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In the Angst of Danger, the Camera Rolls

Published on January 31, 2011

by John Patrick Reyes

In the spring of 2007, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger landed in the Korangal Valley, a six-mile stretch of a mountainous region in Afghanistan occupied by the majority of the Taliban. The two filmmakers would live here for the next year documenting the second platoon of the 173rd airborne. Life would consist of MREs (meals ready-to-eat), dodging bullets, engaging with locals and at times experiencing life and death. Two years later, documentary filmmaker Ngawang Choephel would debut his film, Tibet in Song, about the vanishing folk music in Tibet, at the Sundance Film Festival. Choephel was in prison for six years and this would mark his five-year anniversary after his release by the Chinese government. And now the Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi enters a six-year sentence and a twenty-year ban of talking with foreign media, filmmaking, producing, and writing because of his opposition to Iranian leaders.

Listen to John Reyes’ exclusive interview with Tim Hetherington

This is not the first time that directors have risked their lives in order for their audience to experienced what has never been experience. National Geographic filmmakers and photographers, for example, have climbed the highest mountains, slept in the hottest areas and interacted with wildlife to allow their audience to see a world that was forbidden. Recently, however, documentary and motion picture filmmakers have taken greater risks in their films as a form of activism. Filmmakers such as Panahi, Choephel, and Hetherington are marching together in creating films that risk their lives and possibly imprisonment. They have allowed their audiences to unveil the veiled, to hear the silenced, and to understand the misunderstood.

“I think we should all be in one voice and one unity so that there is a movement going on. And when we do this we are naturally bound to fill our culture.”

Iranian Filmmaker
Jafar Panahi

For Jafar Panahi, his work has been entirely about the politics of Iran. He directs ‘simple’, human stories of Iranian life as a lens into their world. In the White Balloon, he explores the adventure of Razieh, a young girl eager to buy a gold fish hours before the Teheran New Year. After begging her mother to give her the money, Razieh promptly loses it and so begins her conflict. Through the eyes and innocence of the little girl, the film focuses the social and political issues of Panahi’s country. The soft and poignant perspective gives this film the warm and depth of what is going on in Iran. For his film Offsides, he explores the law that excludes women from stadium events. The film is set in Tehran, where the Iranian team is set to face Bahrain in the World Cup qualifying match. The film itself was difficult to shoot since Panahi and his crew were denied a license to make the film. This censorship becomes one of the many themes of Iranian society depicted in the film. Panahi manages to film this from a female spectator’s point of view, allowing us to only see what the main characters of the film are experiencing.

Instead of viewing Panahi’s work as progressiveness, the leaders of Iran has seen it as a backlash into their politics and culture. Iranian leaders such as Ayatollah Ali Khomeini see Panahi (and all Hollywood films) as “politically charged propaganda with artistic veneers” and have even condemned western awards such as the Nobel Peace Prize in Art and the Oscars. Khomeini says, “such awards do not have any value and artists should never work to make movies with the purpose of winning such prizes.” More so they say that western ideology has seen its place in Iranian cinema.

“Once you have gone through this experience it is hard not to be involved,” says Hetherington, “especially when you have risked your life.”

Filmmaker Ngawang Choephel
weeks before his arrest

For documentarians, risk has always taken president in producing a film to reveal political issues. In Ngawang Choephel’s second month of filming in Tibet, he was imprisoned. He was found guilty because of “espionage and counter-revolutionary activities” and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. In 2002, Choephel was released because of international attention. In 2009 his film won the Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. In crafting his film, Choephel reveals the voice of the Tibetan people and the influence of Chinese government.

When he started filming in the mid-1990s, communism was still in transition and propaganda was still in Tibet. He says, “The influence is everywhere. Books. Movies. No history of Tibet is written in textbooks. Only those that the Chinese have conquered in.” Choephel saw nomadic farmers who still believed in their own tradition and wanted to preserve it. He says, “The meaning of the songs and lyrics are important. The central theme of Tibetan folk music is about compassion, harmless, and harmony with the nature. That quality of life was really beautiful and unique.” While in prison, he was inspired by the ‘fighters’ of Tibet. He knew that once he was released, it was important to continue on with this film. He says, “I think we should all be in one voice and one unity so that there is a movement going on. And when we do this we naturally bound to fill our culture.”

For Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, directors of the film Restrepo, crossing political parities was not their intention. For Hetherington, he says, “I am the kind of person that does everything in a political lens.” His work has primarily focused on human rights and conflict. For Hetherington it was important not to cross party lines. He says, “I am not going to start to be brought in to partisan politics that have colored our discussion in these events…If I start to walk along the political lines I am going to divide my audience so that they wont be able to see what is going wrong around the world.” Restrepo, take us on the solider experience. For them they wanted to focus what is going in Afghanistan and the human cost of how war has influenced young men. He says, “One must not confine themselves and over think to where they are going. “Once you have gone through this experience it is hard not to be involve,” says Hetherington, “especially when you have risk your life.”

RESTREPO directors
Sebastian Junger(left) and Tim Hetherington(right)

Whether political or non-political, filmmakers today have taken an activist approach to reach a larger audience to promote the dialogue of human rights. It seems that those who have experienced death and imprisonment have taken something away from their experiences. For Choephel, it was the importance of culture and the unity of his people. For Hetherington, it was the meaning of brotherhood, as the real weapon of survival for the platoon. Panahi, however, is experiencing the ultimate sacrifice - not imprisonment, but the death of his talent and voice in filmmaking.

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