In the days leading up to DocuDay LA and DocuDays NY, we at IDA will be introducing--and in some cases, re-introducing--our community to the filmmakers whose work has been nominated for an Academy Award for either Best Documentary Feature or Best Documentary Short Subject. As we did in conjunction with last summer's DocuWeeks^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, we have asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films--the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far, and the impact of an Academy Award nomination.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here are Kirk Simon and Karen Goodman, directors/producers of Strangers No More, which is nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category.

Synopsis: In the heart of Tel Aviv, there is an exceptional school where children from 48 different countries and diverse backgrounds come together to learn. Many of the students arrive at Bialik-Rogozin School fleeing poverty, political adversity and even genocide. Here, no child is a stranger. Strangers No More follows several students' struggles to acclimate to life in a new land while slowly opening up to share their stories of hardship and tragedy. With tremendous effort and dedication, the school provides the support these children need to recover from their past. Together, the bond between teacher and student, and amongst the students themselves, enables them to create new lives in this exceptional community.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking? 

Kirk Simon: I studied film at Hampshire College; my classmates included Buddy Squires and Ken Burns. I spent as much time working in still photography as I did in film. 

Karen Goodman: I began making films when I was 14--I attended an arts camp in the Berkshires and made my first film there with a Super 8 camera my father gave me. In high school I worked after school as an intern at Public Access TV, where we used 1/2 portable video--“portapak"--to cover events.

IDA: What inspired you to make Strangers No More?  

KS: Just walking into the school for the first time made me want to pull out a camera. The school has kids from 48 countries, so there is great diversity--and great diversity in the stories to tell. The school is truly a place where education conquers all. 

KG: The moment I set foot in the school, I knew there was an important and inspiring story about the possibility for peace and tolerance through education that had to be told. The children's message of hope--despite the trauma of their backgrounds--captured my heart.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?  

KS: The hardest challenge was gaining the trust of the kids. Many have stories of incredible hardship, as they came to the school escaping war, poverty and genocide. So some were closed off and did not want to talk about their past. It was not a film that could be made in one or two trips. It took many months to gain the confidence of the children in the school. 

KG: Gaining the trust of these fragile children was a challenge. Many had come to the school orphaned; some had witnessed the execution of their parents in wartime; nearly every child, as the principal Karen Tal says in the film, "was running away from something." It took time to gain the trust of the teachers, who were understandably protective, and for the students to share their stories. We made at least half a dozen trips to Israel, and before long [the teachers and students] began to miss us when we weren't there.

KS:  I don't think my vision changed during the production of the film; it was simply difficult to capture the heart-wrenching stories of the children who attend the school. So it was more a matter of trying to achieve what one thought was possible. 

KG: The film did not change dramatically, but rather was a process over time in which we began to focus on three particular kids whose stories we felt rendered an image of this amazing community. We wanted to find a new student and follow the experience of coming to the Bialik school with no academic background whatsoever and watch him or her grow. At the same time, we wanted to follow the story of an older student whose life had been changed. So over time, we discovered these stories. It wasn't until the very end of the editing process that we decided to use very limited archival footage to give a sense of the context of the students backgrounds.

IDA:  As you've screened Strangers No More--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions? 

KS:  The most surprising reaction is that the film presents a glimpse of an Israel that audiences aren't familiar with. If you read The New York Times or similar media, the stories that come from Israel are ones of conflict and war, so a story of educators coming together to help kids is an unusual one. 

KG: The reaction to the film has been inspiring. In Israel it has been front-page news. Elsewhere, people and organizations have come forth wanting to know how they can help the school and donate funds, and there has been lots of interest in the educational world about using Bialik as role model.

IDA:  Where were you when you first heard about your Academy Award nomination?  

KS: I was sitting in my apartment in Manhattan. I had watched the morning news shows where the major categories of the Oscar were announced. I then went to the AMPAS website and started to hit the refresh button. It wasn't long before my phones were ringing and I was receiving texts like crazy. I knew it must be good news. 

KG: I was sitting in New York City looking out at Central Park, awaiting the moment when the Internet would bring the announcement…Trembling.

