During a panel discussion at SPP's annual conference the view from here: artists // public policy, filmmakers and journalists came together to discuss how the story of the Syrian revolution has been told on film.
Charlotte Eagar, a journalist and the executive producer of the documentary Queens of Syria, discussed the origins of the documentary project. "It actually started as a therapeutic drama project," she explained. Working with 60 Syrian refugee women in Amman, Jordan over six weeks, the women staged a performance of the Greek tragedy Euripedes under the instruction of Syrian theater director Omar Abu Sada. "Euripedes is a tale of refugees. The women workshopped their own experiences into this version, and they were able to identify with the characters and their stories," Eagar added.
"When we started this project three years ago, no one was paying attention to Syria," Eagar said. "We wanted to make the world sit up and notice." At the beginning of the project, the women were nervous and depressed. Director Abu Sada helped them share their stories, working these into the play. "After six weeks, we saw their self-confidence grow. They even went on strike before their performance to ask for higher salaries – they recognized their own worth!" exclaimed Eagar. After successful performances in Amman, the group will tour the UK this summer. "They've created a work that has international relevance and artistic brilliance," concluded Eagar.
AlHakam Shaar, a fellow at the Center for Conflict, Negotiation and Recovery at SPP, highlighted the role of citizen journalists during the Syrian revolution. "There were hundreds of videos posted online each week documenting protests," explained Shaar. "These videos were used as a tool to say, 'We are here.'" While the mainstream media were late to cover these protests, they were captured from the beginning thanks to citizen journalists.
"At the beginning of the Syrian revolution, the role of journalists was to portray reality and inform people of what was happening," added Dirar Khattab, journalist and executive producer of the Al Jazeera documentary Death of Aleppo. When filming his documentary, Khattab faced the dilemma of "how to give a voice to a population that I come from, yet portray the situation in a neutral and objective way." Syrian filmmakers seek to have impact on their audiences, which puts them in competition with politicians, noted Khattab. "But filmmakers should not be classified as politicians."
"We can't be objective in journalism," countered photojournalist Nicole Tung. "Our presence affects the situation." During trips to Syria, Tung "tried to plainly represent shots of people's lives, people who had to normalize war." She emphasized, "A lot of war is lived quietly by civilians – it's not all about fighting." One difficulty she encountered, however, was that the more realistically that journalists portray the situation, the less the public wanted to hear and the smaller the political impact. "People have a preconceived notion of what war looks like, and the aesthetics of war photography are made to match their ideas," concluded Tung.