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Saira Shah was named "Television Reporter of the Year" in 2002. She has received widespread recognition for two documentaries about Afghanistan for Channel Four: BENEATH THE VEIL and UNHOLY WAR. The films have won three Royal Television Society Awards, two Emmys®, a BAFTA, a Peabody and numerous other awards. She has recently published her first book "The Storyteller's Daughter."
As a former reporter for Channel Four News she is familiar with many of the world's hotspots. She has covered the NATO action in Kosovo, massacres in Algeria, kidnappings in Yemen, the fall of Mobutu in Zaire, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, bombings in Northern Ireland and a host of other subjects. Her reporting for Channel Four News won her awards from Amnesty International, the New York Film Festival and the Royal Television Society.
INTERVIEW
HBO: What first inspired you and James to make this film?
SAIRA: In all the work we did together, James and I used the same principle - delving beneath the level of politics, to look at the impact of conflict on the human beings caught up in them. When HBO suggested we make a film that would shed light on why so many
(particularly young) people in the Islamic world feel antagonism towards the west, we initially researched several countries - Iraq, Kashmir, Yemen. However, it was what we saw in Rafah that moved us to change the focus of the film, and concentrate on just one group of children living at the most extreme edge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
HBO: Although there were obvious risks, were you at all hesitant about going to Gaza to film?
SAIRA: Yes, we were worried about going to Gaza, and particularly Rafah. During our first two shoots, we witnessed the aftermath of indiscriminate fire on civilians by Israeli soldiers. Rafah itself is ringed by sniper towers, and every day you hear firing down one street or another. "Martyrdom" funerals took place most days. These were often the funerals of civilians (including kids) shot by Israeli snipers, but also of militants killed in skirmishes - no distinction was made. In Rafah, it is impossible to be above the conflict. People get sucked in.
HBO: Any new projects coming from you?
SAIRA: For the moment, I'm trying to recover from this one. Editing the film after James' death was really really difficult - but it felt like something that was important to his memory.
HBO: What would you like for viewers to take away from this film?
SAIRA: These kids are not monsters. They are living in unacceptable conditions. Human beings are human beings the world over and the circumstances they live in have a profound impact upon their behavior. There is a cycle of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where every killing creates a martyr, which creates more killing. Injustice breeds injustice.
HBO: Was there anything unexpected that you learned in course of making this film? What challenged your initial expectations?
SAIRA: Yes, a lot, because everything you read or see about this conflict in particular is sifted through a filter of politics. It is hard to get away from the concept that there are "goodies" and "baddies". We found kids who were being exploited by both sides in a conflict
they did not understand. An enormous number of children are killed by Israeli snipers in Rafah. Their deaths are used to recruit the next generation of militants. I wasn't prepared for the cynicism of that, as well as being horrified by the lack of respect for human life shown by the Israeli soldiers. Kids who grow up in this atmosphere will be in no shape to make
peace, so the cycle is perpetuated.
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