IDA:  What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

KS: I am equally inspired by the great documentary photographers as by the filmmakers. For photographers: Helen Levitt, Paul Strand, Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. On the film side: Ricky Leacock, Don Pennebaker, the Maysles and Barbara Kopple. 

KG: All of the "gods" of cinema vérité--the Maysles, Richard Leacock, DA Pennebaker. Also a lesser known Canadian filmmaker, Mike Rubbo, whom I took a workshop with many years ago. His film Waiting for Fidel--about an interview he was sent to Cuba by the CBC to get, but never did--had a huge impact on me. Also, all the great documentary photographers from the Farm Security Administration--Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange--and those from the Photo League including my mentor, Jerome Liebling.

Strangers No More will be screening Saturday, February 26, at 9:00 a.m. as part of DocuDay LA at the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills, and Sunday, February 27, at 1:30 p.m. at DocuDay NY at The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan.

Homegirl Café will be the food vendor for this Saturday's DocuDay Los Angeles event at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.  They will be serving up delectable sandwiches, snacks and baked goods from the Cafe and Homeboy Bakery. 

Homegirl Café and Homeboy Bakery are divisions of Homeboy Industries.  Both the Café and Bakery employ formerly incarcerated and gang affiliated women and men; and provide them with critical hands-on training and employment skills.

To purchase tickets and passes to DocuDay Los Angeles, visit the event page.

With Waste Land, Killing in the Name and Sun Come Up scoring the Oscars nods out of DocuWeeks 2010, other Showcase alums have made their presence felt elsewhere. In the recently concluded Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Montana, Thomas Bursteyn's This Way of Life captured the Best Feature Prize, while Steam of Life, from Joonas Berghall and Mika Hotakainen, took the Artistic Vision Award. Elsewhere among the IDA community, Darwin, produced by former IDA executive director Sandra Ruch and Documentary magazine contributing editor Taylor Segrest (also credited as writer), earned the Artistic Vision Award; Nick Brandestini directed.

Designed for IDA Members, the directory allows you to post your profile, search member profiles and connect directly with other IDA members. Get listed today - it's a great way to connect with the documentary film community, promote your projects and network with like-minded folk!

To view the Member Directory, go to http://www.documentary.org/community/member-directory. The directory only displays members who have opted-in, so if you would like to be listed you must  be an IDA Member and opt-in.  Simply go to your profile settings (under edit profile), and select the "Share Profile in Member Directory" check-box.

Want to get listed but not an IDA member?  It's easy to join - simply visit the Membership page and follow the instructions!

 IDA and the Paley Center for Media

Present a special DocuDay NY opening night screening of GASLAND

Paley Center for Media
February 22nd, 2011
Screening 6:30 p.m.

Meet the film’s Director, Josh Fox, and Producer, Trish Adlesic, at this special screening and post-screening Q&A.

The Paley Center for Media is located at 25 West 52nd Street New York, NY 10103 (between 5th Avenue & 6th Avenue).

Tickets: $15 for IDA Members / $20 General Admission. To receive IDA member discount enter discount code "IDA"

Purchase Tickets Now

ABOUT THE FILM: The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown.

See the rest of the Oscar nominated documentary films at DocuDay New York and DocuDay Los Angeles.

In the first moments of José Padilha's Secrets of the Tribe, about the anthropologists who study the Yanomami, we learn exactly what the observed think of the observer: "You Nabäs are always such liars," says one tribesman. "I don't like to believe anything you say because you always lie." After watching this 96-minute film that documents a "he said-he said" war of egos fought among ethically dubious anthropologists on opposing sides of a theoretical debate that includes accusations of genocide and pederasty, it's hard to disagree.

Insulated by the dense rain forests along the border of Venezuela and Brazil, the Yanomami became known to the outside world as vicious and fearsome after the publication of American anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's groundbreaking study, Yanomamö: The Fierce People. Released in 1968, it describes the tribe, thought to have descended from the Asians who first crossed the Bering Strait, as warring over women and celebrating in hallucinogenic frenzies.

