Genna Naccache is a Brazilian/British documentary photographer and film maker, and writer, working in areas of humanitarian crisis and conflict, collaborating with countless communities worldwide who are experiencing severe human rights violations.
Working in her native Rio since 2002, she followed street fighting between drug gangs and police in Rocinha, shared the hopes and dreams of women inside the Talavera Bruce prison, and saw the birth of a new favela, New Invasion.
From Rocinha, Rio’s largest and most spectacular favela, to New Invasion and Enchanted Land in the dangerous Baixada Fluminense, Brazilians are struggling to survive. 'We live in fear' bears witness to their day-to-day ordeal – a catalogue of anxiety, dashed hopes and casual violence. Amid the despair, many of these photographs capture a tenderness, the soul of a people yearning for a better life.
Genna’s work with Amnesty International campaigns, include Stop Arms, Police Violence, and Violence Against Women campaigns, and continue to be widely published in Amnesty International publications worldwide. This work culminated in a major travelling exhibition of Genna’s photographs, “We Live in Fear”, which was curated by herself to raise awareness to Police Violence against the favela communities, forgotten. and abandoned by the State.
Genna filmed, edited and co-produced two short films of footage she filmed in Brazil, with Amnesty International, which were screened at the exhibition’s opening night. The films were also used for an election campaign in Brazil to call for the support of MPs to mitigate widespread police violence and human rights violations in the favelas of Brazil.
Genna curated another important and recent exhibition, Lost Rights, found Justice? A photo competition and exhibition of photographs portraying the refugee crisis in different parts of the world, at Being Human Festival, University of London.
Her documentary work in collaboration with non-profit Organisations (Amnesty International, Save the Children, IBISS Brazil, Sanitation First, One Voice, among others) also include five short documentary films, which raised considerable funds for post-tsunami housing in Sri Lanka, for basic sanitation of the favelas New Invasion and Enchanted Land, and for the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous People in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
Genna's work with communities of women is an important aspect of her professional life, which includes the first book of Water Birth in the UK, Mama Totto: A Celebration of Birth, Body Shop, award winning book Birth and Beyond, among countless other publications in the field of natural birth. Genna continues to photograph family portraits, including pregnancy, new born babies, and mother and child.