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Short Documentary: 23 minutes SYNOPSIS SHORT (56 words) TIME magazine photographer, Franco Pagetti, explores the impact the Iraq War has had on a region by telling the stories behind his photographs. These images become a metaphor for the war and speak of the impact the conflict has had on a country, a region and the world. SYNOPSIS FULL (149 words) When the Americans declared war on Iraq in 2003 Franco Pagetti was there with his camera poised, ready to document the war as he saw it. He was one of two photographers working for TIME magazine (2003-2008) in a war that lasted far longer then predicted. The photographs published from that conflict only revealed a part of the story, as Pagetti explains, In every conflict, not everything that is happening is very clear, it doesn t matter what kind of powerful gun you have in your hands, you are an actor of something that is against humanity. His images told another story, a side not seen on the front pages but the reality of a war zone. Photographs from each major conflict have told stories that reveal a truth about war not printed in the headlines. What are the stories from the Iraq War? What truths will these images reveal? 2
Director Aeyliya Husain with interview subject Franco Pagetti Photographed by: Ivan Verlaan DIRECTORS BIO Aeyliya Husain is an award-winning director who got her start with The National Film Board of Canada, directing The World at 10 following two ten year old inner city children through the school year; Daughters of the Revolution, profiled Iranian activist lawyer Mehrangiz Kar as she pushed to reform human rights in Iran. This film was nominated at the International Documentary Association in Los Angeles for the Pare Lorentz award and won the Golden Sheaf Award for best POV documentary. Last year she worked on a short experimental documentary, Someone Who Is Not Like Anyone, about Iranian poet and feminist Farough Farrokhzad, which screened at festivals in 2016, including the Glasgow Short Film Festival and the São Paulo Short Film Festival. Currently she is in post-production 3
on a hour long documentary called Urban Inuk, about the challenges of being a young Inuit in the fast-paced city centres of southern Canada. Husain studied film production at York University where she received her MFA; her undergrad (BA) is from University of Waterloo. She is currently mentoring new filmmakers, through the Toronto Arts Council, Refugee Artist Mentorship Program, to help them navigate the Canadian film landscape. FAQ s Q: Why did you decide to look at war through photography? I have a deep interest in photography and how images are used across various media platforms. A single photograph can be interpreted in many different ways depending on the person reading it everybody brings their own politics and cultural reference to an image. Photographs hold memories in a very unique way, we imagine what may or may not have taken place outside the frame of that image. When we look back on photographs from our childhood, memories of that moment come rushing back into our minds we remember the emotions attached to that day, the memory becomes more alive and vivid and uniquely your own. Q: How will the film be seen? Currently we are looking at doing a festival run and some Museum screenings, i.e. The Wende Museum in Los Angeles, among other locations to be confirmed. Q: How do photographs inform us about conflict? Photographs can relate specific information about conflicts but they don t tell us the whole story or exactly what is happening in the image. The caption and language we attribute to images is very important in understanding what is happening. The famous Eddie Adams image Saigon Execution, the General who pulled the trigger looks like the bad guy but what we don t know is the Viet Cong he assassinated was 4
responsible for hundreds of deaths. War photographs don t speak to just a specific moment but are metaphors for the war. Q: What was it about Franco Pagetti s photographs that made you decide to do a film about him? I looked at a lot of photographs of the Iraq War. I found that many of them although powerful told the same story, I felt I was getting only one perspective. Franco s images showed me a different perspective, his images held my gaze; he was showing me something that I hadn t seen. He was not only showing the humanity in the images (both soldiers and civilians) but also how complex a conflict is. I felt his lens was in middle showing both sides, from the American soldiers who he was embedded with and the Iraqi civilians. This type of coverage was rare during the Iraq conflict. Q: How did you get Franco to agree to be filmed? And how did it come together, he is based in Milan and you in Toronto? I researched the subject for many months before approaching Franco s agency, VII Photo Agency. They asked Franco and he agreed and we began talking at length about the film. He was very generous in telling his stories and speaking about his experience and his ideas about the war, we had lengthy conversations. He travels to NY often and I decided to film in NY while he was there for work. I flew down from Toronto and we began production in March 2016. Q: You visually go back and forth between New York and Baghdad, what is the significance of this? New York and Baghdad are two cities that are connected by a major historical event. After 9/11 the Bush administration had its target set on Baghdad, they pushed for a needless war. I wanted, the viewer (the viewer being a Western audience), to imagine what it would be like to have his or her own country bombed. I wanted to shift the perspective on how Iraqi people have been shown; they are the same as 5
New Yorkers, shopping with their families and going to work. The Bush administration painted a very dark picture of the Iraqi population, they were dehumanized, and I wanted to create empathy with these people to close the divide that continues to exist today by the political rhetoric of us and them. Q: There are many wars you could have chosen, why this one? I chose the Iraq War for a couple of reasons. This conflict has had global consequences that neither the Bush administration nor Tony Blair s administration foresaw, the results have been catastrophic for Iraq. Many believe the country is on the verge of collapse. The rise and global impact of ISIS and its pursuit to control Syria and Iraq threatens stability in the region and has indirectly fuelled the rise of Islamaphobia. On a personal level, I lived in Iraq as a child. My parents migrated there from London (UK). At that time Saddam was second in command to the President, and on the verge of making his move to rule the country. After a year in Iraq my parents decided to migrate to Canada. I often think, it is only that decision that separates me from the people in Franco s photographs, I could have been one of his subjects, that young boy could have been my son. Our lives can dramatically change based on a single decision that we have no control over. 6
FULL PRODUCTION CREDITS: Directed by Aeyliya Husain Produced by Aeyliya Husain Sa ad Shah Directory of Photography Ivan Verlaan Edited by Avrïl Jacobson Assistant editor Ryan Allam Kevin Shak Baghdad Filming Ayman Al-Amiri Murtada Faisal Animation and Post Production Firuz Daud Napalm Girl Nick Ut/Associated Press Franco Pagetti images Courtesy of VII Photo Agency Special Thanks John Greyson Adam Jaffary Eric Jaffary Deborah Palloway Grey_House Films Inc. 7