Lesson From History

As I meet Iraqis here in the Middle East who helped the U.S. try to bring peace and security to their country, we discuss what the military draw-down taking place right now means for this already imperiled population. It's worth taking a page from history - so as not to repeat the horrific fates that have befallen other collaborators. Look, for example, at what happened to the Hmong people after the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam War, the Hmong were recruited by the CIA to join a "Secret War" in Laos. (It was a Secret War because even though a Geneva agreement barred America from sending troops into Laos, the U.S. pumped $20 billion into an air and ground campaign to stop the spread of Communism there.)

Like Iraqis today who serve(d) as military translators, secret CIA operatives and reconstruction specialists, the Hmong put their lives on the line to support the U.S. by blocking supply lines, gathering intelligence and flying combat missions. And while 15,000 died during the war, that number doubled when the U.S. pulled its troops out of South Vietnam, abandoning the Hmong, and forcing them to flee to Thailand for refugee.

Today's Thailand is here in Jordan. Today's Thailand is Syria (where we're headed tomorrow). Today's Thailand is Lebanon and Egypt. These are the countries where Iraqis who have been abandoned by the U.S. are fleeing.

One man I met today - Hamad*, a prominent sheik who lived near Abu Ghraib, described how he befriended the Americans who moved in to nearby Camp Bucca. As Hamad got to know them, and they got to know him, mutual trust and respect developed.

"When I had a heart attack, they promised to get me medical attention." Hamad understood it would be a difficult process to secure medical clearance to leave Iraq - but he believed the process was underway. So, when American officials asked him for a favor, he was eager to help: assist the U.S. in rebuilding Abu Ghraib. He was now an official employee of the U.S. government. Any by becoming such, Hamad essentially signed the death sentences of his three brothers and an uncle, and was responsible for the kidnapping of his 18-year-old son.

This afternoon, sitting on a faded sofa as a fan hummed overhead in his Amman apartment, he reflected on the abandonment he feels, "I never did get any help for my medical condition... But, it has been five years since all of this happened, and it's time to move on. America did nothing to help me - but I'm focused on the future." All the while he tells his story, he is smiling. Smiling because he is preparing to move to Australia in two weeks.

"You want to know how it makes me feel?" asks Kirk Johnson, founder of The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Refugees who is traveling with us on this shoot. "I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed that Australia is doing more to help this family than we are - and we're the ones who tore them apart and put them in so much danger."

After the Vietnam War, the U.S. denied there was ever a Secret War in Laos. It wasn't until May 1997 - 24 years after America withdrew its support of the Hmong guerrillas that the Secret War was officially acknowledged. Let's hope it's not 2033 before our Iraqi allies experience some sense of justice for all that they have sacrificed.


(*Hamad's name has been changed for his protection)

Final Prep for Mideast Trip

After a week of much trepidation, I'm happy to say plans are falling into place. Iraqis who are on "the list" are signing up in droves to meet with Kirk Johnson, founder of The List Project, and Chris Nugent, a Holland & Knight attorney who is working pro bono on cases of U.S.-affiliated Iraqis who are in danger. As soon as we hit the ground, we expect to be bombarded by Iraqis who are desperate for help. We'll be flying, driving and taking buses around the region...

The news is...

Thanks to major funding from ITVS, "The Promise of Freedom" is coming to PBS! Sean and I had a phenomenal time in San Fransisco last week for ITVS Orientation - thanks Cheryl, Richard x2, Matt, Annelise, Jorge and the rest of the ITVS family! We also had the pleasure of eating the best dessert ever: cheese-based sorbet with olive oil and sea salt. Phenomenal. Now we just have to make a movie!

The Rumors are True...

We do have BIG news to share... soon.

Hell of a Day

(Pictured: Beth Murphy and Sean Flynn at the TDF pitch table. Photo courtesy of Christian Pena.)

