 Thank you, Aura, for the presentations. And I think you did a very good job of showing us the evolution of media activism through the three different stages that you spoke about. The last film was, as you described, one of exploration of subjectivity, identity, and exploration, really, of how to communicate this Syrian experience, perhaps less to the world and more just as a form of self-expression. And I wonder if this is where the form of media activism is today, as compared to the beginning when it was about telling the linear story of the people rising up for freedom against the autocratic dictatorship. What is the message that we are to take away today from where Syrians stand today and understanding what has happened to them and the feelings of abandonment, but still having the need to tell the story? What is it that people in Washington who make policy, who decide what happens in many parts of the world, what should we take away from this last film, given the historical evolution? Essentially, what is the message? First of all, I'm not sure that decisions are really happening yet anymore. I think it's more in Moscow, isn't it? And on the other hand, I hope it's not in Moscow. It's found that, in principle, what I believe was the evolution to this point was one of cutting off with objectivity because the world is not going to be convinced because, obviously, logic and knowledge and reality because, obviously, the notions of reality and truth are not tested. I think that what we feel at the end is that it's not making sense, and it's not effective to try to tell the world that there's a dictator, there's a massacre, we are being killed, and this is radicalizing us every day. Please, let's stop this cycle. Obviously, the world said in the beginning, maybe you're lying. So we tried to show the world we're not lying. This is what's happening. One, two, three, look at it. And then we started seeing how the world was gradually always finding reasons not to see or not to say that this is not enough for us to move. At the end where we are standing today is the development from media or from conveying the truth into film, where it's not about truth anymore. It's about identification. It's about people of the world. Come, imagine yourselves in our shoes, and tell us, are we different? What would you have done in our place? Are you sure you would have been smarter or wiser? Can you really do better? And would you then feel some sense of mutuality or resemblance? Would you care to help, to work together towards something? I think this is the evolution from simplified to complex, the evolution from a YouTube clip to cinema. That's where we're talking with each other all of us around the world as full 3D human beings with emotions, brains, and hearts. So I think in that sense, this is about people talking to people. And it does not include goals for action in a direct way. It does not answer the question of what should be done other than feeling first that we are one. We share a lot. And what's happening in Syria is not far. It's not in Mars. It's something that will have effects on the entire world, strategically speaking. And everybody has some interest, even if they don't notice it, in making a better ending to what's happening. So in this sense, around the films or around the clips, around all of this activity of self-spression and messaging the world, should come the political work and the activist work of mobilization, contextualization. So it's not, in my opinion, what it is today is, first of all, identification and solidarity. There's a sense of solidarity that is missing. I don't think there's much of precedence to this, like all of the massacres in Syria in the past three years. And as far as, at least as I know, there was not a single demonstration in solidarity with Syria, but those organized by Syrian expatriates around the world. When there was 1,600 people killed in one night with chemical weapons, we did not see a single demonstration, a single sit-in by any citizens of any country in the world, but Syrians. And that's quite peculiar, because the minute the Obama administration was really waving and a military strike, people started to move and to demonstrate. People started to express they are against that, but they did not express a couple of days before that they were against a chemical massacre. So I think it's first about announcing our solidarity, and that would be translatable into political terms. And can you talk a little bit about those political terms? I know you come here as a creative person, but you're also a civilian activist, someone who's experienced life in Syria before, during the uprising, and now living in exile. We need a solution. I think. What message, what do you as a civilian activist, artist think about in terms of solutions? I truly think that this is, I'll answer two things, two ways. First is I truly think that we first need to agree that we need a solution. And this is where we call for solidarity, because we're not sure that the world needs a solution and that we all agree as different people around the world that there should be a solution in Syria. So anything we suggest, why do we make it conditional? Why to say that the world will not announce its solidarity with the children and civilians being killed unless the world knows where that will lead because it might be something the world doesn't like. And for that the world is not in solidarity. I think this conditional