Charismatic cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally, is waging jihad against the Pakistani state. His dream is to impose a strict version of Sharia law throughout the country, as a model for the world. A flashpoint in Aziz’s holy war took place in 2007, when the government leveled his flagship mosque to the ground, killing his mother, brother, only son and 150 students. With unprecedented access, Among the Believers follows Aziz on his very personal quest to create an Islamic utopia, during the bloodiest period in Pakistan’s modern history.
The film also follows the lives of two teenage students who have attended madrassahs (Islamic seminaries) run by Aziz’s Red Mosque network. Throughout the film, their paths diverge: Talha, 12, detaches from his moderate Muslim family and decides to become a jihadi preacher. Zarina, also 12, escapes her madrassah and joins a regular school. Over the next few years, Zarina’s education is threatened by frequent Taliban attacks on schools like her own.
Aziz’s foil is nuclear physicist and leading educational activist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy. He passionately opposes Aziz through his public appearances, lectures, and in the media. Opposition to Aziz comes to a head in December 2014, when Aziz insults a grieving nation by trying to justify the brutal massacre of 132 school children in Peshawar by the Taliban. The attack ignites a movement to end extremism in Pakistan’s mosques and madrassahs. Led by Hoodbhoy and others, Pakistan’s moderate majority focuses on Aziz and calls for his arrest.
Intimate and shocking, Among the Believers offers rare insights into the ideological battles shaping Pakistan and the Muslim world.
Directed by: Hemal Trivedi and Mohammed Naqvi
Country: Pakistan
Year: 2015
Runtime: 84’
Over the course of a year, Emmy Award-winning director Mani Yassir Benchelah made this intimate portrait of Syrian refugee children forced to flee from the violence of civil war to neighbouring Lebanon. Funded by friends of Save the Children, the film tells the stories of the children’s lives in their own words and captures the moving truth of how they deal with loss, hardship and dashed hopes.
While her younger brother fetches water, Aya talks about how a soldier pressured her to provide information about her father. Little Nouredine lived through the siege of Homs and, stuttering, explains how he believes that President Assad’s soldiers are following him everywhere. Thirteen-year-old Layim harbors feelings of vengeance, although he actually likes nothing better than to help people, for example by handing out rations.
Nearly all the children look forward to returning home one day, but Fatima, who is disabled, is thriving in Switzerland where she feels fully acknowledged for the first time. Mustafa desperately wants to study, but he has to work to support his family. Through the prism of their testimony, we gain perspective on the fate of millions of Syrian refugees, half of whom are children.
Speakers:
Julia Kirby-Smith is a filmmaker and journalist with a special interest in social impact and digital engagement. She has worked on Channel 4 News, Dispatches and various current affairs series, as well as being Managing Editor of digital journalism agency Newzulu and running the Asia office of indie Make Productions. She now runs her own comms and video production company, Make Waves.
Jess Crombie heads a team of filmmakers, photographers, picture editors, designers and writers who shoot, craft and create all kinds of powerful, effective and award winning communications materials for Save the Children. Previous to Save the Children Jess was at WaterAid, travelling the globe producing all of their overseas shoots; Magnum Photos, heading up their Creative unit; and almost ten years in advertising as a shoot producer for Wyatt-Clarke & Jones and Publicis advertising agency amongst others. Jess has an academic background in representation theory and lectures at LCC on this and other areas.
Directed by: Mani Benchelah
Produced by: Charly Feldman for MAKE Productions
Runtime: 56′
Country: United Kingdom/Lebanon/Switzerland
In 2014, 14,792 asylum seekers arrived in Denmark, 2,940 of them were children. At Home in the World follows the day-to-day lives of those children whose families are seeking asylum in the EU.
This remarkably intimate and touching documentary focuses on one Danish Red Cross school for refugees, where classrooms are filled with children from more than twelve countries. The students have had to learn Danish while adjusting to new surroundings and, in some cases, dealing with the traumas of conflict. While some students thrive and find friendship despite their difficult pasts, others act out with feelings of alienation and frustration. Some are denied asylum and sent back to their countries of origin, while others are granted residence and graduate to standard Danish language schools.
With stunning and unobtrusive camera work, director Andreas Koefoed masterfully captures the social and psychological impacts of displacement from the outlook of young people and the educators who are tasked with guiding them – and at times their parents – through daunting new experiences.
Directed by: Andreas Koefoed
Produced by: Sara Stockmann
Production company: Sonntag Pictures
Runtime: 58′
Country: Denmark
athomeintheworldthefilm.com
On Friday 15 May, the Frontline Club hosted the UK premiere of This Is My Land, followed by an insightful discussion with director Tamara Erde. Screened on the 67th anniversary of Israeli Independence and Nakba Day, the film poses an important and highly relevant question: how does teaching of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affect younger generations in the contested region?
This Is My Land follows several history teachers and students in six schools over an academic year. It provides a nuanced perspective of how educational institutions across Israel and the West Bank grapple with national identity, curriculum censorship and a relentless fear of the ‘other’. Observational in style, the film reveals gaping discrepancies between concepts of freedom and historical truth, and a sense of how trauma and conflict are transmitted onto the next generation through the pages of a textbook.
