Principle Voices: Kevin on THE LIST edit

Kevin Belli is Principle Pictures’ Senior Editor and Director of Photography

A whole day of editing, that’s how a typical day at Principle Pictures looks like for me, these last few months. I come in and review what I’ve done the day before. I try to macromanage myself and set daily goals. You can get really overwhelmed when you think about an hour long film for example. Every scene is like its own little film and it has to make sense in the context of the bigger story.

The most important thing for the rough cut is establishing structure. Beth Murphy (Director) and I will sit down and work out the film’s structure. The order information is presented, the order of the scenes, how the information is shared, how much information is being revealed... all of that establishes the pacing of the film.

I like to think creatively about how to tell parts of the story for which there is little to no video coverage. For example, a major part of Kirk Johnson’s character development in THE LIST is to tell his post-traumatic stress accident story: He was sleepwalking while on vacation and fell out a two story window. We have a few still photographs of Kirk in the hospital, and excellent interview material, but by themselves, I thought the presentation of the material fell flat.

The fun thing about being an editor is when a problem like this comes up, I can try to think of a unique way to shoot it or show it. In this case I came up with the idea of putting Kirk’s photographs from the Dominican Republic in a slide projector and shooting the projector itself and the projected images. So that became my coverage for telling this part of the story, and I think it provides a sort of a cool aesthetic that works well with some other stylistic choices we’ve made.

I have a love-hate relationship with editing, because it can seem overwhelming--especially at the beginning. For THE LIST, we have more than 350 hours of raw footage that we’re cutting down to less than an hour. And there are days when nothing seems to be going right, and a whole day will be spent trying to work through 10 or 20 seconds of the film. But then there are the good days - the great days. The days when it’s going so well I don’t want to leave the edit room. I love being in the groove, and there’s nothing like watching back a section that you know works. The rewards are so worth the struggle.

So I don’t view any of this as work. It eats up a lot of time, especially social time. But I love doing it because at the end of the day I’m working on a film. I’m making a movie! It’s fun, you know. It’s a mental struggle, it’s an emotional struggle, but at the end of the day it’s the most fun you can have.

Principle Voices is a new blog series that features weekly interviews with staff and interns to provide insights into what, how and why we do what we do.

Introducing Myself: Lara Sitruk

After working here for three weeks, I feel part of the PP-family. I’m up to date with most of the projects everybody is working on and the pile of plans for future projects which keeps growing. Common characteristics among my coworkers are ambition, interest in the world and the constant laughter that fills the office every day.

I moved to Boston from the Netherlands and arrived way too overdressed at my first day of work, thinking American companies are very professional and formal. Principle Pictures is professional, but more informal, which creates a very cozy, fun and motivating atmosphere in which to work!

Kevin Belli, Principle Pictures’ Senior editor, dragged me to the premier of ‘Jane Eyre’ at the MFA-museum after my first day of work, where we had just missed the President of the United States who was in Boston for a special event. That same week I got to join my coworkers at the Salem Film Fest, listen to music in South End and see ‘Educating Rita’ at the Huntington Theatre. I guess you can say people at Principle Pictures are very culturally educated.

One of my tasks here at Principle Pictures is to take care of our blog and keep you all up to date with our news, plans and adventures. To give you more insight in our projects and the people who work at Principle Pictures, we are introducing to you: Principle Voices, interviews with people in the office. This week Kevin tells us about what he’s up to right now: editing the documentary THE LIST.

Principle Inspirations: Poetry from Mary Angelino

Mary Angelino has been named one of 2010's best new poets.

Helping My Father Write His Father’s Eulogy

Instead of uneducated, write immigrant,
instead of mason –
artist with brick and stone.

If you say worked hard, always
food on the table, you won’t need
to say poor.

He’d want the Pslam read first
to get it out of the way.

End with the time
he drove to that mansion,
the fence as white as a rich man’s teeth,

Just to show you the tile rooftop,
blue as a thousand passports
cut from the sky.

Another of her poems, "Refugee," is beautiful and heartbreaking. She presents it at this reading:



Principle Inspirations is a new blog series that features those special things that makes us laugh and cry -- the things that motivate and inspire us. We hope you'll share your stories with us, too.