situation is depriving the world from its humanity. And I think it's really very critical, I'm very critical to this and I think this needs a second thought. Now, what are the possible outcomes? I will answer, of course, and I think it's changing every day. And the possibilities, the potential answers to the question are, can be updated really on a weekly basis. What I am sure of is that it's not a zero or send the troops to Syria situation. That if we say, should we send the troops to Syria? And then we know that many Syrians and many Americans don't like that option. Then if we keep on saying, should we send the troops? And we get the answer no, then this is a justification of doing nothing. I think raising the burl, like keeping the thing between these black and white edges is a big problem because there are many things in between that can be attempted, that can be seriously tried or really worked on and that might make a huge difference. This goes, starts from the point some people are working on here in the USA now, which is prioritizing humanitarian access, which I believe is a very valid access point to the Syrian question now. Humanitarian access as a political action, not humanitarian access in the sense that poor people should eat today. No, it's a political question. They're not eating for political reasons and they should eat with a political pressure. But of course, Assad is just like the bully we all know in high school, at least in my case, I don't know, there are bullies in each of our stories, but a bully does not respond when you tell them nicely, please stop bullying me. You have to tell a bully that there is something at stake, that these people need to eat, have the right to eat, have the right to freedom, or to do their basic mobility, to their food, to their medical care, and to just a fair opportunity fighting you. So this is what's not happening and this is what the world is not pushing enough towards. So you come from Humps, you know the city well and we just had a negotiated, so-called negotiated ceasefire in Humps, which is fallen apart according to major media outlets. It's fallen apart over the past couple of weeks. Can you tell us your thoughts on that as an example of humanitarian access and an action point? Yes, of course I can, it's just- Is this the example of action? Yes, it is, it is, but it is also a very important example to approach, to look at and study, because it's also, I would say, also a disaster what happened in Humps. What happened, what generally speaking, it's no secret at all that the Syrian opposition of all kinds is very fragmented now. So the regime is not so fragmented, at least in terms of its narrative, its rhetoric. It is fragmented socially, we know that, knowing people there, knowing some of the, you know, that percentage of Syrians who are pro-assets still. What's happening, what the United Nations is doing is something that we know they've done in many places around the world in the past 20 years, at least, and they go to conflict zones and they start their, you know, kind of conflict resolution exercises and their targets become like, we need success story tonight, we need success story tomorrow, and that always leads to sound-wide solutions which are always very abrupt, very disconnected, and it comes at the expense of the underprivileged. So in the case of Humps, what happened was like the following. There was a very persuasive pressure from the United Nations staff in Humps of the besieged to start negotiating with the regime, and as they said in an official, in two official statements from the besieged, they were always telling them, the United Nations staff were always telling them, don't wait for your opposition, come and negotiate for yourselves. So what this means is that this happened also in different parts around Damascus, what's happening or what's being proposed by the United Nations to achieve a small success story is to disconnect or isolate small units of opposition for localized sound-wide solutions which are definitely not sustainable, but can be very good media news or headlines. Now what happened is that the besieged accepted, they sent out the three-person negotiation team, and they spent a month outside the siege in secret. The world didn't know about that during that. It ended up with reaching a deal. That deal was reached two weeks ago. A week later, there was no confirmation or approval of the deal from the regime side, and the guys were going really very stressed out, not knowing what to do if we reach a deal and it's not signed by the regime. And then we started witnessing a huge massive bombardment, chilling and fighter jets attacking the siege as if to change the grounds of the deal. And then of course, the guys in the siege went really suicidal and decided to fight till the last breath. And the result of that was just simply that they won. They took over additional grounds. It's amazing. It's outstanding, kind of really epic that it doesn't matter if it's fighter jets when these people are really fighting for life. And the regime did not manage to take one centimeter of the besieged area, but all hopes of such a negotiation succeeding failed. And I think it was already dead since it was born because it's against, it's disempowering to the people on the siege because it suggests to them that they become like a unit facing the regime altogether and then they don't have, they're much weaker. So they're brought to the