John Marks talks about his film "Shape of the Future"

Middle East Peace Documentary Airs Simultaneously to Israelis, Palestinians
August 8, 2005

(Re-Printed from Voice of America news.com)

"The convention is that when you make a documentary about the Middle East conflict, it's full of bloodshed and historical footage. We've made a documentary series that has neither blood nor historical footage," says writer-producer John Marks. “In other words, we're trying to talk about the future. We're trying to show people that peace is possible, that it can be achieved, and that people really don't have to live in a conflict for their entire life."

Mr. Marks is founder and president of Search for Common Ground, a 23-year-old conflict resolution organization that creates media to solve problems that most people might think of as impossible: problems like the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. The group’s latest production, The Shape of the Future, is the first program ever broadcast simultaneously by Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab television.

"We were on the ground in Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank, shooting this for a year,” Mr. Marks said. “And we spent a lot of time talking to people about the future. We asked them, for example, what kind of future did they want, what would a normal life be for them, that was an important question."

Interviewed in their homes, Israelis and Palestinians expressed similar yearnings. "A normal life in this country, here in Jerusalem, is the kind of life where you do not have to be afraid,” says Israeli Riki Amedi.

“A normal life, in my opinion," says Palestinian Neveen-Abu-Rumeil, "is when every woman, her husband and children, are able to live in a home where they do not need to lock the doors -- where you do not fear there are military raids outside."

The series, which aired in both Hebrew and Arabic versions, interviewed people on both sides of the divide about how to solve the four basic issues: Jerusalem, security, Palestinian refugees and Israeli settlements and borders.

“We used people's stories and their lives as a way of going through it,” Mr. Marks said. “And in each one of the programs, we would have a pair, several pairs of Palestinians and Israelis, people who were roughly the equivalent of each other."

"I prefer to see Jerusalem unified,” an Israeli journalist says in the film. “That means one city in terms of running the place and taking care of the population, while we are also talking about two capitals."

A Palestinian counterpart agrees: “I am convinced that Jerusalem could be the capital of two states and an open and joint city. That would solve the problem of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and also solve the problem of the city as a whole."

"We also tried to speak as much as possible to the center and to the right,” John Marks said. “We avoided what you would call the usual suspects for peace, who could be wonderful people, it wasn't a question of that, but we felt that we would have much more impact if we could get people who were more conservative to talk about what needed to happen."

And so, the Israelis who speak about compromising on settlements include a brigadier general, Dov Sedaka, and a former head of the settlers' council, Otniel Schneller:

"Under certain circumstances,” Mr. Schneller says at one point, “I would agree, for the sake of peace, to give up part of my land."

General Sedaka contends, “The dismantlement of settlements will not decrease the security of the state of Israel. I think that the state of Israel will be more secure if there is a Palestinian state."

Among the Palestinians who speak about the refugee issue is a former minister of prisoner affairs for the Palestinians, Hisham Abdel Razeq, who spent 20 years in Israeli prisons. He notes, "A political solution would deny both the Israeli grand dream and the Palestinian grand dream. It would require an agreement between the two sides to live in peace and to end the state of war and conflict."

“We cannot live on our swords forever. To kill and be killed,” the Israeli journalist says towards the end of the film. A Palestinian broadcaster puts it poetically: "Each side was brought up on dreams. Both parties should perhaps reach a truce with dreams.”

The Shape of the Future will have a second life after broadcast. John Marks says one Palestinian organization has already created an educational curriculum based on the film and trained 150 teachers. And an accompanying music video, by popular Israeli and Palestinian musicians David Broza and Wisam Murad, singing the same words in Hebrew and Arabic, is reaching many more people, appealing to the hopes of many Israelis and Palestinians for a peaceful settlement.

Sundance Film Festival: The rebel and the Empress

Thirty years after being forced into exile with her husband, the Shah of Iran, Queen Farah explains to Geoffrey Macnab why she agreed to a documentary on her life

Empress Farah, the widow of the Shah of Iran, is set to be an unlikely star of the Sundance Film Festival.

