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Losing a best friend. Zaid leaves.
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If you missed me on Brian Lehrer Live, watch it here. I was lucky enough to appear with Zeyad from Healing Iraq whose blog is an amazing peak at Baghdad. |
Tags: iraq, war, hometown, baghdad, vlog, series, brian, lehrer, zaid
Nearly halfway through the online release of Hometown Baghdad, I wanted to take a moment to point out the blog posts and videos that have generated the most interest on our site.
1. Songs of Pain
2. Symphony of Bullets
3. The Dentist
1. Episode 11 - Saif Heart Noor
2. The first three webisodes of Hometown Baghdad
3. Episode 10 - Mentally F’ed Up
1. The first three webisodes of Hometown Baghdad
2. Security
3. Saif Heart Noor
A note we received from the director of Hometown Baghdad, Ziad Turkey:
We followed our characters in their homes. We heard their secrets and their terrible miseries that have resulted from the situation in Iraq. We, as a film crew, began to feel that we were all partners in our decisions, crises, fears, depressions, social pressures, security problems and our inclinations to pursue an unknown future. We did our best to observe and capture the events, and not be part of them. However, we felt for a moment that there was nothing separating us from our subjects, except for our technical duties. And we’ve ended up with the same destiny.
When I was shooting one of the subjects as he packed his bag, I could feel my heart shivering. I even began feeling nervous behind the camera. How emotional the thought of packing is! I curse packing and I curse wars! “Where are you going, my friends?” I used to ask them. “Shouldn’t you wait a little more?” But I say to myself and to my memory full of images of war and death, “that’s enough!” My hometown is not safe anymore. I must look for a place where I can prevent my head from rolling in my children’s sights.
-Ziad Turkey
Today is the four year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Originally, we had thought about releasing the videos starting today because of how Baghdad-specific our project was. We ended up going with March 19th but I wanted to post this note in recognition of what so many Iraqis are feeling now.
On an interesting side note, four years ago, a combination of Americans and Iraqis pulled down the iconic statue of Saddam in Fardus Square.
We are overwhelmed by the positive response to Hometown Baghdad. Every note and every positive press mention that we receive shows us that not only did our participants want to speak to the world but that the world wanted to hear what they had to say. And the conversations that have sprung up in the blog’s comments, both argumentative and friendly, tell us that we need dialogue and understanding.
I want to post this note that we received from our Iraqi producer Fady after I sent him one particularly nice feedback letter. He writes:
Dear all -
I am extremely moved and inspired by all the warm feedback that we are getting on several blogs and websites. It is giving me energy and strength to bear the nightmares that I am living and the ones I dream of at night. It was an honor for me to help in bringing out these messages from Baghdad to the outer world, despite of all the dangers we face everyday.
Thank you, Mike, for keep sending me the feedback.Best,
Fady
Baghdad
We have been getting some really nice feedback from viewers of the series. And I’m happy to see the…uhhh…active conversations in our comments. I’m putting together a post with some particularly interesting posts to the comments. Thanks to everyone for sharing their stories and their opinions. And here are some updates:
We at Chat the Planet are proud to announce that Hometown Baghdad will premiere on Monday, March 19th, on Salon.com.
Read the full press release here
Tags: iraq, baghdad, vlog, documentary,
Before our webisodes premiere on Monday, I thought I might share a couple of video grabs from the series. I hope that these give a taste of what’s to come. I keep thinking to myself, “The everyday life of regular Iraqis is the great untold story of the Iraq War.” We as Americans know so little about what a 23 year old student does when they get up in the morning. What do laugh at? What are they afraid of? Hopefully, this series will tell these stories. So enjoy the pictures and come back on Monday to hear these Iraqi voices.
Update: At the genius advice of Tish over at Ugotrade, I’ve added an audio clip of the song that is being played in the third video grab down. Click on the picture to hear what has happening when that frame was being captured by our cameras.
Click on the picture to hear the song!
Tags: iraq, baghdad, iraqis, photos, vlog
After the dialogue on our blog about our choice of a background image for the podcast logo, we decided to give it another shot. But this time, we want you to redesign it. Since it’s for the iTunes podcast logo, it needs to be 300×300. And keep in mind, the logo will be tiny so make the font big enough to read. And since we really like the font that was used in the past logo, I’m including a PNG frame of the series open. Feel free to grab that and incorporate it. Send in your redesigns to me at mike@hometownbaghdad.com and I’ll post them here. And by the beginning of next week, if we get one that we think is more appropriate for the series, we’ll use it.
As I get pictures in from our team in Baghdad, I’ll post them here so you can use those pics if you like.
And you may want to read the legalese in our terms and conditions that says that if you give us anything, you’re giving us the right to use it.
Update: We have two pictures for designers to work with courtesy of our crew in Baghdad.
Alley
Photo taken by Ziad Turkey
Memorial
Photo taken by Ziad Turkey
Update: We have received four more pictures of Baghdad. Thanks, Saif!
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