On Thursday 24 April, the Frontline Club welcomed a full house to a screening of Aleppo. Notes from the Dark. It was followed by an insightful Q&A with directors Michal Przedlacki and Wojciech Szumowski, which touched on the misrepresentation of the conflict in Western media and the possibility of a foreign peacekeeping intervention.

The unique and powerful film aims to document, in the words of Przedlacki, the “fate of ordinary people in extraordinary, dreadful times”, and gives voice to an assortment of Aleppo residents experiencing the daily hardships of life in a war zone.

Created from over 200 hours of footage, Aleppo. Notes from the Dark paints a complex and unique portrait of the Syrian people through a panorama of personal accounts, including those of a doctor at a makeshift field hospital and an Islamic cleric devoted to the pursuit of zakat (alms). Filmed over a period of 44 days, the film communicates the position of its subjects with regard to the state of the Syrian Revolution, their lives prior to the conflict and their expectations and hopes for the future of their homeland.

From left to right: Marta, Wojciech Szumowski andMichal Przedlacki

Humanitarian aid worker and photographer Przedlacki and filmmaker Szumowski commented on the film’s origins, born out of a mutual desire to provide evidence of the extensive bloodshed inflicted on the Syrian people:

“We decided to take the risk and go together to Aleppo. Not for news, not for three days, not for a week, but to stay there for two months in order to properly document and follow the fate of ordinary people. . . . We decided that we had to tell this story . . . there was too little information about Syria.”

An audience member questioned the lack of screen time dedicated to the narratives of Christian Syrians, Szumowski responded (with the help of a translator):

“We think that it would not be optimal to put Christians and Muslims in opposition, I think this is a mistake that we make in the West. Christians amount to 6% of Syrian society, and in the film we have shown the (positive) attitude of Muslims towards Christians. Both Muslims and Christians are Syrian citizens, and we would not like to divide them.”

A second audience member enquired as to whether the conflict in Syria had the potential to radicalise those involved, and the extent to which this would pose a threat to the West. Przedlacki responded:

“To understand why we have seen the influence of foreign extremists we need to understand the despair that Syria has faced, . . . the Syrians have a feeling that the world is letting them burn. . . . We are now ‘drinking the beer that we brewed ourselves’.”

The question of the West’s role in supporting a resolution to the conflict was likewise raised. Szumowski proposed the following:

“The first thing that the West can do is to tell an honest story. I have been following the information that has been in the media about Syria very closely, and I have the impression that there are some deformations of the real situation…. Placing terrorism in the headlines is already a sort of lie… and giving it precedence over everything else distorts the situation… So first it would be to tell the truth, and second it would be to use solidarity”

Przedlacki added:

“Our film is a protest against the ‘civilisation of indifference’. . . . Each one of us can do something. We made a film . . . some of you can write about the film, or can support Save the Children or a humanitarian organisation. . . . This is not some imaginary world. All of this has happened.”

Another audience member warmly thanked the filmmakers for bringing such a pressing situation to light, and enquired as to the extent of Russian involvement in the eyes of the opposition fighters. Szumowski recalled interactions with residents of the Syrian city:

“The people that we met in Aleppo kept talking about Russian mercenaries. . . . We heard tales that some of the aircrafts are being piloted by soldiers from North Korea. . . . It is almost as if the war is not between Syrians but between other nationalities as well.”

Szumowski likewise commented on outsider interests, highlighting the Russian base with access to the Mediterranean Sea as a clear motive for their involvement.

The filmmakers were asked to detail the extent to which the residents of Aleppo that they came into contact with demonstrated support for the suggestion of a Western military intervention.
Przedlacki offered a response and articulated his proposal for a peaceful resolution to the fighting, drawing on his work with humanitarian response programmes in diverse regions, including Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia and Pakistan:

“Every option should be considered in order to stop the bloodshed in Syria. . . . We have a dictator that is creating a bloodbath for his own Syrian nation. . . . If diplomatic means are not working then there should be an initiative of the Arab countries to intervene, and the Western role would be to support such an initiative. . . . I don’t really believe that we would see American boots on the ground.”