After repeated requests, she has agreed to speak to me about a new documentary, The Queen and I, in which she is the subject. The film – which has been chosen for the Sundance Festival – was directed by the Iranian-born film-maker Nahid Persson, a former communist who spent much of her early life trying to topple the Shah's regime. In theory, the two women – the deposed monarch and the revolutionary – should detest one another. In practice, when they came face to face, they discovered they have more in common than either anticipated.

Both are mothers. Both are exiles (Empress Farah in Paris, Persson in Sweden). Both have suffered bereavement. (Persson's teenage brother was executed in the early days of the Khomeni regime.) Both feel the same nostalgia for the homeland they left behind. Both are dismayed at the course of Iranian society, 30 years after the revolution, as an Islamic republic, under the current President, Ahmadinejad.

"She [Nahid Persson] was an Iranian and she was a woman. Although I knew that she held a different political opinion, I thought at some point we had to have a dialogue and that we should not keep our animosity and bitterness forever. That is why I accepted," the Empress says to explain her decision to take part in the documentary.

Since leaving Iran in 1979 with the Shah, who died in 1980, the Empress has had plentiful experience in the glare of Western media. To many, she is a symbol of a regime guilty of human rights abuses and the suppression of free speech. To her supporters, she is a link with an old order that they hope will one day be restored.

At times, Persson's documentary makes the deposed queen seem like a modern-day Marie Antoinette. With its archive footage of the Empress in her crown at her coronation ceremony shown next to old newsreel material of her forced into exile after the revolution as street protesters burned her image, it highlights the extreme contrasts in her life. One moment, she is living an existence of fairy tale-style opulence. The next, she's a pariah. Old friends melted away as she and her husband looked for sanctuary after the revolution.

The Empress knew that once she agreed to participate in Persson's film, she would have little control over how she was portrayed. "She [Persson] had the camera and had the editing power. It's like interviews you do. You say what you do but you are not in control of the ideas of the person who is making the film about you or interviewing you."

Even after shooting had begun, she had reservations. There are moments caught on camera when she seems on the verge of backing out: "You never know after all these years, and all the ups and downs of my life and all my interviews, I wasn't quite sure what would be the result of the film," the Empress explains. "At one point, as you saw in the film, I was tired and I was not sure I was doing the right thing. But then I decided I should continue. After all, I have been the queen of my country for 20 years. Even if I have been outside the country for 30 years, I still have feelings for my country."

She knew Persson was bitterly opposed to the Shah's regime but says that the film-maker was only a teenager at the time of the revolution. "She came from a very poor family. At that age, they believe communism can give them happiness and equality. That's why I still have a feeling for the young people in Iran."

The Empress is loyal to her husband's memory. She isn't about to apologise for the perceived excesses of the Shah's regime. In the documentary, just in case the portrait offered of her is too sentimental, Persson includes a harrowing interview with a man tortured under the Shah. "All these people who say 'Long Live Farah', if they hear the truth and if they have a conscience, they would stop saying that," he says.

The director also films a press conference in Berlin where the Empress is asked about the poverty that existed at the time of the Shah. She acknowledges that life "wasn't perfect" but that is as close as she comes to contrition. The get-out clause, for both film-maker and subject, is that the situation in Iran today in terms of human rights is worse than it was under the Shah.

There is also the sense that during the time of the Shah, the Empress and the film-maker lived – as Farah puts it – "in two different worlds". Behind the palace walls, Farah had little sense of the daily problems of working-class families like Persson's.

What makes The Queen and I moving and disorienting is the unlikely friendship that springs up between the two women. The film-maker is clearly wary about being seduced by the charm of the Empress. The Empress, for her part, knew that the documentary could easily turn into a hatchet job. However, both the director and her subject eventually rise above their suspicions of one another. When they come face to face, they can't help but like one another.

