Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Film CourageFilm Courage

Documentary

Filmmaking Is A Process That Allows Filmmakers To Answer Hard Questions by Alexandria Bombach

Watch the video interview on Youtube here

Film Courage: We had a few questions come in from our Youtube viewers and this one is from Ms. Green and she writes ‘How has what you’ve seen over time “changed” your view of life and does it ever show up in your filming? Did you edit it out?’

Nadia Murad visits a Yazidi refugee camp in Greece.

Alexandria Bombach, Documentary Filmmaker: I think the films I’m making are definitely starting from my experience and how I’m questioning how we are operating in this human experience at all.

So with FRAME BY FRAME there were just so many questions I was having as a storyteller about our perception and where that comes from. I wanted to make a film about Afghan photographers to talk about perception of a place that is so often this unknown known in a lot of ways. And with ON HER SHOULDERS I was really interested and this was kind of feeding off of that in a way where it was continuing telling a story about storytelling and the repetition and the packaging of stories of trauma and how we’re receiving that as an audience and our own relationship with apathy and empathy through these stories.

And so I don’t think I would make a film where I had already had the answer. I already feel very strongly about cigarettes and single-use plastics and I don’t think I’d ever make a film about it because I already know how I feel about it. I think all of these films are already questions that I’m asking myself and I think that’s where that energy comes from and relates to an audience asking themselves questions, too. I think that is where it comes from is my own questioning of life and how I’m experiencing the world.

Watch the full video interview with Alexandria Bombach here on Youtube

Film Courage: Where does your love for storytelling come from? You had gone to study marketing and I can see why you took your love of the environment and things and wanted to add that to you marketing plan.

Alexandria: Maybe?

Film Courage: But where does your love for storytelling and film come from?

Alexandria: I’ve definitely have loved making videos since I was a kid. I don’t know, it’s a hard question to ask where does my love for storytelling come from because I’m having such a complicated relationship with storytelling even now with ON HER SHOULDERS and really questioning where we are coming from with storytellers and our responsibility to our subjects and who is telling what story and why we are telling it and all sorts of things and so it’s an interesting space to be in now.

I know that I don’t want to stop this work and will continue to make documentaries and probably die with a camera in my hands but I don’t even know where that comes from. I have no idea. I feel like each film that I make is kind of an exploration of things that I’m questioning about life. It’s a process of pulling things out of myself and answering hard questions. So I just love the process of it (I love all of that) and of course it introduces me to people I would have never had…it’s such an honor to have met Nadia even though I wish of course I would have never met Nadia. I wish none of this would have ever happened and that she was just an unknown person in a village in Sinjar but I am so, so thankful that I got to meet these people and be exposed to their patience and grace and empathy so I can see the world in a different way. It’s quite a gift and hopefully that’s translated to the audience too.

About ON HER SHOULDERS:
In her latest documentary, filmmaker Alexandria Bombach introduces us to the brave twenty-three-year-old Nadia Murad. Nadia’s life is a dizzying array of exhausting undertakings — from giving testimony before the U.N. to visiting refugee camps to soul-bearing media interviews and one-on-one meetings with top government officials. With deep compassion and a formal precision and elegance that matches Nadia’s calm and steely demeanor, filmmaker Alexandria Bombach follows this strong-willed young woman, who survived the 2014 genocide of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq and escaped the hands of ISIS to become a relentless beacon of hope for her people, even when at times she longs to lay aside this monumental burden and simply have an ordinary life.

 

Nadia Murad sits in the UNODC office, preparing for an upcoming speech at the UN.

 

Twenty-three-year-old Nadia Murad’s life is a dizzying array of exhausting undertakings—from giving testimony before the U.N. to visiting refugee camps to soul-bearing media interviews and one-on-one meetings with top government officials. With deep compassion and a formal precision and elegance that matches Nadia’s calm and steely demeanor, filmmaker Alexandria Bombach follows this strong-willed young woman, who survived the 2014 genocide of the Yazidis in Northern Iraq and escaped the hands of ISIS to become a relentless beacon of hope for her people, even when at times she longs to lay aside this monumental burden and simply have an ordinary life.