Remembering Geraldine Ferraro

One of my earliest memories as a journalist is of covering Geraldine Ferraro's visit to the University of Rhode Island in 1989 after she'd become head of the new Int'l Institute for Women's Political Leadership. I drove my white Fiero to the event which was held in the mold-infested campus auditorium where faded maroon-and-black carpet was made even less favorable by the low-watt florescent lighting.

With me I brought a Marantz pmd430 tape recorder, a microphone, and three packs of extra batteries--all stashed in my tan Liz Claiborne bag. After positioning the mic on its stand, angled precisely to the height I imagined Ferraro to be, I seated myself directly to what would be Ferraro's right. I imagined her right-handed, and, therefore, prone to looking right. I'd be sure to make eye contact, and be more likely to persuade an interview backstage.

As I moved left to sit, something under my chair reacted. I ignored it and sat. Ferraro began to speak. It felt like 1984. As she greeted us, something began to happen that I could not ignore: A giant cockroach darted back and forth underneath my seat. At first I just stared at the floor, lifting my legs up during every scurry. But an hour in, I kept my feet on the chair, hugging my knees into my chest.

I can't remember anything Ferraro said that night, and have long since lost the tape. But my memory of that night still makes me laugh. And Ferraro's acceptance speech five years earlier still inspires me:

Mass Humanities Awards Grant for BEYOND BELIEF Education Campaign

Good news from the Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities! We’ve been awarded a grant to get BEYOND BELIEF and its new curriculum/study guide (written by Columbia University Teachers College) into the hands of teachers and students. In fully funding our grant proposal, Senior Program Officer Hayley Wood says, “I can think of few more appropriate ways to learn about 9/11, focusing not on the horror of the event itself, which may not be the most appropriate approach for young people, but learning about the event more tangentially, through the choices of people who were directly affected by the tragedy.”

Now that we’ve been awarded the grant, we can’t wait to spend it! The $10k will accomplish a lot. In collaboration with our partners—Teachers College and its innovative development division Edlab, Primary Source, Educational Collaborative of Greater Boston (EDCO), and Beyond the 11th, we will hold a series of professional development workshops this spring. Feedback from teachers during those sessions will be used by Teachers College to write a Teacher’s Manual, and online professional development materials will be created to extend the reach and impact of this grant.

This fall—in honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11—Primary Source will organize a “Global Watch” of BEYOND BELIEF—a live event at Coolidge Corner Theater that will be streamed online, allowing educators and others to participate via Facebook and Twitter. Stay tuned for updates—we hope you can join us in-person or virtually!

The study guide has been developed with these specific disciplines in mind: history, social studies, English, peace studies, international studies, women’s studies, and psychology. While Teachers College has been busy writing, we’ve been editing a new educational DVD. New features include: 10-minute teaching modules, added special features from our return to Afghanistan, and a shortened version of the film that will fit into junior high, high school or university classes.

And we were thrilled to hear how effective the BEYOND BELIEF program has already been for students and teachers at Gill St. Bernard Middle and Upper school. “I have rarely seen students so moved and eager to make a difference on behalf of others whom they are never likely to meet or know,” says Peter Schmidt, the school’s Director of Studies.

One student explained her reaction this way, “Before watching the film, I felt prejudice toward Muslims… However, I learned my hatred was misguided toward the Afghan people who had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorists attacks… I feel like my own wounds from that day have started to heal. This film gave me a powerful sense of hope.” This is exactly what we hope for – that students are able to internalize the film’s messages.

“This film and its study guide will move your students to talk about and understand the history of America and Afghanistan at war,” says Ambassador Swanee Hunt from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “The message is that this whole world is ours, we are all connected, we are all responsible for making this-our-world better.”

Initial funding for this educational effort came from the Fledgling Fund, making it possible for us to build the capacity for a strategic and robust campaign.

In Defense of Malalai Joya's Visa Application

Almost three years ago to the day, Malalai Joya and I were bundled up in our winter coats walking through Boston Common, discussing Afghanistan. Joya hadn’t been back home in a while—she is always cautious about returning to Afghanistan, afraid she will put her parents’ and siblings’ lives in danger. Not to mention her own. As a vocal women’s rights activist who has since been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world, Joya has survived five assassination attempts and countless death threats.

But here in Beacon Hill with her slight frame and oversize coat, she was unrecognizable, blending in with the cities’ college kids while carrying a Canadian passport with a 1978 birth date printed inside the maple leaf cover.

