of Silence

“Hope lives in a place where you allow the world to hurt you enough to know that you are stronger than the worst it can offer,” says Nigerian-British photographer and activist Misan Harriman. This willingness to be vulnerable brings power to his images shot on the front lines of various protest movements and capturing the universal hurt, rage, and hope in the faces of those fighting for social change. From his era-defining images of Black Lives Matter protests to today’s Palestinian liberation movement, he’s built an archive of community resistance for generations to come. Shoot the People, a new documentary directed by Andy Mundy-Castle, profiles Harriman’s mission, chronicling his career, travels, and interviews with grassroots activists around the globe. Despite his success, the activist reveals he’s often faced criticism for his passion projects, especially over his support of Palestine in recent years. It’s a world actor Javier Bardem is no stranger to, making headlines last year for executive producing All That’s Left of You, an Oscar-shortlisted feature film following a Palestinian family across generations. Raised by an actress-activist mother, Bardem can’t imagine a reality where he’d stay silent to fill his pockets. In conversation, the two go deep on family, fortune, and where hope and heartbreak intersect. —SIENA BERGAMO

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JAVIER BARDEM: I loved your film Shoot the People.

MISAN HARRIMAN: You’ve watched it?

BARDEM: Of course.

HARRIMAN: Oh, thank you!

BARDEM: Of course, it’s amazing. Actually, I saw it not too long after we got together.

HARRIMAN: In England.

BARDEM: England, yeah. And then I revisited it two days ago.

HARRIMAN: Thank you very much. Andy [Mundy-Castle] is a great filmmaker. I’m so happy people are getting to see the film now.

BARDEM: Absolutely. So I want to ask you: you often photograph people in moments of grief, hope, or profound uncertainty. How do you carry those experiences with you after you’ve left? Is there a way to protect yourself emotionally, or do you think you shouldn’t? Because it’s very powerful.

HARRIMAN: I once said that to be an artist is to watch the sun rise and set with the devil next to you. To really be an artist, you have to allow what you see to haunt you. You have to let the great joy and beauty of the world be seen, but also the rage, the injustice of it all. Otherwise, your lens won’t be true. I am haunted by some of the things I’ve seen. But I have to let whatever I see in any part of the world have whatever effect it’s going to have on my soul. If I allow that, I will always know when I should press the shutter.

BARDEM: Whoa. Amazing. Your photographs are almost always in black and white. Is that an aesthetic decision, or something more?

HARRIMAN: Well, if you look at the 100 greatest pictures in magazines like National Geographic and LIFE, almost all of them are black and white. There’s no small talk in black and white. There’s something between the highlights and the shadows of monochrome that lies truth itself. I shoot in color for commercial campaigns, but in black and white for civil rights and protest photography. If you understand light, it can have such an effect on people, much more so than color images. Especially with regards to my medium of photojournalism.

BARDEM: I’m absolutely in awe of your photographs and what you just said because I have witnessed that within myself. Meeting you was a great honor for me. The quality of bringing the soul out of the person you are putting the eye on, it’s remarkable.

HARRIMAN: Thank you. One of my favorite films is [Stanley] Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. I grew up obsessing over film, then photography, and many people say that I shoot very cinematically. A lot of photographers have five assistants and lots of lighting, but I don’t believe in lighting. I don’t believe in Photoshop. I don’t retouch my images. It’s the camera, the subject, and light. I remember we walked to a little corner where the light was softer and we didn’t have a lot of time. But there’s something about comfort. You were comfortable with me, and once that’s there, it becomes a lot easier for me to find the moment. I think I did a halfway decent job.

BARDEM: I was lucky that I was groomed!

HARRIMAN: Well, you look pretty good to me.

BARDEM: So Shoot the People begins with George Floyd’s murder. Looking back now, what do you think that moment ultimately asked of you as an artist and as a citizen?

HARRIMAN: I remember I was in this little office in my house, and I looked at my wife saying, “I’ve run out of tears. I don’t have any more tears after seeing a man that looked like me be murdered by the police.” And she goes, “Well, why don’t you just look to your camera?” I took the train to London, and I didn’t know whether I would see five or 5,000 people. Hyde Park was the first place I went to. When people started arriving, I got very emotional. I saw white, Black, Muslim, Jewish, and disabled people all come because they believed what they saw was wrong too. I cried that whole day because I started to believe that in the community of resistance, of protest, lies the only thing that can save us. The powerful few have access to the resources to tell us to accept the status quo. In community, we can break that. I don’t have all the answers, but I know that with my gift, I can archive it. I can make sure that our children’s children will know that during this time, we tried to build a better world. For me, that’s an important job to do.

