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Making peace films
Sonia Azad
During the summer holidays, I spent four days filming Iraqi
Refugee children in Amman, Jordan.
When I returned back to England, I knew it was going to be
fun editing the film but it was also going to be very hard and time consuming work.
Milan Rai and I spent one
intensive week editing the film
sometimes up to six hours a day.
I had a lot of footage. We
managed to make 20 minutes of
a rough copy.
I also worked on my own,
editing more footage on my laptop.
Background noise
Whilst I was in Amman interviewing people, there was a lot
of background noise and movement; I found it really hard to
get people in the room to be
silent, therefore it was difficult
to edit the interviews.
A few of the young people I
interviewed only spoke Arabic,
so we used a translator. I found it
interesting to work on the volume of different voices.
My first film
I made my first film in 2005; I
interviewed people demonstrating at Colombia University,
New York.
I think it was easier to edit
this film because I did not have a
lot of footage, it was half a day's
filming and 7 hours of editing.
Also, the people I was interviewing were not the victims.
Although I enjoyed making
the film in Amman, I found it
tougher to edit this film than
the previous one I made in New
York. It could be because I was
interviewing people whose lives
were destroyed, and their childhood taken away.
I have been very lucky, I have
always got advice and support
just when I needed it from Milan
Rai.
I hope
I hope my film gets a wider
audience and it makes a difference to how young people see
war.
I also hope it would inspire
other young people to know that
you do not have to be an adult or
a trained professional to go and
talk to the young people whose
life is torn apart because of the
war.
Sonia's film Giving a Voice to Iraqi
Children will be premiered in London at 7pm on 15 November at the
Amnesty International Human
Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New
Inn Yard EC2.
For more information, contact
Voices in the Wilderness UK 0845
458 2564 or email Sonia at:
children_against_war@hotmail.com
Details of how to obtain the DVD
will be in December's PN.
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