The data Chagnon collected for his book and the films he made with Timothy Asch seemed definitive evidence in support of biological determinism, which purports that genes and the evolutionary imperative to pass them on are the primary forces that shape human culture. Chagnon had made his career, and his rise in academia only cemented the Yanomami's reputation as "Fierce People." The book became de rigueur in Anthro 101 courses on campuses around the world and has since been reissued in five editions, selling more than four million copies. It was also a herald to other anthropologists and scientists who beat a path to the jungle in order to gather their own data among the last unacculturated peoples in the world--data that paint radically different pictures of the Yanomami.

In Secrets of the Tribe, Padilha interviews an entire roster of Who's Who in American Anthropology to explore the controversy that first entered the mainstream with Patrick Tierney's November 2006 New Yorker article, "Fierce Anthropologist." Tierney's book Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon, published that same year, is a dense catalogue of unethical and illegal actions perpetrated not only by Chagnon, but also by his colleagues: Dr. James Neel, a geneticist doing research for the Atomic Energy Commission; Venezuelan naturalist Charles Brewer Carías, who had ties to gold-mining interests; and Collège de France's respected linguist Jacques Lizot, who traded goods for sex with Yanomami boys. Also revealing how governments, fellow academics and missionaries cast a blind eye toward these atrocities, the book landed like a bomb and blew up an entire discipline.

 "Mike Chamberlain [of Britain's Stampede Films] took Tierney's article to Nick Fraser at BBC, and Nicky called me," says Padilha, whose Bus 174 was a big success for BBC Storyville back in 2002. When I spoke with the Brazilian filmmaker in April 2010, he was fresh from the opening-night screening of Secrets of the Tribe at the Rio version of It's All True, Brazil's 15-year-old documentary festival. He was also in the midst of post-production on his sequel to Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad), a fiction feature about the take-no-prisoners police force that is attempting to wrest control of Rio's slums from entrenched drug lords. When I ask why he chose to make Secrets, his answer is surprising: "Because I love science."

A student of math and physics, Padilha turned to filmmaking after a brief, unsatisfying career in banking. Since producing 1999's The Charcoal People under the wing of Oscar-winning documentarian Nigel Noble, Padilha and his production partner Marcos Prado have made several films together, acting as producer on each other's projects. In his documentaries, Padilha takes an aesthetic approach called for by the material. To reconstruct the tragic life story of the hijacker of a Rio city bus in Bus 174, he used the plentiful news and amateur footage taken at the scene, which was badly managed by local authorities. Garapa, his 2009 documentary about the effects of chronic hunger on three families in Brazil's arid northeast, was shot cinema vérité style on black-and-white 35mm film and finished without music. The Golden Bear-winning Tropa de Elite would have been a documentary, if, as Padilha told me in a 2009 interview, he didn't fear for his life. For Secrets of the Tribe, Padilha knew immediately it would primarily consist of talking heads, with each scientist and the surviving Yanomami having their say.

To interview the Yanomami, Padilha did what those before him had done: He paid them. "Everything is trade with the Yanomami," he explains. How did he get Chagnon to willingly revisit the allegations that forced the embattled anthropologist into early retirement? "I say I am making a film about science," Padilha explains. "Everyone thinks they are the good scientists and everyone else is doing bad science.

"The methodology of anthropology is flawed," Padilha continues. "Each anthropologist finds exactly the evidence to fit his paradigm. To destroy the data you have to destroy the person. Who cares how you feel about Einstein? Take his data to the lab and see if what he says holds up. No one ever said that about Einstein, but you get my point...Chagnon doesn't agree with Ken Good, so he says, ‘Oh, he married a teenager.'"

The cavalcade of bickering eggheads that Padilha created in the editing room is riveting, sometimes even funny. The interviews with the Yanomami, who describe entire villages of people dying, sexual abuse and the havoc wrought by anthropologists who traded information for steel axes and machetes, create a cumulative effect that can only be described as heartbreak. Watching archival footage of Yanomami: A Multidisciplinary Study (1968) and The Feast (1970), both shot by Asch during the joint Neel-Chagnon study on a measles vaccine, we learn that most of the people on film died shortly thereafter.