As we took pictures in front of the State House, Joya’s smile was hidden by her long, dark hair that the wind swirled around her face. She held my 7-month-old daughter, Isabelle, and returning her to my arms spoke wistfully about how her life on the run would likely never be conducive to motherhood.

She had come to Massachusetts for a few events including the International Women’s Day program we planned: A screening of BEYOND BELIEF and a presentation by Joya.

I remember how uncomfortable it made some people in our audience when Joya gave example upon example of how U.S. policy--no matter how well intentioned--props up warlords and drug dealers and means more suffering and oppression for Afghan women. For years now, she has spoken vehemently against the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and our event was no exception.

It was a memorable night, and I was looking forward to seeing her again sometime this week during her book tour in the U.S. for “Woman Among Warlords.” That book tour was scheduled to start today.

But this time Joya was denied entry to America.

Denied a visa, according to her staff, because she is “unemployed” and “lives underground.” But America has long been a place of refuge and asylum for those fleeing persecution—something we can understand would make it impossible to hold down a job. What separates Joya from others like Iran’s Salman Rushdie or Mexico’s Marisol Valles Garcia is her attack on U.S. foreign policy. She says things that people just don’t want to hear.

Instead, Joya is now in the company of others denied visas –people like Kenya's former police chief Hussein Ali who was kept out of the U.S. last year because he is responsible for gross human rights violations at home. Last January, human rights groups celebrated Ali’s visa denial.

But no human rights groups are celebrating now. It seems clear that Joya’s visa denial is the result of what the ACLU calls “ideological exclusion,” an effort to deny visas to foreign artists, scholars and writers who criticize U.S. policy overseas. This was common during the Bush administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent lifting of bans on two prominent academics and a Columbian journalist seemed to signal an end to this racist, discriminatory, anti-free speech policy (one that is aimed at Muslims more than any other group).

In fighting one case of ideological exclusion, the ACLU wrote:
“No legitimate interest is served by the exclusion of foreign nationals on ideological grounds. Ideological exclusion impoverishes intellectual inquiry and debate in the United States, suggests to the world that our country is more interested in silencing than engaging its critics, and undermines our ability to support dissent in politically repressive nations.”

Whether you agree or disagree with what Joya says, the First Amendment protects our right to hear it. It’s a good time to remember President Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech in which he discussed ways to improve U.S.-Muslim relations through “a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground."

That vision cannot be realized if people like Malalai Joya are silenced in America.


(If you’d like to support Joya’s goal of having a book tour in the U.S. click here for practical ways that you can help.)

Hello, Denver!

Barbara Bridges and her extraordinary Women+Film Festival know how to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day! I'm here in Denver for a screening of BEYOND BELIEF and a fundraiser for our 10th anniversary of 9/11 national outreach effort. (All the while eating what is most definitely too much movie popcorn and enjoying beautiful French films like POTICHE starring Catherine Deneuve and QUEEN-TO-PLAY, Kevin Klein's first French-speaking role).

I am struck today by David Brooks' NYT editorial about our over-confident nation. As Americans, we're collectively self-indulgent and the accolades we expect don't match our merits. As Gerald Chertavian, founder of Year Up, told me this week, "There is no free lunch. If you're not willing to work your ass off, then you can't expect access or opportunity." Yet, lots of people do. And they want compliments, to boot! Not surprising then that a recent study shows college students would prefer to have their egos puffed up than eat their favorite food or even - gasp - have sex.

Brooks' most interesting observation is the link between magnification of self and the decline of values around citizenship. "Citizenship, after all," he writes, "is built on an awareness that we are not all that special but are, instead, enmeshed in a common enterprise." He is focused on ideas of national citizenship, but I believe the same applies to global citizenship. It's important, then, to see ourselves as a small link in a larger generational chain - so that things that inflate our sense of self today don't mean abdicating responsibility for tomorrow.

The films programmed by the talented Tammy Brislin of the Denver Film Society are helping to inspire many thoughts about how not to succumb to our "all-me" culture. She had first envisioned a 2.5 day festival to honor International Women's Day - but after 2 martinis and 2 weeks of pressure from DFS director Tom Botelho, found herself in charge of a 6 day festival exploring and celebrating women's voices and the inclusive spirit that defines them.

