Whenever there is a technical problem at the film school Nather is there to solve it. An AVID editing set that doesn’t work or a broken video beamer, Nather can fix it. Nather is a technical genius. Everybody in Iraq is a technical genius, Nader says, you have to be because if something is broken here we have to fix it ourselves. And I can tell you many things are broken here.
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Today was our last day of filming in Baghdad. I can’t believe that we have been here now for already 5 days and are leaving tomorrow for Istanbul again. It seems like we have been here for weeks. But it is always like that when you have a very intense period of filming. The most frustrating thing here is that it is hard to film out on the streets. When you drive around the city, you see so many incredible scenes, but it is hard to capture them because of the security situation. Whenever I pick up my camera, even if it is inside the car, people around me start to get very nervous begging me to put it away.
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If you want to know what life was like in Baghdad before the war, go to the Al Wiya Club (I am not sure about the spelling) on Firdos Square. Al Wyai Club is one of the oldest clubs in Baghdad where you can observe the Iraqi elite having lunch with their families. The club is like an oasis in the midst of the Baghdadi chaos. After a hard day of work, we spend a very peaceful afternoon having lunch with Kasim and his friends sitting outside in the garden terrace and having deliciously grilled fish from the Tigris River.
Today is Friday the 13th. Not that we are very superstitious, but when you are in Baghdad you tend to be extra careful on a day like this. (as I am writing this, it is suddenly pitch black around me as we are having a power cut, which is very common here. Luckily my laptop is on a battery).
Friday the 13th and what a strange day it was. Let me first tell you how our day started. It started out to be a bit more tense than usual, our driver was nervous. He didn’t say a word when he picked us up from the hotel. Are you angry, we asked? No, there is nothing, he said. He explained to us that the Americans had told him that you should always drive in the middle of the road, because if drive too much on the left side or to much on the right side of the road you might hit an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
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Baghdad is about the most filthiest city in the world. Everything you touch here is layered with dust. When I wake up in the morning my eyes hurt and I have a sore throat, all my glands are swollen because of the dust. People here say it is not pollution, it is desert dust. But it is also the little particles that are still in the air form the collapsed buildings and debris. Whatever it is, it’s very annoying.
When we came back from out first day of filming this evening I felt so filthy that I had an urge to jump into the swimming pool of our hotel to wash off all the dirt. We have a beautiful swimming pool here, only nobody is using it. I don’t know why. It was a schizophrenic experience. During the day you wrap yourself from head to toe in your black abaya with veal, in the evening when you are inside the secured area of your hotel, you can walk around in your bathing suit. Two different worlds.
We are very close to the Green Zone here, and also close to the residence of the president, so we hear helicopters flying over all the time. This evening we met with some American NGO workers here in the restaurant who just had come back from the Green Zone. It’s like a different planet, they say. To get into the Green Zone from the outside you have to go through several check point, so it takes you hours to get in. We had a good day of filming today at the school, but I will tell more about that tomorrow……
We have had a very good day today. I am traveling together with my producer who speaks fluently Arabic and has traveled to Iraq several times before. Her name is Esmeralda and she is based in Cairo. Baghdad looked much more smoother than we expected. We arrived at Baghdad Airport around 12 o’clock. The big question of the day was: are we going to wear our bullet proof vests? We decided to put them on underneath our abaya (black overcoats). It looked very elegantly, nobody noticed anything. Our taxi driver thought we were mad, he had to laugh. He says it is much better now in Baghdad, only a few car bombs here and there. Nothing serious.
When I called Kasim on his mobile, he all of a sudden stood in front of me in the lobby of the hotel. He also thinks it’s going much better here. Nightlife is picking up, bars are opening until late at night, something nobody could imagine a year ago. Now you can find a liquor store on every corner of the street. It is really going well Kasim says, and most importantly, it stopped raining!
Tomorrow, we are going to visit him at his school. There will be 20 new students waiting for him, they all want to become a film maker. We can’t wait to meet with them……
Today is the long awaited day that I will finally travel to Baghdad, one of the most dangerous places in the world. Why Baghdad? Because I am going to meet with Kasim, friend and long time film maker, who has had the daring idea to open up the first independent film school in Iraq. I am going to make a documentary film about his school, following the students for one semester with my camera.
Kasim himself is a born and raised Baghdadi, who has fled Iraq under Saddam and has now returned to the city of his youth to prepare the opening of his school. He has been working on this project for a long time together with another friend of mine, Maysoon. Maysoon is a film director and editor, also born and raised in Baghdad, but now in London where she works and lives. She has been following Kasims efforts closely, just as we have been doing for the past few weeks. Will he manage to overcome all the practical problems that he has to face in a city that is still in chaos?
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