You are here: Frontpage > Issues > 2463 >
| Powerful act of remembrance Julia Guest (Dir) |
Julia Guest (Dir) , A Letter to the Prime Minister: Jo Wilding in Iraq (Zero Films, 2005; Documentary, certificate 12; 70 mins. DVD; £16)
Reviewed by: GARETH EVANS
Offering a singular take on recent US/UK strategies in the Middle East, A Letter to the Prime Minister follows international activist Jo Wilding on her remarkable journey of the last few years, in solidarity with the people of Iraq.
Narrated as a letter to Tony Blair, and moving from her challenging of the legality of the devastating economic sanctions imposed on the country, through to her activities in Baghdad before and during the invasion, the film opens by tracing the lineage of nonviolent resistance to US/UK policy towards the region. Wilding then serves as witness to the destruction of the lives of ordinary people during the bombing campaign and their subsequent neglect by occupation forces and the interim authorities.
But she is also extremely active on a number of fronts, forming the Boomchucka Circus to work with school children and refugees. And in April 2004, that help extended to travelling into Fallujah, when even Al Jazeera had pulled out, to stand alongside the civilians trapped and targeted by US forces.
The 29 year old law student kept an online diary of her time in the country, read by thousands of people around the world who sought an independent voice on the build up to and reporting of the invasion and occupation (her report from Fallujah provided the final chapter of John Pilger's powerful anthology of investigative and committed journalism, Tell Me No Lies, published last year).
Indeed, exclusive footage from the besieged city creates a moving picture of the terrible impact UK and US foreign policy has had on ordinary Iraqi people. Documentary photographer and film-maker Guest, whose earlier work, Baghdad Stories, observed the work of a group of young Iraqi journalists establishing a newspaper soon after the fall of Baghdad, has here crafted an important and necessary film that stands as a powerful act of remembrance and call to continued protest against an unjust and damaging occupation.