Persson discovered that the Empress knew about her previous work (including such documentaries as Prostitution Behind the Veil and Four Wives – One Man. "When I met her, I saw her as a normal person," the director says. "When I saw her first, I thought 'strange woman'. She is very beautiful now but I remembered her as very young, very charismatic, with all clothes and a crown and everything. Now I was standing in her apartment alone."

"I think it is a new idea and, above all, I think in the end, it has a positive message," the Empress replies when I ask if she is impressed with the documentary. "I think it is fair. [But] Nahid spoke and expressed her opinions [in the documentary] when she was alone. I was not given the chance to do the same thing the other way."

The Queen and I is bound to polarise opinion. Supporters of the Empress will be deeply suspicious that their figurehead agreed to appear in a documentary made by a former communist. Colleagues of Persson may well question why she has made such a sympathetic film about a woman who symbolised a regime they detested. The Empress seems philosophical about these conflicting responses. "I have to listen to my compatriots' opinions. I can't give an opinion on their behalf. I once heard someone asked what is the secret of success. He said, 'I don't know what the secret of success is but the secret of failure is trying to please everybody'. I guess some will like the documentary and some will dislike it. It's like anything else. The supporters who know me and who understand me will agree with what I have done. But as I say, you can't please everyone."

No, The Empress is unlikely to be going on the festival circuit to accompany screenings of The Queen and I at Sundance and elsewhere. "It is Nahid's film. I frankly don't think that I could go to attend these festivals ... but I wish Nahid success."

--Re-printed from an article on the Sundance Film Festival in UK publication The Independent, originally published Friday, 9 January 2009

Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival

Exerpts from an Article in SF 360:
By Robert Avila

Who says it’s not easy being green? If you ask the folks behind the Bay Area-based Earthdance Short-Attention-Span Environmental Film Festival, engaging films with positive and eye-opening ecological themes can not only be easy but high fun. And they’ve been proving it since 2004, with an annual spate of short films covering a gamut of environmental subjects and stylistic approaches while studiously avoiding the doomy.
“We’re living at a time when we need stories that connect people, bring them together and inspire hope,” explains festival director and founder Zakary Zide. “We wanted to reach out and be more inclusive.” Doing so meant highlighting the humor, adventure and sheer wonder of the natural environment and the place of human beings in it. Rather than targeting single issues like global warming or the coming water crisis, EarthDance aims to be a bridge between art, nature and science. In that sense, says Zide, “It’s not even political.”

Neither is it (entirely) frivolous. Zide has a background in ecology and art and he’s even dabbled in filmmaking, documenting his own environmental sculptures à la Andy Goldsworthy and Rivers and Tides. The impetus behind founding an environmentally themed film festival had as much to do with what he and his colleagues at the Oakland Museum weren’t seeing in media representations of the natural world. “Too much gloom and doom,” he says. “Where was the fun? The weird? The quirky? And we didn’t want to be preached to.”

Over the past five years, unlike some of the more soused members of the animal kingdom (Oh, bee hive!), EarthDance has remained clear-headed and on the move. It’s reached out to audiences internationally, traveling thus far to Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Denmark and Israel and becoming in Zide’s words “a mobile, global event,” screening in 35 cities and venues worldwide. But it continues to premiere every year here in the Bay Area at the Oakland Museum, where it’s found a receptive home from the beginning. “We got our start at the Oakland Museum, and the museum continues to be the lead sponsor,” says Zide. Meanwhile, “the quality of the films has increased tremendously, as well as the number of international entries.”

It may look deceptively pint-sized, but with dozens of film festivals annually in the Bay Area’s teeming cinema ecosystem, EarthDance’s ability to succeed on its own modest but popular terms is no small achievement. “EarthDance sets itself apart by not taking itself too seriously,” explains Zide. “And that’s why I think it appeals to a broad audience. We’re like the SF International Film Festival on Ritalin meets Spike & Mike with a green, jet-age twist.”

Soldiers of Conscience filmmakers invite you to join the discussion!

SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE is a thoughtful and respectful documentary film about killing in war, about conscience, and about morality.

It is a film that is meant to provoke reflection and dialogue and action. And, because this is a film about a taboo topic – killing – the first step is to break the taboo and talk about it.

Click here to bring your thoughts and questions to this conversation >>

- Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan
Directors, SOLDIERS OF CONSCIENCE

Warchild Song Lyrics and Emmanuel Jal Bio

Warchild by Emmanuel Jal

i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
i believe ive survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives
all the people struggling down there
storms only come for a while
then after a while they'll be gone
blessed, blessed

my father was working for the government as a police man
few years later a hardy joined a rebel movement that was formed to fight for freedom
i didn't understand the politics behind all this 'cause i was only a child
after a while i saw the tension rising high between the christian and the muslim regime
we lost our possesion
my mothers, my mothers mothers suffered depression
and because of this...i was forced to be a war child

i'm a war child
i'm a war child
i believe i've survived for a reason to tell my story to touch lives (touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives, touch lives)

i lost my father in this battle
my brothers
all my life i've been hiding in the jungle
the pain i'm cutting is too much to handle
whose there please tell i....my candle
whose there anyone to hear my cry


Emmanuel Jal Bio

Emmanuel Jal is a soft-spoken young man with a lilt in his voice and a warmth in his manner; so friendly and so engaging it's difficult to imagine him toting a machine gun. Yet the reality is that, in the war-torn African country of Sudan, Emmanuel Jal learned to fire a machine gun before he could ride a bicycle.

It is not a difficult subject to broach for the young rapper, but it is a difficult story; one which reflects the horrors of subjugation of a people to a foreign ideology, and the blood spilled in the name of freedom. The guns in his life story were not expensive video props for cavalier (and perhaps dubious) rap stars and their boastfulness; they were real and they were a way of life as a means to survival. This story is real; set to music and told eloquently by Emmanuel Jal. This is his story, a coming-of-age amidst rebellion, famine and global apathy; a story of a child born into war who preaches the way of peace.

"The whole Sudan is my country... where I came from. When I was just a boy, the British left and religion was the main problem. It is called Sharia law; the law of Muslims. When the Arabs came into Sudan, they brought Sharia law and they did not let anyone practice other religions; the people in my village, in other villages... fought back."

During this time of intense conflict, famine raged across the nation as the war displaced thousands. People fled their homes to avoid being killed only to die of starvation. He had watched while strangers beat his mother, his grandmother was arrested and his aunt was raped by government forces. As one of the many young boys growing up in such abject turmoil, Emmanuel was embittered.

When he was about six years old, Emmanuel’s father, a commander with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), gave his son up to the rebels to set an example for others. The SPLA sent him, along with hundreds of other young Sudanese children, to a school in Ethopia. The children were forced to walk from their villages to Ethopia; many died on the way, eaten by wild animals, falling into rivers and getting lost. Once at the school, the children were trained in discipline and in the basic skills of killing.

"There was anger in my heart. I became a soldier very young; like many other children. I think it was '92. I wanted to help the fight; I thought I could go away and learn how to fly a plane, a jet plane to bomb them. At that time, all I thought about was killing. I trained; learned how to fire a gun. We practiced on killing animals. We would kill the animal and then have to bury it; so the Arabs wouldn't find the body but also sometimes because we had killed a farmer's (animal). I just wanted to kill as many Arabs and Muslims as possible. They were killing us..."

Scared and exhausted from the killing, Emmanuel and some of the other children - the “lost boys,” as they came to be known - deserted the rebel lines. On foot, they trekked across Sudan’s cracked, barren badlands, its crocodile-infested rivers and snake-laced mud patches to flee the war and be with their own tribe, the Nuer. Four hundred began the trek, only 16 survived to find relative safety in a refugee camp in Waat, Southern Sudan.

It was around this time in his life that Emmanuel met Emma McCune, a British Foreign Aid/UNICEF worker who rescued him from the bloody conflict and spirited him to nearby Kenya, intent on giving him a new life and new opportunities.