At the beginning of the film, Erde explains how, as an Israeli student, she was never taught to consider Palestinian history. It was not until she joined the army that she gained greater awareness of the other side of the conflict. During her discussion at the Frontline Club, she commented on her motivations for making the film.
“For me, something that is really important and lacking in education, is the other side’s vision, narrative and history. The first step is just to realise that there is another side and story, that is today being completely ignored. It’s [about] opening up to tolerance and understanding that you are not alone in the world… to see people on the other side with their pain from the past, all this complexity.”
Thought provoking evening @frontlineclub: This is my land | Tamara Erde http://t.co/VHnxaohRFM
— Stephanie Biden (@StephanieBiden) May 15, 2015
Asked by an audience member how she had approached each school, Erde said:
“You have to get approval from the Ministry of Education for each teacher. From the Israeli side, all the teachers who were centre-left were not authorised.”
She added that while there were numerous schools from which she was denied access, the teachers she filmed were intriguing, both in their characters and the way they approached teaching.
“What I was looking for was teachers who on the one hand represent the national curriculum, but on the other hand do try to challenge themselves or ask questions within what they can do.”
Despite the complex personalities of the teachers, several audience members noted how bleak the film seemed in terms of optimism, and asked whether Erde felt any sense of hope that the two sides could find a solution.
She responded: “While editing, there were times when I thought I’d like it to have a happy ending. But at the same time, I wanted to stay loyal to what I felt and what I saw during this process… From what we’ve seen over the long years, the solution doesn’t come from politics. We need to try and bring it from other places, and I think education could have been one of the major places. But today, it’s just following politics completely.”
One audience member asked whether the film had been screened in Israel or Palestine and, given the contentious topic, the reactions it received.
Erde said: “We did some private screenings in the cinemas on the Israeli side and Ramallah… There were many good responses from teachers who saw the film and said it raised many important questions for them. On the Israeli side we did some screenings in April. There were first reactions saying, it’s okay for us to see it inside Israel but don’t show it outside so you don’t reveal anything about the problems here.”
She added that her ultimate aim would be to screen the film in schools.
“What I would have loved to do is to bring it to schools, to teachers and to kids from both sides to see. I think it will be a long process. We managed to do it in the schools that we filmed, and in some private teachers organisations. We tried through the Ministry [of Education], but I’m not surprised it didn’t work. On the Palestinian side, we are trying now and I hope it will work in some way.”
Visit the This Is My Land website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.
This is My Land takes us inside school classrooms in Israel and the occupied West Bank, to look at how educators teach history in a contested region. Director Tamara Erde was raised in Israel and now lives in Paris. She begins by explaining her own background: having grown up in the Israeli public school system, she never had exposure to the Palestinian side of history until she joined the army and gained a greater interest.
Filmed in an observational style, This is My Land, presents a nuanced analysis of the core educational institutions in Israel and Palestine. Candid interviews with students reveal shocking discrepancies in perspectives of history, concepts of freedom, and definitions of nationality.
Throughout the film, Erde visits six schools that reflect the complex demographics of the region: an Israeli high school in Haifa; an Arab school in Ibilin; a boys’ school in Ramallah; a Talmudic school in a West Bank settlement; a school in an UNRWA refugee camp; and an Israeli school that combines Jewish and Arab students.
The contrasts are wholly fascinating and raise important questions about youth assimilation and pedagogy. Uncovering a wide range of teaching techniques, Erde shows how history is transplanted onto the shoulders of the younger generations. The film prompts the question: how long will the past dictate the present?
Directed by Tamara Erde
Production Company: Iliade & Films
Duration: 93′
Year: 2014
Filmed during the 2014 siege of Gaza, which left 507 children dead and 3,598 wounded, Born in Gaza follows a group of young children growing up in a war zone. The film examines the widespread psychological trauma experienced by adolescents coping with injury, fear, and the loss of loved ones. It is estimated that 400,000 children in Gaza are in desperate need of psychological support.
‘We were eight kids on the beach. We came to play football’ recalls Hamada, 13. Then the shelling started. Four boys, all aged between nine and eleven, were killed. Motasem, 11, and Hamada were wounded. ‘I may need to go abroad for surgery’ states Motasem. ‘I have shrapnel in my back, hands and legs’.
Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, six year old Bisan finds it increasingly difficult to communicate. ‘She does not talk to us about what happened’ says one of her friends. ‘If anyone asks, she gets mad’.
Through observational footage and interviews Hernan Zin provides, with sensitivity, individual stories that go far beyond news coverage of the events and offer children the opportunity to be heard. In doing so, he also provides space for dialogue and healing. ‘The situation is really complicated. We have a war every two years’, states 13 year old Mohamed. ‘I often think about our situation and I never see the end’.
Directed by Hernan Zin
Produced by La Claqueta & Contramedia Films
Duration: 74′
Year: 2014