The Filmmaker’s Predicament: On Isis, Media, And The Kurdish Genocide A Practice-Based Thesis

The Iraqi story is progressively dominating the headlines as a tale of power and violence, however there is not much about the traumatic experiences of the daily lives of the people on the ground. Kaldor’s contention that ‘unimaginable’ levels of violence in new warfare are directed towards civilians moves from a theoretical abstraction to actualised images through the prism of documentary filmmaking.1 The first aim of this thesis was to witness the suffering and brutalities unfolding, the second aim was to raise awareness about the issues among global audiences, and the third and final aim was to make sense of how the past impacts the future. As someone who survived Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s, I was personally motivated by my own suffering and trying to make sense of it through the lens of contemporary events. This process results in the documentaries: SLAVES OF THE CALIPHATE, LIFE ON THE RUBBISH TIP, AND POLICEMAN OF KIRKUK, all of which were broadcasted globally by the British Broadcast Corporation.