negotiations based on their weakness and through a process of fragmentation. So it was not negotiation for a solution or for a mutual peace. It was negotiation for surrender. I'm gonna open it now for questions. We have about 25 minutes. Is there a microphone in the room? Great, okay. I'll invite questions regarding any of these sort of what I think are more policy political questions which are very fascinating as well as any questions related to the medium of filmmaking and storytelling, which is also fascinating. Anyone? John? Thanks, I'm, hello. John Filson at the Alliance for Peace Building. Is there still a role for media in bringing about peace? You had a very moving piece about the evolution of media from the beginning and what it was and how it was used at the beginning and how it is now. Do you still think there's a way for that particular medium and tool to be used in some aspect of the peace process? Thank you. First of all, I am one of those who don't believe in peace as a major statement. I think that peace becomes a very abrupt, a kind of theoretical concept when it's not based on seeking justice. So in the sense that today what we need in Syria is not peace. Today what we need is democracy and freedom. And that would create good grounds for a good, durable peace. While if what we're needed, what we're pushed to do now is to negotiate peace with our, you know, murderers. I think that's an experiment that was tried in different places in the world and did not really succeed anyway. So I think what we are dying for today is a few steps before peace. We need a peaceful future. We don't need to make peace for tomorrow morning. So in this sense, I think media will always have a rule and subjectivity is very crucial to it. The claim of objectivity is something we have studied, understanding media around the world. And it's always been interesting to observe from afar the way that objectivity is claimed and then betrayed all the time by all world media. But in the Syrian case in the past three years, we experienced that hands on directly. And I can clearly say that subjectivity is much closer to reality than the claim of objectivity is. In this sense, there's a lot to do still. The problem with media is that we don't have a counterpart. We don't have rivals. The side of the regime be that 20, 25% of the Syrian population, no matter how much more money they have or how much better friends they have actually. What's happening is that they don't have media. They did not, you know, go beyond March, 2011. They are still living before March, 2011. So they are human anyway. You know, we would like to have rivals or counterparts there. We don't yet. They still just parrot the same, you know, state or regime propaganda narrative. We wait and we even try to provoke somehow some independent voices there so that we have someone to negotiate with. You cannot negotiate with parrots. You know, you cannot. So to see Syria and to seek a future, we need them to revolt. Revolt against themselves being used and abused by the regime. You know, revolt for their individual rights, first of all. And that's not happening yet. It's alternatives. For instance, what do you mean? I mean, you don't need to change state media necessarily. It can be what it is. It's just about creating alternative media sources, radio or television or ensuring that films of these natures get out to... We're doing that as much as possible. We're doing that very widely. We're trying all the time. But the people on the regime's side, they are not saying anything. You know, they're not responding to it, but they're not seeing it. They're not counterparts. There are no independent films coming out of that. There's no citizen journalism coming out of that. There's no, you know, self-critique or proposed narrative. There's one narrative that goes out from the Republican palace in Damascus and everybody repeats it. And all that you see as nuance is the level of how radical it is or how fascistic it is actually. But you never see a counter-narrative coming from there. There's no dialogue. Yes, we need a dialogue. And that's not yet there. They're not starting it. Nadia? Nadia Babesu with the Arabian television. I'm just wondering why you think these images, the very emotional images that we've seen is unable to cut into the world ethnic ethics or it's moral conscious. Is it because the Syrian revolution happened after everything else we've seen in the Arab world? Like, for example, in Egypt, we've seen Western journalists in Tahrir Square. Is it because the West is more trustful of Western media than the Arab media and the Syrian regime was careful by the time that the revolution reached Syria that they were unable to stop every journey of going there. What's in your idea or in your mind why these people are unable to sympathize with the Syrians in general? And why we don't have seen organizations like Sev Darfur, for example, what happens after the genocide in Darfur, we don't see anything equivalent to that with regard to Syria in the United States or in the West in general, or even in the Arab world. There was no demonstrations in the Arab world in sympathy with the Syrians as well. Do you think it's me who knows the answer? You've been looking for an answer for this for two years and you think I will? Yeah, I think I don't want to be aggressive towards the world, but I think that first of all, it took us a long time to learn and to develop. So good films