Pieces of Jean-Pierre Marchand's collaboration with Jacques Lizot, Les indiens Yanomami (1968), stands in for Lizot, who declined Padilha's request for an interview. (He is now sought by French police on an unrelated molestation charge and is thought to be in Morocco.) "The film is very candid on Lizot, yet I did not touch the surface of what he did," says Padilha. "The French injected the Yanomami with radioactive isotopes. The French side is much uglier than it looks in the film."

The French arm of ARTE is one of the co-production partners on Secrets of the Tribe and, it turns out, protective of Jacques Lizot and the Collège de France, where Lizot's mentor Claude Lévi-Strauss was chair of social anthropology. ARTE asked Padilha to put Lizot's pederasty in context. "Many of these [commissioning] editors come from liberal arts, anthropology backgrounds," says the filmmaker. "No one thinks about the kids." For his part, he sent the filmed testimony to Interpol in Brazil, which sent it on to France. "Lizot can be active somewhere right now," he notes. "When I showed [the footage] to the French, they didn't even consider this. If Lizot had molested French boys? Yanomami kids are far away. They intellectualize it as somehow excusable."

Anthropologists behaving badly is nothing new. Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology, asked Arctic explorer Robert Peary to bring him back "a middle-aged Eskimo, preferably from Greenland," for the American Museum of Natural History's live dioramas. Within eight months, four of the six Inuits Peary delivered had died of tuberculosis. Congolese pygmy Ota Benga lived at the museum and later at New York's Bronx Zoo before killing himself. Ishi, the last of the California Yahi Indians, lived at the University of California's Museum of Anthropology, and some of his remains were shipped off to the Smithsonian. Robert Flaherty--whose Nanook of the North unleashed a controversy in ethnographic filmmaking that continues today--fathered an Inuit son he later refused to acknowledge, or help. Even the ethically meticulous Margaret Mead admitted to having considered a sexual affair with one of the Samoans she was studying.

Today, anthropology is going through another round of soul-searching. Barbara Rose Johnston, who saw Secrets when it premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, invited Padilha and his film to the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting, held in November in New Orleans. "I think it is a trap," Padilha joked back in April. "Maybe they will try to kill me." The film, minus its director, became part of a panel exploring the ethics of the discipline and, in a move that cannot be coincidental, the AAA decided to drop the word "science" from its statement on long-range plans. "The thing is, I think that biology has a lot to do with behavior," Padilha says." But the science is clumsy. Chagnon is an embarrassment to sociobiology. This film will help that."

No matter how anthropology decides to settle its debates, it is clear from the film that the Yanomami reached a verdict long ago. "Look here, they are taking my picture again," one man points at Padilha's camera. "You should be ignorant of us."

Secrets of the Tribes airs March 2 on HBO. The film is distributed in the international broadcast market through Sideways Film, and in the worldwide educational market through Documentary Educational Resources, which also distributes Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon's Yanamamö Series, including The Feast and Yanomami: A Multidisciplinary Study.

Shari Kizirian currently lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Arguments about truth in documentary filmmaking—how "real" a film is or isn't—are inherent to the form, part of its DNA. "Reality" is an eternal question (Platonic ideal?) in an art form that demands both honesty and manipulation: honesty through its humanity and manipulation through its craft. But are a film's insights and revelations about the human condition any less untrue as a result of its craft?

There's the maxim in moviemaking that "every cut is a lie," therefore documentary filmmaking is essentially a paradox: an unspooling of truth built on a careful pyramid of intricate lies. Or is it?

The irony is that as the craft of the documentary form has become more visible, with filmmakers applying a full range of cinematic tools, the questions of truth or untruth have rung more loudly and with more persistence. From Catfish to Exit Through the Gift Shop, and extending all the way to hybrid provocations like Bruno and I'm Still Here, these questions—sometimes accusations—of truth or lies have consumed and confounded documentary circles in the last several years. It's almost like a seesaw, and "Craft" is the fat kid that hopped on that wooden plank in the playground, only to leave Truth hanging in the air.

