Baghdad /Amsterdam – Anne Verhoijsen

Baghdad in 24 minutes

To day I finished the work on the 24 one minutes together with Thomas. I think they are great and I have a little bit the feeling that I was there also for a short time. I just got the feeling that I was sable to sense something of the live in the city of Baghdad. And when you look well you see a big concrete wall placed there for stopping a car bomb. Young guys who celebrate a marriage from a friend. They are dancing and singing. It is almost a hypnotic crowd aware of the fragilely feeling of this moment.

Here there are some video’s that are not in 24 minutes sequence. I think within a month the 24 one minutes you can see on www.cityoneminutes.org

Baghdad movies

Meanwhile I’ve looked at the material that was shot earlier with astonishment and I realized how much I’ve gotten used to the images from the television. Sometimes I expect to see something violent and then it appears to be a friendly soldier who has his picture taken with the whole film crew! I’ve made a selection of many short films. Below you’ll see a picture of Sattar while he’s over there and the way he looks at the situation in Iraq.

Sattar write:

These will be the first to go online. The film paints a picture of the situation in Iraq of this moment (Baghdad). Media all over the world paint a picture of Iraq as a country which is always in war. That way people only get to see the negative sides of Baghdad. Through this film I would like to give a truer image of Baghdad of the moment. So it’s not only about the war… Baghdad is an dynamic city where so much takes place; it has a rich, ancient culture that we should not forget about! Despite everything that happens in Iraq, the country is slowly moving in the right direction. Maybe people will gradually start noticing this, as the impact of everything that recently happened in Iraq and the lives of many is huge. The dictators that ruled the country for decades have been extremely destructive en rebuilding the country takes a lot of time and effort. But despite everything the people have been through, they continue their lives… They keep hoping for a better life. I’ve filmed students going to their exams at the university for example, and people going to work, streets filled with cars, crowded markets, people getting married, celebrating. People going to the fair, the zoo, they make music, and so on, and so on. Maybe it’s not as luxurious as it is in Western countries, but these things tend to go step by step. The biggest trouble Iraq has at the moment are the supply of electricity and paving the roads. I’ve found it very special to work with you, Anne Verhoysen, you always stay young and energetic. You’re open to new experiences and adventures… in the same way you’re open to the reality of Iraq. I found it very sweet when you mentioned to me that if I would get into trouble I should hand over my camera’s and material. You emphasized that my safety was the most important thing. I did the best I could despite the difficult circumstances.

Om Kalthoum Cafe

Since last Friday Sattar is save in Holland with 16 hours on video material and since that time I am busy to get everything on my hard disk! Wondering myself about the images who appear on my desktop. This is also Baghdad a totally different Baghdad as what we see daily appear on our TV screen. People eating. Children playing football, images of the famous Almutanabi street. The Book street in Baghdad. Images of the famous Om Kalthoum café where photo’s on the wall show us the glamour’s past. Images of students passing their exams. Lot of unknown images of the daily of in Baghdad city. Some times a soldier crossing the picture …I think what happens now…nothing he is just enjoying a concert on the Tigres. I just don’t see all those pictures I know from the TV. Bleeding, jellying, and crying people. I see people despite everything enjoying their lives. I see also a recording of a begging woman. Her name is Mirjam. Sattar told me that she was a lawyer under the Saddam regime. She even had her office upside his palace. One day she was in jail and the next step was to tread her in a psychiatric hospital…after treatment she was very confused and now days this is how she has to get her daily bread. I wonder why there is not better taken care for her if everybody seems to know her story. That is what I want to search out. Thinking now perhaps there are too many of these Saddam Hoessein victims I don’t know? I would really like to source that out!

Stils out of video’s Baghdad.

Customs

Radio Sawa reported that the streets of Baghdad have recently witnessed a widespread jump in number of motorcycles, which have become one of the most practical solutions for the citizens in order to overcome jams and high fuel prices.

To day Sattar called from Baghdad. I was happy to hear his voice because in the mourning I tried already to reach him. To morrow he will travel to Istanbul.

? Should it be in the hand luggage or in the normal luggage? For me I always travel with my whole work in my hand luggage but in this case it is perhaps to dangerous. Sattar has had a lot of trouble during his shooting and he is afraid that at the last moment they will pick his material when he will passes the border. So we agree to put them in this circumstances in his normal luggage. Praise everything for the travel to morrow!

He also told that last night he went with his brother through whole the material. They labelled the tapes where it was and this kind of things. He filmed 16 hours. Image 16 hours of normal shooting from Baghdad not from a war reporter but from a Iraqi himself coming back after 17 years in his city and full of love for his country. Many thanks to his brother he was a great help. Also because he is knowing as a famous actor doors went open unexpectedly and he could arrange great places o film. Friday I go to see him and pick up the material.

To day Sattar called from Baghdad. I was happy to hear his voice because in the mourning I tried already to reach him. To morrow he will travel to Istanbul.

