{"id":876,"date":"2015-02-21T03:30:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-21T10:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/?p=876"},"modified":"2015-02-21T10:09:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-21T17:09:53","slug":"charif-kiwan-of-abounaddara-collective-at-hunter-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ambriente.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/21\/charif-kiwan-of-abounaddara-collective-at-hunter-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Charif Kiwan of Abounaddara collective at Hunter College"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charif

Charif Kiwan of Abounaddara collective at Hunter’s Roosevelt House in discussion with Jason Fox and Hunter students, 19 February, 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

Hunter College Media Studies professor, Jason Fox invited Charif Kiwan of the Abounaddara<\/a> Syrian video collective to screen a compilation film and speak with Hunter Students. The evening made for a powerful and eye-opening exchange.<\/p>\n

Inspired by Dziga Vertov\u2019s \u201cMan with a Movie Camera\u201d (1929), Abounaddara is Arabic for \u201cman with glasses.\u201d Charif Kiwan is the collective\u2019s representative who no longer lives in Syria and has no plans to return. Osama al-Habali, one member of the collective has been imprisoned for the past year and a half, however the collective continues with its mission to produce and post one video a week depicting Syrian life at a time of war.<\/p>\n

As Charif described the work of Abounaddara, the collective\u2019s goals are simple:<\/p>\n

1. Produce and post one video per week that captures Syrian life at this time of war. Kiwan referred to this practice as \u201cemergency cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Defend the \u201cright to the image\u201d as a basic human right.<\/p>\n

The outcome of these goals are to inform and motivate others to find a way to help a people in crisis and to create an archive that portrays every-day life in Syria at this moment. The French-German television network arte<\/a> commissioned the nearly hour-long compilation of Abounaddara\u2019s videos that was screened at the Roosevelt House.<\/p>\n

Although Charif claimed that the anonymous video collective attempts to capture all sides of Syrian life and in doing so give voice to members within the Bashar al-Assad regime and the Islamic State as well as to the rebels and the victims of the ongoing conflict, the compilation is most strongly a call to end the violence and suffering.<\/p>\n

Amongst the most powerful shorts in the compilation are \u201cChildren of Halfaya\u201d and \u201cSYRIA: Snapshots of History in the making\u201d both are embedded below. \u201cChildren of Halfaya\u201d captures boys in a refugee camp in Lebanon, the oldest boy recalls bombing massacres, including that of his school. And \u201cSYRIA: Snapshots of History in the making\u201d captures a young man retelling the moment that he became an activist and the empowerment of protest, however, he must pause as his interview is interrupted by bombing.<\/p>\n