Ironweed Film Club Features BEYOND BELIEF

Ironweed Film Club is a subscription-based club that delivers progressive-themed, independent documentaries to your door every month. Members receive one-of-a-kind DVDs with though-provoking, honest, quality films that are hard to see outside of the festival circuit. Each month a film (or films) are distributed based on a theme.

Our film BEYOND BELIEF is featured this month on the theme of FORGIVENESS. Check out Ironweed, and start your own film club right in your living room!

Nicholas Kristof on What Oman Can Teach Us

In his New York Times column today, Nicholas Kristof writes about the benefits of books over bombs. He suggests that America's strategy for crushing extremism by using force may not be the best possible solution. He uses Oman as an example - a country that, only 40 years ago, was as tribal and traditional as its neighbor, Yemen. Oman, however, did not become the hotbed of Al Quaeda terrorism that Yemen has - in large part due to an emphasis on education for both girls and boys. Read Kristof's article about his travels and observations.

Love Stories of Iraqi Widows

After a love story that lasted 10 years, one minute was all it took to lost my husband.

The number of widows resulting from the last three decades of conflict in Iraq has grown to more than a million. Iraqi women tell their stories of the loves they once had and the difficult lives that were left behind.

Razan Othman Mohammed, 29-year-old worker in Baghdad

Back in 2008, my husband, his orphaned relative - who was only five years old - and I were caught up in a bomb explosion at the market. When the medics came to our rescue, a suicide bomber strapped with explosives set off another bomb. I lost consciousness at that moment and my body was full of shrapnel. My husband died of his injuries on his way to the hospital and the orphaned child was badly injured. He is now disabled and no longer able to walk. I have undergone five surgeries in the aftermath of the explosions. My condition was so serious that I didn't know my husband had died for three months, as the doctors advised my family to keep the news from me. I have since moved back in with my parents and I look after myself using my own income. I see myself in a better position compared to other widowed women since I do not have any children. But what about all the other young widowed women who have children? Who will support them?

Susan Retik Honored by President Obama

It was so exciting! I had no idea that I would be called out... Susan Retik emailed me today after President Obama made special mention of her at a White House ceremony during which she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for her work with Afghan widows. It's the second highest honor that can be bestowed on an American citizen.

"Susan Retik’s husband was killed when his plane was flown into the World Trade Center on September 11th. And nobody would have blamed Susan if she had turned inward with grief or with anger," President Obama said. "But that isn’t who she is. So instead, she and another widow started Beyond the 11th, and this is a group that empowers Afghan widows affected by war and terrorism. And Susan says,'These women are not our enemy.'"



The pride at Principle Pictures is twofold. We are ecstatic that Susan is being recognized for her commitment to building a lasting peace in Afghanistan. She deserves it! And we're reminded of our own role in helping to highlight the power of the individual as someone who saw BEYOND BELIEF nominated Susan for the award.

Today's White House ceremony kicks off a year-long, high-visibility 10th Anniversary of 9/11 campaign that is being launched by Susan’s foundation, Beyond the 11th, and us - Principle Pictures, producers of the BEYOND BELIEF documentary in which Susan’s story is featured. We have a shared mission: to use the power of media to inspire activism and education and encourage others to fulfill the President’s call to service.

At this important moment in America’s history, there is a real opportunity to help reshape the conversation about September 11th and the War on Terror, and do what we can to help eliminate the threat of terrorism. We hope you'll join our year-long campaign that's aimed at sparking meaningful public dialogue and citizen activism around peace in Afghanistan.

Congratulations, Susan! You continue to inspire us and so many others.

In her first life, Sonali Kolhatkar was testing software for a NASA space telescope. That was before she turned to radio or to social and political activism for women in Afghanistan. Now, in addition to being the host and producer of KPFK Pacific's popular morning drive time program Uprising, Sonali is also the Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a US-based non-profit solidarity organization that funds the social, political, and humanitarian projects of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

Sonali's blog, Love and Subversion (shared with her Co-Director of the Afghan Women's Mission, Jim Ingalls), encompasses both current political topics and specifically the topic of Afghan women. It includes information about the Afghan Women's Mission and RAWA - the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

Afghan Girls Brave Taliban Threats

Girls continue to fight for their right to education by attending secret schools - yet the threat to their lives is still very much a concern, even in secrecy.

We're on the Move!