Likewise, truth itself is the pearl in the oyster that filmmakers are always searching to retrieve and hold up to the world: as a containable marker of the human condition, as proof of their subject's merit and as validation for their own pursuits.

I myself have participated on documentary panels where filmmakers argued—prompted by audience questions—about whether editing a subject's dialogue to eliminate pauses, coughs, stammers and lost trains of thought constituted a betrayal of truth. And I've scratched my head thinking, "If I can't discern information or extract emotion from your filmmaking because I'm distracted or bored by your subject's rambling, what is the point of your attempt to preserve this truth at the expense of a far greater one?"

Folks, if the choice is between honest diction or emotional revelation, I suggest you pick the latter. Which brings me to my litmus test:

Essential Truth vs. Literal Truth

Literal Truth: Bob went to the market.

Essential Truth: Bob went to the 7-11 at midnight for a six-pack because he's an alcoholic.

Both may be true statements, but one is basic and without insight or analysis, while the other is more insightful due to its analysis. Or, some would say, insightful because of its judgments...but aren't "insights" and "judgments" often one and the same, defined only by the eye of the judge and juror? And who in the documentary field would deny their true callings as amateur psychologists? Isn't that why we're all here—to judge?

Thus, I believe it can (and should) be argued, that the craft of documentary filmmaking—good filmmaking—is to provide the analysis needed to reveal human insights, the essential truths. A movie composed of literal truths would be 100 percent true in the strictest sense, but also quite possibly the most bereft of real insight, while attaining, perhaps, complete unwatchability in its dogged pursuit of honesty.

To insist on literal truth at every turn in a documentary would rob a filmmaker of his or her tools to contextualize information and character. Simple omission—filtering the flow of human information to extract the minerals of a story's Essential Truth—is invaluable. I've yet to see a documentary that deeply moved me, yet left me concerned that information was left out of its telling. I would not have enjoyed The King of Kong any less had director Seth Gordon included its characters' complete family lineages or detailed medical histories (Chapter Twelve: "Billy's Cousin's Hernia"). 

Conversely, when I sometimes watch biographical docs, I think, "This piece of information may make your film more comprehensive or more complete, but can you show me only what I need to know to understand or appreciate your subject and your film's themes? Can you step away from the material for one moment to explain to me, in short...Who Fucking Cares?"

This is not to say that filmmakers should ignore literal truths. But there are times when panning for the gold of essential truth requires cinematic arts to magnify the nuggets:  cross-cutting, repetition, juxtaposition, irony. Life doesn't always come with reaction shots. Or cutaways. Or context for third-party consumption. However, movies do, and these elements all amplify your Essential Truth.

 "Simple" truth is just that: simple. The documentary filmmaker in his or her element is still a storyteller, albeit one who deals in the real. But when has anyone ever regaled a crowd with a true story enjoyed merely for its precise and wholly accurate recollection of events? Perhaps only in Ricky Gervais' film titled...The Invention of Lying.

Audiences walk away from documentaries remembering the things that made them cry, made them laugh, made them think, made them relate. They do not walk away admiring the integrity of the process. In fact, they don't even think your process—-and probably shouldn't—that is, unless the essential truths themselves are in question. If they're thinking at all about process, they're not enjoying the sausage enough to forget about how it's made.

When Does Craft Outweigh Truth?

The cries against the likes of Catfish and its ilk came from many in the documentary community saying they didn't believe the constructed reality of the film. In some cases, they felt it was "too good" to be true. 

Interestingly enough, I didn't hear this critique from general audiences. They either found the film captivating or they didn't. Their critique was more along the lines of "Yeah, so what? Who isn't lying on Facebook?" rather than a questioning of the filmmakers' integrity.

What I personally extract from the doc community's critique of Catfish are the voices of filmmakers who know all-too-well how the sausage is made, looking at this particular work and seeing too much visible craft. Too much omission to deny. And they're unwilling to go along for the ride, the ride that every documentary would like to take you on. To those detractors, regarding this specific film, I say,Your loss. But their critique points toward a larger, and more important issue: Filmmakers should be mindful of the fact that the cognitive or emotional leaps they require their audiences to take may allow the seams of their constructs to show.