An audience member pressed Przedlacki on which Arab countries would be involved in this initiative:

“The Arab League itself. In 2012, they agreed to have a peacekeeping operation, which was then stopped by the Russians. . . . Imagine how many people could have lived . . . if this had happened.”

Szumowski expressed greater concern at the extent of mis-information in the West, and demonstrated a reluctance to endorse Przedlacki’s backing of foreign military intervention:

“I am an artist, a creator, not a politician. I think that force is the absolute last resort. I think the most important thing is informing the society openly and honestly about what is going on in Syria.”

Szumowski closed the discussion by recalling the inaction of Allied troops during the Second World War with regards to intervening to prevent the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, pointing out the West’s current complicity in the situation in Syria owing to its failure to act:

“We are committing a similar sin now when we are not talking about Syria. This is something that neither me, nor my friend (Przedlacki) can accept.”

To find out more about Aleppo. Notes from the Dark, the film’s Twitter page is available here.

Interview given by Przedlacki to BBC World News about Aleppo. Notes from the Dark,  on 25 April 2014. Courtesy of BBC:

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View the trailer of Aleppo. Notes from the Dark here:

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This screening was supported by the Polish Cultural Institute London.

On Tuesday 4 June, The Frontline Club hosted a screening of El Gusto. Despite a 6-hour flight delay and a broken ankle, director Safinez Bousbia made it up to the Frontline Club just in time for a lively Q&A. The film follows Bousbia on her journey to reunite a group of around 30 Jewish and Muslim Chaabi musicians, separated by the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962).

Director Safinez Bousbia

Chaabi, or ‘the people’s music’, is a musical genre that transcended class, religion and ethnicity. It grew out of the Algerian casbah and is a mix of Berber, Andalusian and religious music.  The Jewish musicians mostly fled Algeria in the wake of the Algerian War and the remaining Muslim musicians were forced out of the deteriorating casbah, eventually being relocated to different areas. After they were reunited in 2006, El Gusto began performing together again. They continue to tour, worldwide, and are due to start recording their third album this year.

Bousbia had initially only planned to arrange for the musicians to play together again one more time; a process which took around three years. After meeting them she became fascinated by what they had gone though and realised that their stories could become a great film. As she could not find any producer who wanted to take on the project, she concluded she would have to make a film herself. As a trained architect turned filmmaker she also became the manager of the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers in the process.

The music is a very powerful backdrop to the story, especially after understanding more about its history and the experiences of the musicians. Bousbia described how she became involved with writing some of the music for the first El Gusto album:

“It was very different with this music, because they don’t write it – they memorise it, which is exceptional. Because if you arrange a whole a concert, it’s like 15 songs…and I was so impressed that they remember everything”.

As pointed out by an audience member, there are no women in El Gusto. Bousbia explained that Chaabi music was established in 1920s Algeria, very much as an underground movement.  As a result, the only women who were involved with this scene were dancers or prostitutes and the music was played in places where women did not want to be seen. She went on to say that later on, in the 1940s, as Chaabi music became more popular and mainstream, women established their own similar style of music.

When asked about the future of El Gusto and Chaabi music in Algeria, Bousbia replied that she hopes the younger generation will continue to play and tour. The original El Gusto members are all over the age of 70 – with the eldest being 104 years old – and tire easily. There are also financial limitations to the group’s activities. As a result, a younger generation is slowly introduced. Their enthusiasm is encouraging, but Bousbia feels that they will need further encouragement to become more positively involved with Chaabi music. She is also concerned with the limits placed on the growth of the music scene in Algeria:

“I think that the best thing you can offer musicians is the diversity and interactions with different cultures and different musics, and I think that’s what Algerian artists miss the most”.

She went on to explain that the current political situation in Algeria means that the musicians are not able to travel much. The government also controls the international visitors, which is affecting the development of art as it is essential for artists to be ‘confronted with what’s happening “out there”‘. Although the film was received extremely well by the people of Algeria, the El Gusto Orchestra has not received official permission to perform in Algeria yet. Bousbia also encountered several challenges with the authorities over gaining permission to film the documentary.

The El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers at the Barbican 3 June 2013. Credit: Wotienke Vermeer

Since its release El Gusto has been shown in film festivals all over the world, with the next screening in Egypt on Thursday 6 June. Safinez Bousbia will continue to accompany El Gusto and help them to prepare their third album, before starting work on her next film. Up to date information on upcoming screenings and concerts can be found on the official website of both the film and the band.