Akathemia city

Three days ago I spoke with Sattar in Baghdad through the phone. The connection was very bad and I asked him if it was possible to send me an email. So fortunately to day when i wake up it was there. He wrote it already very early in the morning. He told me once that the electricity now is on a very low level because of the heat. So in the morning the most air-conditions are still off.. so the computer can do his job! So this is what he wrote:

On the 8 of June I filmed Akathemia city (a holy place Mosque) Akathemia market, Alzawraa (zoo) and the fair. The Tigris and a fish restaurant near the Tigris.I filmed a funeral also in neighbourhood of the mosque. On the seven of June I went to the academia of fine arts and the film school. Students where just working on their exams at the fine art department. Afterwards I went to the audio department. The next day in the hospital unfortunately I was not allowed to film. They did not wanted it any more so I put the camera in my bag and went away. The day after I filmed a hairdresser, a wedding party and the Shala Market and The Om Kolthoum Café. I also was on the famous Alzareed Street. There was a flourishing book market before the war. At five o’clock in the morning I filmed the people sleeping on the roof. At six I saw a pigeon fancier. So till now I made 9 movies.

I am very happy and I am very eager to go and work with the material. Next Saturday he will be home again. I am very grateful to the work he is doing. He himself has very mixed feelings about being there and last Friday The moderate leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament has been killed. He was mentioned in the paper here as a bridge builder between the several parties. And i am afraid this will not stop in the coming month…I wonder who has invented WAR. I know the question sound stupid but still I think it is valid.

Famous

Yesterday I had a phone call with Sattar. He was just home from the Art school whit also the film – and music academy inside. They were passing their exams and sattar invited them to make a oneminut of it and they also filmed Sattrar filming. Fortunately he was with his other brother who is a famous actor in Baghdad and this saved him again out of hands of he police. It is just forbidden to film. I am very excited and happy that Baghdad will be inside the project. There are almost always ways…

more information www.theage.com.au/…/ 04/25/1145861348159.htm

Monument for the Martyr

Iraqi soldiers walk in front of the Martyr’s monument in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2009. The Iraqi military recently took control of the monument from the U.S. military. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

This morning I called Sattar to see how he was. I get no connection. He wrote already about the bad electricity conditions at this moment for the ‘normal” Iraqi who don’t live in the green zone. And sometimes just the connection is very bad. So I went to my Saturday morning sport but I felt uneasy with it. For the same the police caught him because of his filming. Coming home a couple of hour s later I called him again. “Oh Anne I am just home for 15 minutes he said”. He was on the police station. Because his brother who is a poet and writer was with him and the policeman recognized him as a friend of his brother they were lucky. Sattar was at that moment filming the monument for the Martyr and he wanted to get close by but that was the thing. You are not allowed to do so. It is very hard to film just on the street so they have to film out of the car and the car was to close to the monument…. We spoke about it and he will go to the minister of culture to ask for a permit. Sattar now is relieved and decided to stay home today. To morrow morning he has an appointment at half past five in the morning with a doctor to go to the hospital to film. Sattar your doing a great job!

Friday the fifth of June

Last Thursday I made the decision not to go to Baghdad at this moment. Too much “noise” around it. The direct reason was that they told me on Wednesday that in spite of the official invitation I got from the minister of the marches I perhaps got a visa in two days or perhaps not. “Miss Anne has to understand that this was an invitation of an inner ministry and I needed one from foreign affairs.” So this was too much for me and for the first time I really felt to less back up in Baghdad it self. The next day I got a phone call that my visa has arrived in The Hague. I was shake for one moment what to do? I felt I stay with my decision it was not easy but wise!

Within a month the Minister of the Marches will come to Holland I will meet him and also Mr. Marsoomy who is head of the de Iraqi Society For Marshes Restoration and Development. And I think in the fall, I will make a beautiful trip to the old land of Mesopotamia and also go to Bagdad to make some one minutes. In the meanwhile Sattar is in Bagdad I will write how he is and what he is doing. I think he is happy in a way that I am not coming because my safety counted very heavy for him. These pictures Mr Marsoomy sent me out of The Marshlands.

Here and not here

I am still here but my other part has already left for Baghdad. If every thing has worked out how we planned I was now sitting next to Sattar in the plane and we were looking to the map of Baghdad and studying the cameras. But unfortunately my visa is not here yet. A week ago I got a very helpful telephone cal from the embassy. A friendly voice told me: Miss Anne we have good news your visa will be here within two days. After two days it became a week and now I hope every day…so I can travel.

Why Bagdhad

Two months go I took the decision to exchange Havana for Baghdad. At this moment they’re about 40 cities, which are part of this one minute city project. I thought by my self which city is in important in that range of cities that will be show on the world expo in Shanghai in 2010. And immediately Baghdad came to my mind. Immediately I felt a lot of energy by thinking of going there. I asked Sattar Al-Saadi a good friend of mine to do this project together with me. He is born in Baghdad and lives and works as a musician already 15 years in Holland. He is very motivated to show the world different pictures as the images, daily passes us by.

His brother is a well knowing performer in Baghdad so perhaps he likes to join in also. It is very important in this movie that different people show what they like or dislike on the city. So we got a kind of overall image. Impossible of course but it is worth for trying. Great deals of my preparations are on security. I read books of journalist who have been there. I think! I know to behave there…. To day I was surprised to see Sattar with a starting beard but of course this is for security. Although he is an Iraqi they will see on him that he is not living there so…at least you try to look as one of them. In my suitcase I have an abiya that is a long black dress with long sleeves, a hijab, that is a kind of veil, big black sunglasses black panty socks and black shoes. Filming with all of this will be a big adventure. I just found this web site with instructions how to wear the hijab. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tYfBNfqgU)

Iraq

Baghdad foundednd in 762 under the name Madinat as Salem means city of peace

Beginning of June I start again with writing when I leave for Baghdad

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