BARDEM: Whoa. Beautiful, man. The film follows your work documenting the movement for Palestinian liberation. What responsibility do you feel walking into those spaces?

HARRIMAN: I have been very loud for the queer and trans community, women’s rights, Black lives, and climate action. I started seeing the images coming out of Gaza and understanding that there are a million children there, and I strongly believe that there must never be children of a lesser god. If there’s one thing we can all agree on, the children of Gaza are innocent. If anyone wants to debate that, those people are sociopaths. Just because of the lottery of birth does not mean that you deserve a bomb to drop on your tent. It’s my job to be more than a documenter, but a voice for these children who never chose violence. I refuse to exist in a world where I know that and I’m silent. It is more important than any accolade, any Oscar, any sum of money, any sense of achievement. What is the point of being famous, wealthy, or powerful if we spend our lives accumulating and extracting whilst we know so many are suffering?

BARDEM: Amen to that. 

HARRIMAN: I know you’re interviewing me, but in terms of your sense of justice, was that something that came from your family? 

BARDEM: Yeah, my mother was always very active. My uncle was also an activist and spent time in prison for fighting for freedom in the Franco regime.

HARRIMAN: Wow.

BARDEM: My mother was an actress and a very strong activist. It’s not that I learned it from her, it was what I was milking. That was the teat that I was sucking on since the day I was born. So I don’t understand any other way of, as you said, embracing your own reality without paying attention to what surrounds you. If you are lucky enough to have a voice, I think it’s cowardly not to use it. It speaks volumes about the people who choose not to in order to fill their pockets. I understand safety and security and all that, but there’s a moment where you have to. It’s as simple as that. You have to be able to look into your daughters’ eyes and feel fine with yourself. That you are doing something for them in the future.

HARRIMAN: There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience, you know? That’s what I try to sleep on.

BARDEM: Absolutely. How is your family in that realm? They are supportive, of course.

HARRIMAN: Yeah, absolutely. My wife has been amazing. My kids are too young to know what’s really going on, but I do explain to them that we’re trying to help children. It’s important, even from a very young age, to raise your kids to choose a life of service. I remember one Christmas, we were looking at the tree with all these presents. When my girls were opening them, I was looking at my wife saying, “What the fuck are we doing? They don’t need all these toys. They need time, and they need beautiful memories made with their family.”

BARDEM: I saw that the film reveals parts of your personal history that explain where your empathy comes from. Was it difficult for you to let yourself be seen? I can see that you are transparent, that’s the power that you have. And through your work, we can see the human beings that you are putting the lens to. But that also makes you very vulnerable to criticism.

HARRIMAN: I’m definitely living through a lot of criticism because I’ve been vocal about Palestine. We don’t know how much time we have in this world. Life is fleeting. I always say, “What will you say in your final days? What did you do with the time that you had?” I want my children to know that their father tried. He may not have been able to fix everything, but he really, really tried to help build a world that all of our children deserve to inherit. We have just seen one of the biggest heat waves in Europe with many people dying in Spain and in France. I think about what my children are going to do when they’re adults and how they’re even going to survive. The equivalent of 6 Hiroshimas has been dropped on Gaza. Can you imagine what that’s doing to the climate? When people can connect the climate crisis with the American industrial war complex—which is very profitable—it makes it easier to understand why we all must be in protest. You’re not going to be able to protect yourself from a climate crisis on your yacht or mansion or private jet if the world’s on fire. This one is coming for all of us, and the wars that are happening today are exponentially making this world hotter. There’s a writer called William Randolph Inge that said, “If our friends in fur and feather could formulate a religion, they would depict the devil in the image of man.” It’s our job to disprove that quote. That’s why I do the work.

BARDEM: Absolutely. The other day, I read a beautiful quote: “We don’t inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our kids.”

HARRIMAN: Yes.

BARDEM: That’s a different way to look at it. A post from Greenpeace, which I collaborate with, read, “Enjoy the coldest summer of your life, because this is the coldest summer that we’re going to have for the rest of our lives.”

HARRIMAN: Terrifying.

BARDEM: It’s terrifying to think that way.

HARRIMAN: Gosh.