When Kevin and I return from Iraq, we're coming back to our new office in Boston. Plymouth has been our home since I founded the company in my basement over 10 years ago. There's a lot of pride, countless memories, and a ton of tapes packed up in that U-Haul that's making its way up I-93 North today!

So thankful to everyone who made it happen -- Sean, Alyssa, Beth (Balaban), Kate, Danny, Jim (Sean's Dad), Alyssa's Dad, Andrew, and Dennis!! You all completely and totally rock!

Stray Cats Wanted

Our upscale community on the banks of the Tigris River is peaceful. Safe. Protected on all sides with only one way in. Or so we thought.

River rats don't need to show their badges to the Peshmerga guards at the checkpoint. When they're in the mood to get away, they just wade through the sewers and find a squat toilet to claw up through. The plump one that ran in front of my path on its way from the family room to the bedroom looked right at home. Yes, it had definitely vacationed here before.

Nose to tail this rat was at least a foot long. Threat advisory level: Red. First order of business: Shoes.

Kevin and Carmen jumped off the ping-pong table, trading in their paddles for a baseball bat and squeegie. Since there were no other weapons available, and the rat hunt needed to be documented, I took to higher ground and pushed record. I'd show you my video of the action, but the R-rated language isn't fit for our company blog. Sorry.

The rodent made a clean escape.

Rat: 1
Guardian House: 0

But, rat, know this: next time a stray cat wanders into the kitchen... we just might look the other way.

Electricity Revolution

Next to me on the couch is a plastic bag filled with samoon, the eye-shaped Iraqi bread that Umm Muhammad brings every morning—warm and soft. Now it is hardened from sitting in the hot sun all day. There’s a baseball bat resting nearby—put there by Carmen, a foreign correspondent and our housemate, who uses it to smack the flat bread over the front yard wall. On the other side, it lands with a soft thud, momentarily enveloped in a burst of dust. Even though Jadriya is the most exclusive area of Baghdad—it’s where President Jalal Talabani lives—the streets are dirt and littered with trash.

And the electricity is out, again.

From my seat on the living room couch that’s been moved outside, I can’t see the children playing on the street beyond the wall, but I can hear them—their shouts muffled by the constant hum of generators. “Generator city,” our colleague, Hatam, calls Baghdad.

It’s a rarity these days, but as I’m hanging out under the starless sky, three lights—red, yellow, green—begin to glow on the fuse box. That means city power is back. That means it’s OK to fire up the air conditioning. Any sense of excitement is tempered by the inevitable disappointment that will soon follow.

When we arrived in Baghdad almost three weeks ago, we enjoyed city electricity twenty-two hours a day. But as the mercury rises, so do the country’s power shortages. And they’re more than just an annoyance (I spent most of the night sleeping outside in the swinging chair below); they have the potential to wreak havoc with the external hard drives we use for editing. This morning, Kevin spent more than two hours trying to digitize the same fifteen minute clip. “The idea of editing here is a joke,” he tells me—responding to a "great idea" I had a few days ago.



Despite billions of dollars that have been spent to fix the power grid since 2003, officials are making the hard to swallow argument that Iraqis should be patient and wait at least another two years for a solution. Unable to find refuge from the searing summer heat (and often paying for electricity they can never enjoy), Iraqis are hot and pissed off. They're taking to the streets in what have become violent protests in some of the country's larger cities. One demonstrator calls it “an electricity revolution.”

No matter how often I hear this refrain, it bears repeating: Why can’t a country with the world’s third-largest oil reserves keep power plants running and provide basic services? Iraqis are demanding answers from the government–which itself is a source of simmering unrest. How well, they ask, is their democracy really working? Some signs: Riot police hit demonstrators in Nasiriyah with high powered water hoses a couple days ago, and since the election more than three months ago, there’s still no government in place as wrangling continues over who will become prime minister and who will be assigned to other key cabinet positions.

The idea of coming home to escape the problems that exist around you is a foreign concept here. My front yard living room is 117 degrees by 9am. But at least I can power up the generator and get the sluggish fans turning. The majority of Iraqis do not have this option. They can’t afford generators, and there isn’t enough electricity each day to keep meats from thawing and milk from turning sour.

Seven years after the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, the words “mission accomplished” are still difficult to utter. A senior official in Iraq’s defense ministry who has close ties to the U.S. told me in an interview yesterday, “Maybe it was better with Saddam. At least then we had power.” Are we really going to leave this country longing for Saddam?