Our project, The Promise of Freedom, was the first and only one at TDF to receive on-the-spot funding (for both production and outreach) at the pitch table.** Thank you Judith Helfand, Julia Parker Benello and Wendy Ettinger! (Read my blog entry on Chicken & Egg Pictures site, too.) We also received a commitment for distribution and support for making a pre-sale. It is phenomenally exciting, and I'm looking very forward to our follow up meetings tomorrow with some commissioning editors.

There was really only one way to celebrate: meal seven of sushi. And the Ryan Harrington fan that I am, I couldn't miss the International Premiere of P-Star Rising. I didn't want it to end.



P-Star and her Dad showed up after the film, and, surrounded on the sidewalk under a full moon, P-Star entertained us with one of her new hip-hop songs. We all agreed that this 14-year-old girl is more mature than we could probably ever hope to be.

**There were thirty films pitched here (25 as part of TDF, and 5--including ours--as part of TDF's Good Pitch). The four other films that were part of the Good Pitch were - Sean & Andrea Fine’s Resilient (signs of hope in women’s stories); Mona Nicoara’s Our School (Roma children in Transylvania); Nic Dunlop’s Burma Soldier (a Burmese soldier who becomes a pro-democracy activist); and Marco Williams’ Untitled Immigration Project (a community torn apart by immigration issues).

Lucrative, Easy and Meaningful

Producing documentaries is not easy. In large part because it is not inexpensive. We mused over drinks that it would be nice if every once in a while a film could fit this description: "lucrative, easy and meaningful."

I was celebrating the world premiere of "21 Below" at the Toronto Hyatt with the film's creators and supporters. In the film Sharon, the oldest and most stable of three sisters, returns to her dysfunctional family to help her 21-year-old sister, Karen, who is pregnant with her third child. The baby's father is an older black man who sells drugs and teaches Karen's older son (fathered by another man) that Jay-Z has 4000guns. The diapproval from Sharon and Karen's Jewish mother creates the tension and drama that drive this intensely personal film. Karen also has a 15-month-old daughter who is dying of a rare degenerative disorder. I nearly found myself hyperventilating during sections of the film. It was remarkable after the film to meet the Mom and see her satisfaction with it. It cannot be easy to have a packed theater watch your most intimate family drama on display.

I finally saw "Sergio" today. What can I say? Only that I have one wish: that I had never seen it so that I could walk back into the theater this second to watch it for the first time. And Director Greg Barker may have a through-the-roof resume, but there's no ego accompanying it. Here's the trailer:

Toronto Tales

Judith Helfand and Robert West, co-founders of Working Films, continue to prove why they're the best at what they do! As they listened to and helped tweak each of the five pitches (inluding ours) that will be given on Thursday in front of hundreds of people, good pitches evolved into great ones. Their mission to link non-fiction film to cutting edge activism is gaining even more momentum now that they're partnering with Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation and the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program to have the "Good Pitch" here in Toronto.

Most of the day was spent in this three hour workshop and an invite-only Doc Mogul lunch honoring Sheila (as Nick Fraser points out, HBO's Sheila Nevins is a one name wonder in the docu world).

The films I saw today were as heart-wrenching as yesterday's. Children of God tells the story of a 12-year-old Nepalese boy and his two siblings who eke out an existence by finding gold, coins and food used for cremations along the banks of the sacred Bagmati River. And Rough Aunties focuses on an amazing group of women in South Africa who care for abused children. Together the films left me emotionally exhausted.

They both also brought back a flood of memories. I visited Pashupatinath in Kathmandu in 1999, and was as struck then as I was today by the seamlessness between life and death there. I remember watching family members carry the deceased to the edge of the river, bathe the body in the river's holy waters(nevermind that it is 90%sewage today), build a funeral pyre (a ghat) stuffed with ghee (butter) balls to help it burn, and then sweep the ashes into the river. That's when the kids come in - diving into the water to recover anything of value, and pulling magnets along the river bottom to snatch any coins. It really is a bit like the edge of heaven here because Hindus believe that once the ashes reach the water, the soul leaves the body to be with God.