are only being released now. It takes time to make good film and like journalism where you can have a quicker production cycle. To make good film, it takes time. So we cannot rely on film as a medium for direct impact and immediate urgent change or action. We rely on film for closer and more profound understanding and connectivity between different human beings. The thing is that I don't know why. I think there's too much inconvenience. Syria is too inconvenient. There are many scary factors around the country starting from the Iranian-Saudi polarization, the American-Russian polarization, the Turkish connection and the Israeli fear and then the growth of, of course, al-Qaeda-connected, refiliated groups in Syria, but the problem was way before the first al-Qaeda-like thing happened. But even though later on it became part of what's scary about the country, I think that there's a history of failure for the United States of America, for instance, international policy on mediating or getting involved with conflicts around the world. And I think that there is some, it feels from afar, just like the history of this great country is on a turning point towards some new phase of some different kind. And we're just falling in the gap. Nobody knows how to deal with it. Seems like the American administration doesn't want to use the same ways it used to try and fail with before, but are not sure what to do next. What's the next thing to try? And in that sense, I think it's just bad luck. In many ways, but also it might be, if we compare to Darfur, I don't know. Sometimes I think Islamophobia is a growing thing that is very problematic, and it kind of Islamized the Syrian revolution. The phobia itself, I don't know what to call that in English, but it's like calling the demons. When you imagine it, it happens somehow because you're appropriating it by talking all the time about it. Media in the West talked about al-Qaeda and jihadism in Syria for months before we saw the first al-Qaeda affiliated person. So I think talking about them and being so liberal with one's own paranoia is really playing a big role in appropriating our future. And this is still ongoing, not about al-Qaeda, about many other things. Like, for instance, I truly believe that there's no way to answer the question what will happen in Syria because it depends on everyone in the world. If we do something tonight, all of us together, tomorrow might be different. And this is like something that I think we cannot live if we don't believe in this. And in that sense, we can change it, but when somebody comes in the media and starts selling a narrative that it's at least 10 years, what's gonna happen? It gonna take 10 years. It just works fine. When you keep repeating it, everybody's convinced with it and then everybody slows down their work on it and start to adapt to a 10 years slow process. This will only contribute to making it really 10 years. If we all decide it has to be one year, I am sure that we can finish it in two, three. So it's relative. Long live Einstein. Blake. Blake Selzer with CARE. Thank you so much for the presentation. A couple of points. I think when you spoke of announcing our solidarity and the need for relating, putting yourself in someone else's shoes and identification, I think that's incredibly important in this. And I wanna get your thoughts on, do you see more of that traveling, whether it's Europe or other places? And even including Russia and Dar es Aven Iran, people identifying with the common Syrians and I'll just make one quick plug for people tomorrow evening at East Street Cinema Return to Homes is screening and anyone who hasn't seen it, I would highly recommend them see that because that does create a common identification with the people and not just either the regime or extreme rebels, which I think is the narrative that we're unfortunately in. Thanks. Thank you. That was a question in the beginning. What mostly do you... So is there less solidarity here than there is or more? I have to frankly put it this way. I think that in the screenings we had of say Return to Homes for instance as an example, as a more, our session today was more a talk with you, it's not mass communication like film. So with Return to Homes, I would tell you that average US audience was among the most sympathizing and emotional audiences in so far among the almost 40 countries where we showed the film. And that's very interesting and beautiful experiment for us to discover that it's against our prejudice because we would always think that American audience is very far, very remote and Islamophobic and that would be our prejudice from afar. But showing the film to average Americans, not even to intellectuals and filmmakers, but to average people was an amazing experience. In Europe in many places it was very successful because it breaks the prejudice. For instance, when you go with such a film to an audience of European left where the priority is standing against the United States policy, that's their priority. So to them, the Syrian revolution is a problem. They cannot openly say they don't like it because it's a popular revolution, they like that or not. But they cannot also say it's good because they want to keep this anti-Americanism going. And it was only film in my experience that broke through that wall, that they have to identify, that they have to discuss. The only thing we could not break through was an amazing level of Islamophobia in