"I went with Emma; I still wanted to help the fight, somehow. When I was first rescued, I still wanted to kill. I thought I might learn something that could help the fight and then go back as a soldier. But I'm alive because of Emma, and she deserves to be known. She tried to help other people like she helped me. She took me to school; she helped me with my English. For a while there weren't even clothes for me to wear, so I wore her clothes and her shoes to school in Kenya.

"Kenya was a model of peace for Africa. They had better schools and a thriving economy; but at first, education-wise... it was difficult for me to settle down in Kenya. I was always fighting; thinking of myself as a soldier and I was expelled all the time! I had to learn to humble myself in order to help my people. So during my time in Kenya, eventually I changed. I began reading the Koran, the Bible; I was in the church choir; singing... and this helped me heal. When I turned to God, it washed away bitterness, the anger in my heart... I changed.

"I would have liked to help my friends change in a different way; as hard as it was to live in Kenya with so much for me to learn, there was always music in my life. Always there was music: music for harvesting; music for family; music for war. In Kenya I began writing songs in the church to fit myself into the community and have a new beginning. I wrote songs with that in mind: music for peace."

"In Kenya I got into rap. I didn't understand the history, but I enjoyed listening to rap because it was shocking. The problems, the issues; I like the hip-hop that talked about the neighborhood going through issues; and I identified in a different way. Music is a form a communication..soul and heart and art. This is what spoke to me as a young man and what I am speaking of now. Musicians are prophets and music is the only thing that can speak to your soul without your permission."

"What I am doing with this album, the content, the message..." Jal pauses. "My country is at war. My people are dying. I want to create awareness... for my people, for the world. This is life, this album; and the issues - it's ready, it's powerful! I hope to inspire people and have fun as well. This album is serious about people's lives and this is why I have to talk about this. It's actually helpful because I feel better now."

Emmanuel began performing around Africa and eventually made his way to England where, following a number of notable live performances, he earned a record deal. His music can be heard alongside Coldplay, Gorillaz, and Radiohead on the fundraising ‘Warchild - Help a Day in the Life’ album, as well as in three ER episodes, the National Geographic documentary “God Grew Tired of Us,” and more recently in the feature film “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. As well as on John Lennons ‘Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur’ amongst the likes of U2, REM and Lenny Kravitz.

Jal recently performed at an exclusive gig for Oxfam with Fat Boy Slim as part of Oxjam 07; he also took part in his charity, Gua Africa’s, Mixed Jam event with Blak Twang amongst others in London [all footage can be found on www.youtube.com/emmanueljal ]. Jal has also performed with Razorlight, Supergrass, and Faithless in Europe. Last October he toured the United States as part of the “National Geographic All Roads Film Festival,” performing in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New Orleans. Jal also performed with Moby and Five for Fighting in the 2007 live concert film, The Concert To End Slavery [ www.concerttoendslavery.com/trailer ]. He is a spokesman for “Make Poverty History, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and the Control Arms campaign.

In addition to the release of his album “Warchild,” Emmanuel is the subject of a documentary on his life, also entitled “War Child.” The documentary had its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008, receiving a rare standing ovation, and will appear at other prestigious film festivals this year. Emmanuel is also at work on his autobiography that St. Martin’s Press will release.

"Now I'm working on building a school, and we are trying to get people educated. This is what I've been able to achieve by leaving the anger behind and embracing music, and education. We're helping an orphanage in Nairobi; bringing aid to children in Africa. We are putting people in school and one person is in university..."

And while the future looks very promising for the young Jal, he remains steadfast in his soldier mentality. "Before I was focusing on making African sounds completely; but I stayed in England to improve my skills to get my message out. For me, home is where your love is. I still think like a soldier; I don't want to move to a place where something happens and I start missing people again. I'll get comfortable but I won't stick myself down. In my mind, I'm not yet settled. I just want to keep making my music, that's most important. But for right now... I'm cool!"