Filmmaker Safinez Bousbia describes El Gusto as “the story of a group of musicians – Jews and Muslims – torn apart by history and brought together today by music”. In reality it took more than music alone to bring these musicians back together; rather the director’s own extraordinary efforts over a two year period to hunt down and reunite a group of friends separated for 50 years.

The story of El Gusto begins in the casbah of Algiers in 2003, with a chance encounter between a young architect holidaying in the country of her birth and an 83-year-old mirror vendor and former musician, who had lost his band members during the Algerian War of Independence. At that time, Bousbia had little inclination towards filmmaking – “At the beginning, I just proposed to help him find his friends.” It was only midway through the search for Mohamed Ferkioui’s friends, as the number of remarkable sub-stories began to increase, that the necessity to document their journey became apparent.

“Once I found the musicians, I heard they had amazing stories to tell. Then I thought it was worth a film. I didn’t think I’d be the one doing it, because I was an architect at the time! I did not have a clue as to how films were made.”

In many ways the story of Safinez Bousbia is almost as intriguing as those of her musicians.

Born in Algeria, raised in Switzerland and educated at Oxford and Dublin, her transition over the course of the project from architect to investigator, band manager, film producer and director, is an indication of her extraordinary versatility. Her journey is made all the more remarkable when considered alongside battles against near-bankruptcy and cancer. These threatened to derail not only her life but also the band, the film project and the livelihoods of the men whom she had reunited.

There is certainly gratitude among her musicians for the transformation in their lives. Ferkioui describes the moment he first met Bousbia as like a “beautiful angel” who had been “sent from God”. Rachid Berkani, the band’s 75-year-old lutist rejoices: “Look at us at our age – traveling, eating great meals, staying in three- and four-star hotels, getting paid.”

Bousbia’s motivation for creating El Gusto remains clear: “Whenever we talk about the Algerian War of Independence, it’s always versions told by either soldiers or victims. It’s never just by simple people, simple musicians, who maybe never gave a damn about the war. They just wanted to play music and have fun and be friends.”

“The War of Independence was literally something you couldn’t avoid. You could not talk about their lives without talking about that war. It was the thing that made their lives pause; the reason that their friendships were torn apart, their music stopped. Their life completely took another turn.

“Their lives were stuck in the past, their music was lost, they deserved to be reunited and have their stories told. I decided to go for it.”

On Tuesday 4 June, El Gusto will be screened at the Frontline Club followed by a Q&A with director Safinez Bousbia.

THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Ten years after 9/11 and a year before what are likely to prove deeply divisive Presidential elections, BBC Global News sent a combined team from BBC Persian and BBC Arabic TV on an epic road trip across the USA to find out what it is like to be a Muslim in America today. America’s complicated relationship with Islam is examined through the eyes of two reporters – Karen Zarindast who grew up in Iran and Samir Farah who grew up in Lebanon. 

In a country where Freedom of Worship is guaranteed by the Constitution, the team travelled from New York to Texas to California and points in between. They met American Muslims from all walks of life: from a High class fashion designer in Manhattan, to a Muslim rapper in California, from a Pakistani born Texan "cowboy" to the Imam of the country’s largest mosque in the city of Dearborn — serving a Muslim population of some 30,000.

To a man and woman, all were grateful for the opportunities and freedoms provided by the USA and many were intensely patriotic. Yet set against a backdrop of politically motivated Islamophobia, stoked by some partisan media outlets, many in the American Muslim community now feel under more scrutiny than ever before: they are constantly having to justify their faith and prove their loyalty to their homeland."

By Nicole Hunt 

The week starts off with a bang as humankind hits a big milestone on Monday – the UN is marking the day as the moment the world’s population surpasses seven billion people.

A deadline set by the Arab League two weeks ago for Syrian President Bashar al Assad to open dialogue with the Syrian opposition council expires. Syria risks expulsion from the regional bloc over concerns at the rising death toll from nine months of action against anti-government protesters, which has already topped 3,000.