different places, mainly in Europe, where for instance, you watch a film where there's nothing Islamist but there is, one of the experiments was like this. I mean, you watch a film where figuratively you have 15,000 words, one of the words only is Salafist. And the entire discussion is only about one word at the 15,000 and everybody wants to discuss this word. And then you have to tell the people that obviously the problem or the point is in your head. It's not in what we're saying and it's not in the reality we're discussing now. So it's only a big question. Why are we moderates Syrians of all walks of life be us civil activists, pacifists or fighters? Why are we being deleted? Why aren't we being supported? Why is it that we're shrinking and the rest, the more radical is growing and then somebody comes and says but we should not support you because you're not influential. And then we have to say how can we be influential if we're not supported? And it's this logic that we have, I think, to really tackle very seriously and very quickly. We were discussing yesterday how in the early stages of the uprising there were the local coordination committee that formed and were producing these videos that you showed in the beginning of the mass demonstrations in which really there's no Islamic, maybe people have come out of a mosque and started the demonstration from the mosque but ultimately it's just people standing in the streets calling for freedom and that was the films or the media clips that were broadcasted to the world. And so that was the moment where we were not yet talking about and there was still the euphoria of Egypt and Tunisia. And so the slumicization and militarization of the Syrian conflict had not yet factored into the narrative but yet we still did not see those videos translate into mass solidarity amongst the U.S. And we were talking about one of the problems that or one of the challenges for you all in trying to create a movement through these videos as being the lack of resources and support. And we have in this audience people from government or former government officials. So this is one of your opportunities to speak a little bit about what is it that donor governments or people with resources and the capacity to help deliver messages and create social solidarity. What can they do better? Or what are some of the lessons learned? First about the slumicization of the revolution if I may say I think that we all need to remember every morning that we don't have the right to kill the people we don't like. So if we have Islamists growing or a growing trend of Islamism in the region or in the world or I mean I actually was on the plane two days ago coming to the USA and I watched three terrible Hollywood blockbusters to cope with the flight and in two of the three it ends up with a cross on the chest of the protagonist of the film and them dying for good like choosing to doing a suicidal operation. Two of the science fiction films I've watched ended up with a cross and a suicidal operation. And both happen in the future. So I think it's the same trend everywhere obviously. Ridley Scott, Be That Ridley Scott or Islamists. And in that sense there are many people whose opinions I don't like but I have to find a way to live with. What we stand against is extremist radical Islamism that is totally fascistic. That is what we should fight. But then the continuous critique of Islamization kind of deprive some Islamists of the right of existing being part of society in the future. To the question, it's many things. I don't feel comfortable talking about our needs as a film, a group making film, trying to distribute them. The basis of our problems is always the difference in funding and purchase power. So it's to us when an American company wants to release a film they definitely have the same level of the same currency and the same level of funding. So that they can invest better than we can do to get their film into their country's marketplace. We cannot do that. And it's not easy of course to fundraise for that also. But this is applying to what's happening in all of the, what's happening in Syria. So I would focus first of all on civil action on the attempts of serving the people in opposition ruled areas. And I think that's where things matter the most. There is always the more recognized or recognizable frames like the coalition and its ACU and the ways of more recognized frames. But there is also the civil society that is there, developed, growing every day and trying to make a better job every day, trying to do without contradiction with the more recognized setups, which is trying to do our job, all of us, without becoming politicians, trying to develop our civil society, to try to create a sense of citizenship in a time where there's no country, basically. But still, we need to develop our sense of citizenship. This requires a lot of work that is secular anyway, even if the person who's doing it is an Islamist. But the work itself has to be always like the sense of state services, public services, municipality work, education, that is open-minded, that is open to everybody. Good medical services, good, you know, attempts of making better public services from water to electricity to cleaning the street and all this kind of servicing, including supporting independent media groups and activists. Some cultural work that is growing, some people trying to also fight radicalization with culture. This is