--re-printed from the website for Emmanuel Jal's record label Sonic 360

"Red Gold" by Co-Producer Lauren Oakes

My inbox is flooded every day with emails that go like this: “I saw Red Gold… It made me cry [men, women, children all write this]…What’s going on with Pebble right now and can I help?”

Of course the answer is Yes! Yes! Yes!

On November 14, 2008, Ben and I stood before 500 people at the National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to show Red Gold [what an honor]. On the very same day, just a block away from the theater in the Bureau of Land Management building, President’s Bush’s staff put out a Record of Decision for the Bristol Bay Area Management Plan. It opened nearly 2 million acres of federal land surrounding the Pebble Site to mining exploration. 2 million acres. So while citizens continue to battle development of the Pebble mine on Alaskan State land, we now face the worst – Pebble amidst a mining district in the heart of the world’s largest remaining sockeye salmon fishery. When the Obama administration comes into office, our leaders of change will have 30 days to reverse this decision.

State Land. Federal Land. To me, the land classifications are borders drawn for management purposes. But in reality Bristol Bay and its pristine waters, the abundant wild salmon runs, the life this watershed sustains are global resources we cannot replace. We need more people standing up saying “No – not here, not this place. Wrong location. A risk not worth taking.”

Support for gaining permanent legislative protection for the Bristol Bay watershed continues to grow. The Trout Unlimited Alaska program is currently engaged in a number of projects to stop development of the Pebble Mine. We are placing emphasis on necessary science research so we can understand more of the critical water and habitat issues. We are also working with state and federal policymakers to support legislative protection, and we are leading a nationwide campaign to educate and engage salmon consumers on the values of wild salmon conservation and cuisine (www.whywild.org).

We continue to raise state, national, and international support for protecting this world-renowned watershed, a mosaic of unconfined rivers supporting nearly a 1/3 of our wild salmon supply.

Yes! You can help.

Write members of congress today and express you support for protecting the watershed from mining development. Ask the new administration to keep BLM lands in Bristol Bay closed to mining.

Donate. To do more good work to protect Bristol Bay, we need more financial support. www.savebristolbay.org

Host a Red Gold screening. Contact Emily Long: emily@feltsoulmedia.com.

When you’re at the grocery, or at your favorite restaurant… please request wild salmon. You’ll be supporting sustainable, well-managed fisheries and increasing the demand for what Bristol Bay is famous for. Avoid the farmed stuff unless you have a thing for artificially colored dinner.
And then lastly I’d like just like to thank the people who believed in this project, Ben and Travis for asking questions and listening, and then all those who understand there are still some places left on this planet we must protect.

Please go flood the email boxes of your congressman and tell them they have a chance to save one of our last great salmon runs.

-- Lauren Oaks, Co-Producer, Red Gold (Ironweed Films: June 2009: Volume 43)

"Mission to Break up Pacific Island of Rubbish Twice the Size of Texas" by Frank Pope

A high-seas mission departs from San Francisco next month to map and explore a sinister and shifting 21st-century continent: one twice the size of Texas and created from six million tonnes of discarded plastic.

Scientists and conservationists on the expedition will begin attempts to retrieve and recycle a monument to throwaway living in the middle of the North Pacific.

The toxic soup of refuse was discovered in 1997 when Charles Moore, an oceanographer, decided to travel through the centre of the North Pacific gyre (a vortex or circular ocean current). Navigators usually avoid oceanic gyres because persistent high-pressure systems — also known as the doldrums — lack the winds and currents to benefit sailors.

Mr Moore found bottle caps, plastic bags and polystyrene floating with tiny plastic chips. Worn down by sunlight and waves, discarded plastic disintegrates into smaller pieces. Suspended under the surface, these tiny fragments are invisible to ships and satellites trying to map the plastic continent, but in subsequent trawls Mr Moore discovered that the chips outnumbered plankton by six to one...

Full Article at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/02-3