With Cannes off-limits to all but world leaders, the traditional anti-G20 rally is being held in Nice on Tuesday. The demonstration kicks off a four-day ‘alternative summit’, with many of the world’s biggest NGOs expected to be in attendance.

The two-day London Conference on Cybersecurity begins in London, with Foreign Secretary William Hague, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales all scheduled to speak.

Turkey hosts the Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan on Wednesday, focusing on security and cooperation in the heart of Asia; Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are among those attending. While the Conference could have been lost in the build up to the G20, Karzai’s expected announcement of the next areas where Afghan security forces will take control from NATO is bound to keep it in the headlines.

Of course the G20 itself kicks off on Thursday, though it wouldn’t be surprising if many of the European leaders involved are quite sick of seeing each other – for some, this will be their third meeting in 12 days.

While the G20 leaders are discussing the world’s financial problems, the European Central Bank’s Governing Council will be holding the first of its two meetings this month. The meeting is the first chaired by former Italian Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi, who replaces Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB President on 1 November.

The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca begins on Friday. The five-day festival has in recent years attracted nearly two million foreign pilgrims, making it the largest pilgrimage in the world. Muslims who have the means to make the journey are required to do so at least once during their lifetime.

The Mars500 simulated mission to Mars ‘returns’ to Earth at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. The crew members have been in an isolation chamber for 17 months, even performing several simulated spacewalks during their journey.

Italy’s Partido Democratico holds a pro-democracy, anti-Berlusconi rally in Rome on Saturday. The opposition party is using the occasion to launch its proposals for the reconstruction of the world’s economy and an alternative to Silvio Berlusconi’s embattled government.

In Cape Town, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an international tribunal investigating Israeli complicity in human rights abuses against Palestinians, opens its South African evidence session, with opening remarks from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and an address from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.

The week closes with two Central American elections. In Guatemala, Otto Perez Molino of the Partido Patriota faces off against Manuel Baldizon of the Libertad Democratica Renovada party in a presidential run-off. Molina won 13 per cent more of the vote in the 11 September first round election.

Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, incumbent President Daniel Ortega is eligible for a second term following an October 2009 decision by the country’s Supreme Court that removed constitutional obstacles that would have prevented him from standing again. Voters also elect members to the country’s parliament.

Monday is the beginning of a new month and the beginning of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

In Saudi Arabia, the date is doubly significant: following the 18 June beheading of Indonesian maid Ruyati binti Sapubi and the near-beheading of another maid known as Darsem, an Indonesian moratorium on sending domestic workers to the country comes into effect.

There have also been whispers of another women’s driving protest to coincide with the first day of Ramadan, but so far nothing as organised as the 28 June attempt.

Tuesday is debt ceiling day in the US. While one hopes that the increasingly heated negotiations will lead to a solution before then, there remains the increasingly real possibility that the US could default on its $14tn debt.

In Cape Town, Mziwamadoda Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni are due to go on trial over the 13 November, 2010 murder of British honeymooner Anni Dewani. Mngeni was unable to attend the last hearing, reportedly due to surgery to remove a brain tumour, and is unlikely to be in attendance.

All eyes on Egypt on Wednesday, as the trial for ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his sons Alaa and Gamal is due to begin, but looks likely to be postponed. Former Interior Minister Habib al Adly is also tried, after his trial was postponed from 25 July so he could be heard alongside the Mubaraks.

Less dramatic is a Supreme Court hearing taking place in Sydney, where the Australian government is taking legal action against former Guantanamo inmate David Hicks over his 2010 book Guantanamo, My Journey. The government says Hicks is illegally gaining commercial benefit from a crime.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) monthly Food Price Index is released on Thursday, with the July figures of interest as drought and famine continue to ravage the Horn of Africa. US

President Barack Obama celebrates his 50th birthday as the week begins to wind down.

Following the excitement around the final Atlantis mission in July, NASA launches Jupiter explorer Juno on Friday, the first solar-powered spacecraft designed to operate so far from the sun.

Saturday marks the 66th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A commemorative ceremony takes place at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, and nuclear disarmament campaign groups hold events worldwide.

Voters go to the polls in Cape Verde on Sunday to elect their next President. Incumbent Pedro Pires, who won by less than one percent in the 2006 elections, is not a candidate.