Sean McAllister » Page 9

Author: Sean McAllister

Documentary Filmmaker from Hull, England, specialises in giving the voiceless a voice

The Return

Returning from a short break in the UK to Syria and I find that the ‘word of mouth’ rumours that visas are to be issued at the airport are true.

A special trip to a small back-room and I am questioned as to why I am visiting. “Tourism” I say. Just like I said a couple of weeks earlier. “Address in Damascus?” asks the stern, serious looking man wearing a smart uniform perched on his chair under a picture of his president, “The 4 Seasons Hotel” – my standard answer, how anyone could afford 12 nights there is beyond me but it always works and I am safely though.

The airport is bustling at midnight just like the packed flight was. It is summertime and Syrians from all over the world are heading home. On the plane I got talking to a second-hard car dealer living in Chicago, he comes back to see his parents for 2 months every summer, they tried living in the states with him but only lasted a month, “They hated it” he tells me.

But he loves it, I ask him about the prickly relations between Syria and America, he doesn’t answer, I tell him that with the election of Obama I was full of hope for the Middle East and how dismayed I was that he has continued the economic sanctions against Syria started by G.W Bush. “I don’t talk politics” he tells me. I wonder if he genuinely doesn’t speak politics or if he is just remembering that he is on his way back to Syria where such talk isn’t accepted by authorities.

Actually it is… As long as it is directed against the West you are free to speak anything – just make sure you don’t criticize the Syrian government. The man suddenly perks up deciding to engage in conversation. “I love Obama” he says. Well there you go I think, at least he’s returning like a good American. Maybe there is little difference between East and West after all. This man, like all Americans, is free to speak but doesn’t care to as do most Syrian I meet.

I turn my attention to group of religious men dressed in great colourful clothes with bright hats. I am told that they are part of an ‘exchange’ with Britain where radical extremist Imams are taken to Syria to be trained to follow a more moderate path. Ironic that the extremists are sent from Britain to this ‘axis of evil’ country to be shown the right path.

Outside the airport I am greeted by Lukman. He’s been waiting 1 and a half hours for me and looks tired. We force our way past the taxis which monopolize the airport (a company apparently run by the presidents brother), and who have fixed the fare into town at a steep 1500 Syrian pounds (£22), I push my suitcase 100 metres down the road to a petrol station where we can get a cab for 300 Syrian pounds (£5). but, as we make our way we are stopped by a guard with a gun who won’t let us pass. A 20 minute discussion takes place, we offer a bribe and miss one, two, three, cabs before the man with the gun finally relents. A 50 Syrian pound bribe sees us safely on our way, we hail a taxi and from the back seat I see the shimmering eastern lights of dusty old Damascus beckoning me once more.

World Cup war

A cacophony of gun fire and cries for help, screaming voices of Americans and Brits, pleading “Save us, save us”. I opened my eyes and saw the rotating fan, top-lit by a dim bulb, the smell was Arabic, a balcony shimmered in the distance, sweating and shaking I sat up, it was like the opening scene in ‘Apocalypse Now’. But all was calm, moments later I realised I must have fallen asleep with the telly on. A news item about western hostages being killed in Iraq had woken me, a graphic re-construction had thrust me back to Iraq for a nightmarish moment, but here I am again waking in peaceful Syria.

Peaceful? well so it seems most of the time, as I push my way though the thousands of tourists in the old city of Damascus. Tourism is big business, despite the world-wide recession tourism is up 12% in Syria making it a billion dollar industry. The last thing Syria needs now is a war, but the more international news I read from the region the more it looks like it, the papers predict a war between Israel and Lebanon where this time Syria will get involved. In the past Syria has sat on the sidelines fuelling and funding (along with Iran) Hezbollah – the freedom fighters of south Lebanon. As I wander through the old city posters of Hezbollah leader are clear to be seen everywhere, their support it seems comes from the people as well as the government.

But how likely is it to happen? Bashar al-Assad the Syrian president said in a recent interview here that if there is a 1% possibility of averting a war he will find it. But other reports say that bigger and more sophisticated weapons have already been sent to Lebanon from Syria in preparation for any fighting.

The blockade of Gaza, the Israeli attack on the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ aid ship and the killing of nine volunteers has raised tensions in the region and now new fears of a pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear plants next year puts war high on the news agenda. Not that it seems to bother the tourists here in bustling Damascus, in the hot sweaty souks where old men play backgammon whilst sipping on tiny cups of Arabic coffee, a bigger news story has won the hearts and minds of locals and tourists alike… the World Cup in South Africa!