BARDEM: It’s horrible. If they keep sustaining this vicious circle of fossil fuels and consumerism that makes the world be on fire. But somebody like Greta Thunberg is absolutely killed by the media that supports that system. Then you realize what kind of world we’re living in, where the people using their voices for the right causes are the ones to blame.

HARRIMAN: Yeah. She’s seen as an extremist, you know? I love her, I think she’s extraordinary. In a world where Elon Musk became a trillionaire, I look to people like Greta. She’s endured a lot from the press. She’s been brave to try and break the siege twice in Gaza, and is an extraordinary example of someone that is really dedicated to a life of service. You’re more in film than I am, but I photograph so many people in film.  I always try and speak to them and their publicists sometimes get nervous. But I say, “These films that you’re making, this machinery around you, it’s amazing. It’s amazing that you can create, but you have to step outside that echo chamber and use your voice. People look up to you.” That’s why I love my brother Mark Ruffalo so much, because he’s got this huge platform, but he is an empath. He doesn’t have to do that, you know, but it really matters. Hopefully more people in your industry will begin to. I don’t care, frankly, if you’ve been silent for two and a half years. If Beyoncé wants to start talking tomorrow, talk, because I know what that influence will do, right? We’re not waiting for them. But if they speak, it helps. Every voice matters, big or small.

BARDEM: Absolutely. Okay, let’s talk about optimism. There are moments in the film where hope and heartbreak seem to exist simultaneously. Do you think optimism is something you possess naturally? Or is it a pattern that you choose every day with some effort to say, I’m not going to let myself be—what’s the word? 

HARRIMAN: Broken.

BARDEM: Broken.

HARRIMAN: Trauma and pain is the mother of hope itself, right? It’s in your darkest place that you can see that glimmer of light. Your best music comes from pain. Miles Davis didn’t make such extraordinary art because he had an easy life.

BARDEM: That’s it.

HARRIMAN: Right? One of my favorite songs is “Harvest Moon.” It’s a haunting song by Neil Young, but it takes me to a melancholic place. So I find hope very, very near to heartbreak and trauma. It also clears the mind to know that you have the scars of life. If you haven’t seen the worst of the world, you can’t build the best of the world because you won’t understand what direction you should move in. You spoke about vulnerability. I’m sick and tired of men pretending that they can’t be vulnerable. All this manosphere BS of men in their Lamborghinis telling you they have all the answers. I’m scared. Every day, I’m scared of the world. It doesn’t mean that I’m weak. Hope lives in a place where you allow the world to hurt you enough for you to know that you are stronger than the worst that it can offer. And when you climb out of that place, you are able to help others who are in the place that you once were.

BARDEM: It’s amazing what you are saying and the way you express it. Let’s talk about technology in photography. Do you think the actual technology of photography is harming the art form? You are not into the world of retouching too much. As a photographer, what do you think all these great tools are killing the most?

HARRIMAN: You don’t need it. It’s kind of like films as well. Everyone’s talking about the latest large-format Arri cameras, but if you look at the greatest films ever made, whether it’s Cinema Paradiso or The Godfather, they were made with equipment that had 1% of the power of the cameras that we have today. People DM me every day saying, “How do I become a photographer?” I’m like, “Put the camera down. Ask yourself why you’re holding the camera.” Because if you’re holding it for fame, for fortune, for clout, your images will not speak to anyone. Look at Gordon Parks, or Eve Arnold, Sebastian Sargado. Look at what they did with very simple cameras. Then you understand that to take a picture is to observe the human condition. To observe the human condition, you have to have gone on a journey with your own self. If you haven’t gone on that journey, it doesn’t matter how many megapixels or AI tools you have, your images will not speak to the world. 

BARDEM: If someone watches Shoot the People and walks away believing only one thing about the power of images, what would you hope that is?

HARRIMAN: The most important thing about watching this film is for you to walk out of that cinema saying, “My voice can change the world.” I don’t care if you are a fucking plumber, dentist, doctor, or homeless. Doesn’t matter who you are, because your voice will become one with a global community that feels and hurts and rages in the same way as you. It’s just really important you watch that film and feel empowered to know that your voice can be the final seed that’s planted that will make this world gentler.

BARDEM: It’s amazing to hear you, to see you, and see your work. You are an absolutely beautiful person.

HARRIMAN: Thank you for taking the time, really. Thank you for taking the time. 

BARDEM: Thank you for being you and for doing what you’re doing. You are a beacon of light for many, many, many people out there. Thank you so much, my friend.

Shoot the People is now streaming on Watermelon+ and available to rent or buy on digital platforms.