Early in Howard Stern's autobiographical film, Private Parts, when Stern plays himself as a Boston University student, clearly 20 years too late, he looks directly into camera and says (I'm paraphrasing), "Sometimes you just gotta suspend disbelief." (Sidenote: I think it's good to bring lowbrow cultural references into a highminded debate. Stay with me).  Unfortunately, with a sophisticated audience who understands the documentary craft—who knows, consciously, that every cut may be, to some extent, a lie—there's a breaking point where they may not be able to suspend disbelief...in order to believe wholeheartedly. When the lights go down, let's face it: We all want to believe.

"We know that you're going for essential truth," the sophisticates seem to be saying, "And we're willing to forego some literal truth to get there.  Well...some of us are, anyway. But don't let us question the motivation of your cinematic manipulations—or we will fail to believe your essential truth entirely.  We may even become quite pissed off."  Films that breach this tacit agreement with their audience have a problem—and it's a motivation problem. It's not even what's on screen anymore, it's the question of what's behind what's onscreen: the man peeking out from the curtain. But dammit, get that man out of sight—and don't let me contemplate his machinations!

When they question your essential truth, you're in trouble. As George Burns used to say, "Sincerity's everything. And if you can fake that, you've got it made."

Eddie Schmidt is the Board President of IDA, and an Academy Award-nominated essential truth-teller who has produced the documentaries Twist of Faith, This Film Is Not Yet Rated and Troubadours, among others.

Be a Part of the Movement to Guarantee Healthy Arts Funding &
Arts Education in America

The House Appropriations Committee has proposed a mid-year budget cut to dozens of valuable federal programs, including support for the arts.  They want to cut the National Endowment for the Arts budget mid-stream from $167.5 million to $155 million.

The bill goes to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote next week. Unfortunately, this is where the battle really begins. Expectations are that the Republican Study Committee will offer amendments that would cut even more money and quite possibly attempt to zero-out the NEA.

Now is the time for arts advocates to mobilize with a strong and unified voice. Join the IDA and the Americans for the Arts Action Fund in getting 50,000 messages to Congress over the next week.

Here's two important steps you can make to TAKE ACTION NOW!

1. Take two minutes now to send customizable messages to your Members of Congress via our E-Advocacy Center.  These elected officials, especially the freshmen, need to know where their constituents stand on arts funding issues.  

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Omar Amiralay, a Syria-based documentary maker and one of the most influential filmmakers in the Arab world, died February 6 at his home in Damascus of an apparent heart attack. He was 66. According to a report from ABC News in Australia, Amiralay was very supportive of the ongoing uprising in Egypt, having signed a declaration by independent Syrians a week ago. Moreover, he was critical of his own country, stating recently, "I live in a country steadfastly marching on its hooves to its own demise, after it was betrayed by its rulers, deserted by its brainpower and abandoned by its intellectuals. My cinema is no more than my expression of scorn at the despair and tyranny that governs life around me, and the role of man in compounding it with more hopelessness and abuse."

According to an entry in Wikipedia, his most notable work is a trilogy of documentaries about the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates--Film Essay on the Euphrates Dam (1970, Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (1974) and A Flood in Baath Country (2003)--in which he examined the impact of the development project on the lives of the citizens who live near it, as well as its larger political ramifications. Everyday Life in a Syrian Village earned two awards the 1976 Berlin Film Festival.

As a political activist, Amiralay was a signatory, in 2000, to the "Declaration of the 99," a manifesto signed by 99 prominent Syrian intellectuals calling for "an end to the state of emergency in force since 1963, the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, and the permitting of political parties and independent civil society organizations." In 2005, Amirilay signed a declaration by Syrian intellectuals calling for a withdrawal by Syria from Lebanon.

According to the ABC News report, most of Amiralay's work has been banned in Syria, whose cinema is heavily controlled by the government. Amiralay studied film in Paris, at La Fémis, the French state film school, whose formidable roster of alums includes Louis Malle, Costa-Gavras, Alain Renais, Claire Denis, Patrice Lecomte and many others.