something that is being attempted, especially in refugee camps where you have extreme conditions and the people are only getting the chance of being exposed to religion as the only thing they can be exposed to that. Well, if we can have real pressure to allow for cultural activities to happen in the camps, against sometimes the will of Jordanian and Turkish and Lebanese governments, if we can pressure them to allow cultural activists to do more of that, then we can give a better chance for the future of the children in refugee camps. For example, all of this is not being supported well. It's an old machine that everybody, including the machine itself, know has many flaws. It has to be more flexible. There's no doubt that there has to be a decision to support the friends, not only to be hypocritical to the enemy, because maybe it's a good idea sometimes that we create bridges where the people we don't like, but it should not be at the expense of our normal, you know, closer people. So the liberal, the secular, the moderate Islamists are being abandoned. Well, a lot of hypocrisy is happening to the radical. Someone wants now to discuss to take out a radical organization from the terrorism list. There is an organization list, you know, and I don't know who needs that now instead of just going and really supporting more moderate people who could just control or create a like a real social pressure over the growth of radicalism. The argument has been that by designating, for instance, on the terrorist organization that increased its popularity. Yes, and I think this is a group. This is not a group, it's al-Qaeda, and they have kidnapped many activists and many of our friends and they would not recognize that. And if there is a quick benefit for anyone now of making alliance with these people, then that's too short-sighted. And it's not helpful. Focusing on them for good or for bad is wasting time and taking away the effort of supporting what is more like Syrian society. Syria is a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian. Syria is a very rich and complex society, and it's forgotten. Do we have any other questions here? Thank you very much. My name is Narek Chakraman, I'm also a filmmaker. My question to you, it's been almost a year or maybe a little bit longer that Daesh came on the scene and right about the same time, the Shabih have disappeared. And well, in the news, in the Western media. Yeah, okay. So I'm wondering is there a correlation between the two or are they separate entities? I think, I don't want to go into conspiracy theories, but I do believe that at least the all-Qaeda connected groups were at least, if not in close coordination with Assad's regime, then they were like, there was a door that Assad's regime opened for all-Qaeda style groups. They unleashed that amazing potential, that amazing monster. But on the other hand, I think I truly believe it's the paranoia of the media. So speaking of Daesh, ISIS or Nusrah or whatever, now if we put Ahar Al-Sham in the terrorist list, we'll see a new organization also emerge because it will be a workaround. They have to create always new organizations just to work around the sanctions and things like that. So if we look at them, you'll see that they are much more sexy to Western media. Western media is so fascinated by them. It fears them and loves them at the same time. It feels like it's empowering them. And in that sense, yes, it's not sexy anymore to say that Assad is killing people, that there are radical militias which are maybe at least as bad as Al-Qaeda, if not worse. And it's always a big problem for us. I mean, me personally, in my experience, whether as a human rights activist or as a film person, say for instance, the video, the infamous video of the opposition fighter eating a heart. It didn't eat it. It's not really that credible the video. I know the man. I know how his brother was killed next to him. I know how his home was destroyed. I know how his mother was humiliated and had to walk kilometers. I know how he snapped and went crazy and I know that he needs to be hospitalized. But at the end, that video of him perpetrating such a terrible action went so crazily viral and we were sitting at the time and discussing and trying to think, should we release videos that answer to that and show the atrocities that made that man go crazy? Or should we have some mercy over the world? Or would the world not be interested in making them go viral? It's probably not going to work. But what we have and what we've seen, what we've witnessed and what we have kept in our archives are amazingly shocking atrocities perpetrated by Shebiha and beheading being like the symbolic terrible atrocity is nothing compared to what we have. But the world doesn't want to see and then I'm not sure it's trying to show the world. But this selectivity is something that's really shocking and it's always not innocent. There's always somebody trying to do something when they want this to go viral and there's not to. It would be very interesting to hear what the current debates are about what should be shown to the world. But we are at closing time. I'll remind everyone that your film, Return to Humps is being shown tomorrow night at 8.45 at East Street Cinema and that you'll also be speaking afterwards. So the movie is feature length and encourage everyone to go and to continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Please go to the front. Thank you.