As I’m typing just now, an Iraqi colleague walked up to my desk. “Guess what?” he said laughing. “Now we don’t have water!”

A) Magic Wand B) Bomb Detector C) Magic Wand Bomb Detector D) None of the Above

Every day people tell us to be careful. That's because every day the bombs going off across the country make it into the news. Many of them are in Baghdad. Most of them are car bombs. Just today 27 people were killed.

Officials have known for a very, very long time that stopping car bombs is a top priority. That's why they invested in expensive bomb detectors, and outfitted every checkpoint with them. When I say expensive, I mean more-than-the-price-of-your-car-expensive. They're between $20,000 and $60,000 a pop. And when I say every checkpoint, I mean the roadblocks that are set up about every ten feet or so. Seriously, it's hard to go more than a minute without encountering a checkpoint. That means every car driving through the city has dozens of opportunities to be sniffed out for TNT and other explosives that will turn the vehicle into a deadly inferno.

So why are there still so many car bombings?

This device has come to be known as the Magic Wand Bomb Detector. You don't need to be an explosives expert to know that any self-respecting bomb detector could never inspire you to want to say, "Abracadabra." You also don't need to be an explosives expert to question how it could possibly work when it looks like a squirt gun with a 1970s TV antenna sticking out of the barrel.

I won't keep you guessing. The device is total junk. The U.S. military determined about a year ago that the magic wand is just as likely to make a bunny materialize from thin air as it is thwart a suicide bomber heading to a shopping market near you. But that doesn't stop Iraqi policemen and soldiers from using it. Everywhere.

Here's video of a policeman in Samarra. If you watch very closely, you'll notice that the antenna swivels toward the truck. What does that mean? RUN! This truck is going to blow!



Of course, the truck isn't going to blow, and this policeman can't even be bothered to pretend anything is wrong. Usually when the antenna points toward your car, you get pulled over for a more extensive (read: waste of time) search. When one soldier was asked why dogs aren't used instead, he lamented turning Baghdad into a zoo. Better, then, to turn it into a morgue.

The only good news part of the story is that the head of the British company that made the device has been arrested for fraud.

Blog V Doc

These stories I've been sharing -- and will continue to share -- from the road often have very little to do with the actual subject matter of the documentary we're filming. That's intentional. I don't want to give the whole story away, and I'm contractually obligated not to!

Filming here has all the highs and lows I enjoy about the roller coaster filmmaking business itself. The common wisdom among journalists is to come in wanting 100%, expect 75%, and settle for 50%. Good thing I came in wanting 200%, so now I only have to settle for 100%.

We're filming every day, and so is a local crew we've hired. They are incredibly hardworking and talented, and the cameraman's back story is fantastic. Remember when the guy hucked a couple shoes at President Bush when he visited Baghdad at the end of 2008? Yasser, our local cameraman, is the guy who captured the best video that day. Not only did he get the shoe throwing incident itself, but when security guards wrestled the size 10 journalist to the ground, Yasser jumped into the fray. A picture his brother took shows other cameramen backed up against the wall--far from the action--while Yasser stands over it. (In case you're wondering... the shoe thrower spent nine months in jail. Even though he was tortured behind bars, he says he has no regrets. Hitting someone with a shoe in this society is one of the most degrading things you can do to them. Symbolically it says, "You are the scum of the earth.")

Yasser and his producer brother are going places we simply can't, returning each night with a handful of tapes for us to review and give feedback on. It's frustrating not to be able to film everywhere we want, but it's stupid to try.

I'm considering staying on longer not because we're not getting what we need, but because what we are getting is so important to the film and our understanding of what is happening with those Iraqis who worked alongside American soldiers and diplomats as translators, cultural advisers and engineers.

These Iraqis - our Iraqi allies - have already suffered so much because of their ties to the U.S. And as the U.S. withdrawal gets underway, there is good reason to believe their suffering will intensify. The List Project founder, Kirk Johnson, has come out with a damning new report, Tragedy on the Horizon. His warning alarm is justified, and supported by the horrors happening on the ground.