On the lighter side...

I'm loving the fact that every other storefront in Toronto seems to be a sushi restaurant. This is fitting in nicely with my plan to eat nothing but edamame and rainbow dragon rolls all week! I was hoping to start each morning with some laps, but the pool here (sorry Sutton Place Hotel) stinks. It's small and square, and my circular swim this morning left me so unsatisfied that I grabbed my running shoes and hit the streets. It is perfect running weather here, and I'm looking forward to heading down to the waterfront in about 7 hours.

Dismal Illumination & Empathy

In my next life, I want to come back as Nicholas Kristof. His writing for the NYT is done with such humanity and insight, and I loved watching him in action tonight at the International Premiere of Reporter. The film follows Kristof on a mission of (as the director calls it) "dismal illumination" to the Congo.

As Kristof searches for the one person who will illuminate the massive suffering of millions caused by war in the Congo (5.4 million killed in the past decade), filmmaker Eric Daniel Metzgar distastefully comments that hunting down the saddest stories "doesn't feel very good." (There were moments when I couldn't help but think of the book, Anyone Here Been Raped and Speak English?) But, Metzgar admits, the worst stories will exist whether Kristof finds them or not.

When Kristof meets Yohanita, a woman so thin from starvation she is mistaken for a bundle of rags, his next column begins to take shape. His methodology is similar to my own (just without world leaders paying close attention!): tell personal stories that highlight larger political, historical and ethical issues. What I wasn't aware of is the "psychology of compassion" that informs Kristof's method.

One scientific study mentioned in the film is really fascinating: Subjects were shown three pictures... one of a starving 7-year-old girl, one of a starving 7-year-old boy, and one with both the boy and girl. People looking at the photos felt the same level of compassion for both the girl and boy in their individual photos. But when the two were pictured together, psychic numbing began to take hold, and viewers didn't feel as compassionate. And that's just two people suffering! How will the human mind comprehend 5.4 million??

In the end, Krisof says emotions are too unreliable to allow people to care about those suffering in our world. We need laws. But years of international inaction in Darfur prove that laws aren't enough either. That's why Kristof makes galvanizing public opinion and inspiring public outcry one of his primary missions--and his ability to achieve it is unparalleled in the field of journalism.



EMPATHY

"I know I'm different than my mother," says the main character in the wrenching film, About Face: The Story of Gwendellin Bradshaw, "because I feel empathy." Gwen's mother, a drug-using schizophrenic, threw her into a campfire when she was 9-months-old, leaving her with even more internal scars than external ones. The film follows Gwen through much of her 20s as she searches for her mother and battles her own mental and substance abuse demons. Tracking her mother takes Gwen to homeless shelters and psychiatric facilities across the United States, and when her search ends on a bench outside a bus station in New Hampshire, her mother insists on seeing her ID--as if the burns that have disfigured her face and hands aren't proof enough. Instead of finding the love and family she has craved her entire life, Gwen discovers a selfish, angry, mentally unstable woman who seems to believe that she is the victim who needs to be rescued. Fortunately, Gwen does find a real sense of family with her half sister, and as the film closes, the two of them create a photo album together--the first photo album Gwen has ever had in her entire life. (I must mention - the original score was beautiful - great job Joel Goodman!)

Anticipation

I have several "must see" films on my HOT DOCS schedule, but topping the list is Sergio, based on Samantha Power's Pulitzer-winning biography, Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vierira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. A career diplomat whose calm, suave style and good looks earned him a reputation as equal parts James Bond and Bobby Kennedy, Sergio answered the call to duty one final time in Iraq. You can watch the Sergio trailer here.

No time to read Power's book? Her New Yorker article (The Envoy: The United Nations' doomed mission to Iraq)is an excellent read.