 

 

Nadia Murad is a human rights activist. She is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, the recipient of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize and the Sakharov Prize, and the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. She has also received the Clinton Global Citizen Award, the Peace Prize from the United Nations association of Spain, and was named 2016 Woman of the Year by Glamour Magazine. Together with Yazda, a Yazidi rights organization, Nadia is currently working to bring ISIS before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Nadia Murad listens to speeches at a rally honoring Yazidi victims on the 2nd anniversary of the start of the Yazidi genocide. She is joined on either side by Yazda activists Ahmed Khudida Burjus and Murad Ismael.

 

About The Director, Cinematographer, Editor:

Alexandria Bombach is an award-winning cinematographer, editor, and director from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her first feature-length documentary, FRAME BY FRAME, followed the lives of four Afghan photojournalists who were facing the realities of building Afghanistan’s first free press. The film had its world premiere at SXSW 2015, went on to win more than twenty-five ilm festival awards, and screened for the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. Alexandria continued her work in Afghanistan in 2016, directing the Pulitzer Center-supported New York TimesOp-Doc, AFGHANISTAN BY CHOICE, an intertwining portrait of five Afghans who had to weigh the costs of leaving or staying as the country’s security deteriorated. In addition to her feature documentary work, Alexandria’s production company RedReel has been producing award-winning, character-driven stories since 2009. Her 2013 filmCOMMON GROUND unearthed the emotion behind a proposed wilderness-area addition for a community in Montana as heritage and tradition are seemingly defended on both sides. Her Emmy award-winning 2012 series MOVESHAKE captured the internal conflicts of people dedicating their lives to a cause.

 

CONNECT WITH ALEXANDRIA BOMBACH

Like this video? Please subscribe to our Youtube channel. Or love this video and want more? You can show additional support via our Youtube sponsor tab (hit the JOIN button on the front page of our Youtube channel in the upper right hand corner or underneath any video if watching on Youtube) or through Patreon.


 

Advertisement – contains affiliate links:

 

If you’re not quite ready to let go of the Halloween spirit, new indie feature film Mandao of the Dead is now available on Amazon VOD.

Mandao (Man-Day-Oh) of the Dead is about Jay Mandao and his nephew-in-law Jackson who use astral projection to reverse a ghost’s death on Halloween.

This astral comedy is the second feature film Written and Directed by Scott Dunn and produced by Gina Gomez Dunn. It was filmed in 10 days with a production budget of just $13k. The duo’s first feature film, Schlep won Best Comedy/Dramedy at the Hollywood Boulevard Festival and was nominated in 5 different categories at the FirstGlance Film Festival. Schlep is also available on AmazonMandao of the Dead will be released on iTunes and DVD/Blu-ray in January 2019.


Lights, Camera, Save! is a teen video contest that encourages teens to educate themselves and their peers about the value of saving and using money wisely. Each fall students enter the contest by submitting videos to local participating banks. These banks then choose a local winning video and submit it for judging at the national level. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited.

 


Film Music Mentor – A Youtube channel for filmmakers, television producers, content creators and media professionals of all kinds. Film Music Mentor will help you circumvent problems even the most seasoned professionals face.

Multiple award-winning composer/music producer Andrew Markus breaks down every challenge that motion picture creators face in the process of putting music in their projects. Why it works and why it fails.


Restraint – A mentally ill woman who’s been submerging her violent impulses for years unravels after she marries a controlling older man and relocates to his suburban home by Adam Cushman

 

 

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like

Business of Film

  [Watch the video interview on Youtube here] Film Courage: Shane, by the time you’d finished what the fifth grade you’d already had a hundred...

Authors

[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]   Film Courage: What are the three worst ways to start a story? Steve Douglas-Craig, Owner/Teacher at The...

Authors

The Mentor, Shape Shifter and more.

Screenwriting

Every character thinks they are the center of the story.