The gun on my pillow

Lots of guns out last night, pistols, a rifle, and plenty of strong Arak, a dangerous mix, I took the bullets out when Lukman, the mad Kurd I’m drinking with, started putting the gun to my head. We had a deal; whoever has the gun cannot have the holster that holds the bullets. So I had the holster and he had the gun. I awoke this morning reaching for water to drink the dry Arak morning mouth off and found the silver Colt 45 on the edge of my pillow pointing at my head. Against the wall is the Magnum rifle. Boys and their toys, Syria, like all good dictatorships, feels like the safest place in the world, through fear they keep the lid on life in case it gets out of hand. I look around for the bullet holster and cannot see it anywhere, then I notice that it is firmly lodged back in the gun which is laid there staring at me.

The link

Roula said she left her apartment to walk to the university in the busy capital Cairo and was stopped by a guy in plain clothes demanding to see her identity card, he said he was police but how was she to know? He told her to follow him down a quiet street, she said she wasn’t going anywhere with him, he held her for as long as he could on spurious charges.

Roula is on a university course in Cairo, I am trying to make a film in Syria, she sent me a Facebook link that I cannot open (is it blocked by Syria?). She watched some Egyptian police beat a man to death – more than just kill him she said, they took pleasure in watching his head break open as they bashed it against a wall.

Roula is Syrian – leaving the “safety” of Syria she feels that she is in a dangerous lawless land – I guess it’s the kind of thing you might see in America, but she is in Egypt – Many people (usually of Arabic decent) complain about the behaviour of the secret police in Egypt and how they are the most heavy handed in the region.

I haven’t in all my time in Syria been stopped by the secret police or even seen them, they operate in a different way here. I remember being tailed endlessly in Iraq during the Saddam days, which I quite enjoyed, it was like a game of cat and mouse.

It’s only Television

Before I returned to England a couple of weeks ago I made a trip to meet with someone whom I hoped would be an interesting character for a film I wanted to make. I didn’t mention anything about him in my blog because I wasn’t sure. When can we ever be sure for sure?

A few hours before I was due to leave I took a rental car into the Syrian countryside and went to meet him, and managed to film a little taster-piece for the BBC. I hadn’t got around to telling them that my previous film with Nizam had fallen through, I was worried that they may see me as being rather unreliable over these last few unproductive years.

How the years pass. It seems such a long ago since I finished the Japan film; and everything since then… it all feels like a series of failures.

Failed projects in South Africa that the BBC didn’t want, films the BBC did want in Dubai that I didn’t want to do but still gave (virtually unfunded) the best part of a year to trying to make work followed by a year and a half finding, and eventually failing to make, a film in Norway and Syria with Nizam.

I remember NHK my Japanese co-broadcaster offering me 100k for an idea I’d written about Damascus. But the BBC said they wanted Dubai. In my niceness I tried to persuade NHK to put their money to a more worthy cause – a far more popular film set in Dubai for (and backed by) the BBC.

And so I went to Dubai and over two trips lasting a few months found myself dying inside. Lost and without direction, the evenings became nothing more than a series of blurred bar scenes, I wanted to lose all my sensibilities and completely withdraw from that plastic nightmare hell-hole.

So I found myself migrating from Dubai to Damascus to meet with Nizam again; which began yet another mistaken adventure. But by this time the BBC had begun to show some interest in Libya, and, as Nizam was half-Libyan, his story would fit the bill. In the end they commissioned a story half-set in Syria and Libya. But a year and a half had passed since I’d tried to persuade the Japanese away from Damascus towards Dubai and now here I was again trying to persuade them (NHK) away from Dubai and back to Syria with a little bit of Libya thrown in too.

Two years after their original 100k offer we meet at the prestigious Yamagata Film festival where my Japan film picks up two awards. I sense awkwardness in the NHK Commissioning Editor, something had changed and I wasn’t sure what, and in true (non-confrontational) Japanese spirit nothing is said. He takes my Nizam trailer and promises to submit it, 6 months later he finally submits it but by now rumours emerge that he is being moved to a new department and my project with Nizam is falling through. Could it be that I spent too much time fund-raising and not enough time filming?

And so it was, in the final hours of my time in Syria that I found myself making an impromptu trip into the Syrian countryside to find a new character. The BBC like him but they can only offer a small budget to make it and suggest NHK to co-fund it.

But it is now 2 and a half years on since their offer of 100k for a film in Damascus – money I couldn’t accept because the BBC wanted a film in Dubai – and things have changed, my man at NHK has moved departments and it seems the money is no longer there.

The motto of the story is never refuse money from TV!! Lie and cheat and tell them whatever it is they want to hear but never never ever refuse their offer of money, because, in TV, as with life, you never know what tomorrow will bring.