Just yesterday a man who worked as a U.S. military translator was shot and killed by his own sons. We're following this terrible story today -

Sights and Sounds of Baghdad

The desert knows me well, the night and the mounted men.
The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen.
-- Abul Tayyeb al-Mutanabi

Ever hear a new sound -- one you've never heard before but you know you'll never forget? It happened to me once in Etretat, thanks to the shingle beach. The new sound then? Water crushing the small stones. And it happened to me again today, thanks to a coffee vendor who turned his two porcelain coffee cups into castanets while walking up and down Mutanabi Street.



Central Baghdad's Mutanabi Book Market -- it's named after a classical Arab poet, so it's not surprising that this is considered the intellectual capitol of the city. Scholars, students, soldiers and shopkeepers come to buy and sell magazines, maps, magnifying glasses, prayer beads, video games, stuffed animals, and--of course--books. There aren't too many women around, but men are hanging out in cafes, smoking and playing board games. Pictured: Two boys have their pet bird in tow while shopping for books with their grandfather.

All motor vehicles -- except speeding military humvees and pickups-- have been barred from the area since a 2007 car bomb.



I think the ice vendors have one of the toughest jobs in the neighborhood. An umbrella cart and wool blanket shield the ice block from the sun. But it was still almost 120 degrees today.



Below: A woman balances a block of ice on her head.

Kurdistan’s Rappin’ Baby ‘Bama

It’s three o’clock in the afternoon and 18-year-old Kayan is just emerging from his bedroom. It was another busy all-nighter for this Kurdish musician – writing lyrics for a new rap song about life in Iraq.

Terrorist, Kayan’s first political song, was the way he channeled his anger and sadness when a friend’s father was killed by militias in Baghdad. He hasn’t decided on a title for this new song yet.

“It’s about wishes and askin’ God to bring me back to a day when I can fix things,” he says. “I don’t know how much I remember, but I’m gonna spit some.”



When Kayan sings, his waifish frame is typically in constant motion—a loose silver wrist watch sliding up and down his undulating arm, black dress shoes tapping below well-pressed jeans. This kid is definitely talented, and he carries himself with an endearing confidence.

“I brought hip-hop and rap to Kurdistan,” he tells me with a wide grin. “Aw-ight,” he adds before I have a chance to react. It’s the first time I’ve heard this uniquely American urban English in Iraq, and Kayan has all the right body language to pull it off. Nothing about it would seem strange – except, I suppose, that I’m in northeastern Iraq, not Brooklyn or Compton, and Kayan is a dead ringer for Barack Obama.



If hip-hop was going to start somewhere in Kurdistan, it’s appropriate that it started here in Kayan’s home city, Sulaymaniyah. Suly (what the locals call it) is considered the cultural center of Kurdistan, the autonomous region of northern Iraq that’s tucked into the Azmar mountains. Kids may have been exposed to rap on the internet (Kayan first discovered 50 Cent’s In Da Club online), but before Kayan and his friends started performing, no one was rapping live. And while his bedroom recording studio is still the center of his operations, he opened a “real” studio last year, and convinced a local radio station to play his music. He sings, he mixes, he masters... but most of all he loves writing lyrics.

Let’s just imagine this won’t ever happen… all the family sittin’ down and laughin’… Take me back to the days when I was a little kid….I could use one wish just to fix things a little bit…

At a time when hip hop critics in the U.S. decry the genre’s lack of political substance, Kayan and his friends are turning up the political heat. Like Grandmaster Flash in the 1980s, the youth in Kurdistan—in Iraq—still have something to say, and they want to share it with the world.

For many years, the flower of our hopes was downtrodden, the fresh rose of spring was the blood of the youth…

These words, though, aren’t Kayan’s. They belong to his great-grandfather, Piramerd, the famous Kurdish philosopher, poet and journalist. Piramerd’s face is etched on buildings here, and there’s even a holiday in his name.

“He’s the legend. We have art in our veins – in our blood. I brought hip hop and he brought poetry,” Kayan says, understandably proud of his family heritage. “In our family, there’s a lot of poets, singers – only me rapper – so, that’s something cool.”

Six decades after his grandfather found inspiration from the hardship of his people, Kayan draws from that same emotional well.

There’s a proverb that defines Kurdish life, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. When elephants make love, the grass also suffers.”

God, can I get a wish? 30 million people have one wish. It’s peace.

Kayan is the grass in this part of the world. That makes his music something worth listening to. And his Obama good looks make him one... well, two... in a million.