Before I start, I would like to..
display a 3-minute video segment
titled "The Yemeni Identity"
and is part of a larger project called "Identity"
I hope you'll like it..
I will give a commentary afterwards
I hope such humble work has earned your satisfaction
First of all, I have to pay tribute to two persons...
Omar Bazaraa; a brother and a friend
who's been with us, my brother (Amin) and I, throughout the way
And my brother (Amin) who's always been nothing but supportive
and is my partner at the same time
I also thank the music composer who allowed me to use his music
and Ahmed AlShaibah, my friend, who played the oud
You have seen the film which doesn't represent the Yemeni identity as a whole
But, the project is still in the pipeline
we're planning to work on it for two years
I will now touch on how the idea came up
initially, I was working on a 45-minute film about Yemen
there wasn't a specific theme for it, just a primilinary script prone to changes
and could be altered at any point
3 months into the project, I checked Youtube...
for videos about Yemen, and entered it in the search bar
and to my shock, there were plenty of videos misrepresenting Yemen
negative news reporting about bombings..
documentaries on poverty, hunger... all sorts and shapes
even video games, you don't say, one famous video game stage Old Sanaa as a battlefield
wars and killing...etc.
I felt wronged and was provoked to act..
And decided to change the image..
true, there are problems in Yemen and crises no question here
Yet, there are beautiful things that never make it to the headlines
my brother and I discussed the project
and wanted to merge the videos and photos under a bigger project beyond 45 minutes
After extensive research, we decided to name the project "The Yemeni Identity"
and wanted to document every thing related to Yemen
in terms of the culture, architecture, life styles, customes, food...etc
simple things that anyone could be interested in
so, we wanted the project to "brand" Yemen to the world
as a designer, working on corporate branding myself
I decided to consider Yemen a "company" and work on branding it
give it a logo and a full-fledged PR plan on how it shall appear before the people
involving photos, videos, maps, information..
a huge project bound for two years
by accident, I brought up the subject to my father ..
who is one of the pioneer photographers in Yemen
I was surprised that my father has been already working on this..
but at a smaller scale
given the available materials and time, my father was working on the documentation of..
customes and food for instance through pictures
so, we decided to finish what he started..
by creating an organization concerned with the Yemeni identity
and support it with films, and the significant photo archive..
collected by my father, brother and myself
to portray the beautiful face of Yemen
we agree that there are problems in Yemen..
but there are other magnificent things..
we want to balance the slew of videos stereotyping Yemen online..
by producing something positive to counter the loads of negative reporting
I would like to share an idea with you
when I was filming those 3 minutes..
very short 3 minutes that took up 4-6 months in filming
the time lapse in the video has led me to focus on tiny things..
things I used to miss, despite being a photographer
I'd never paid attention to the beautiful sky we enjoy the beautiful weather..
the amazing traffic
little things, like people's smiles..
trivial details about the normal people
who have nothing to do with politics..and all the problems in the country
If you go out to the streets, they are the ones you'll find
you'll find the beautiful weather..
we don't pay attention to these things..
one of the things that surprised me was that I can see the "milky road" by driving few kilometers outside Sanaa
by naked eye without cameras or anything..
This scene, in a nutshell, shows how we're missing on so much
we want to give people another perspective of their own country, that's all
this was my project, thank you
So, if you start your day with coffee, as a previous speaker said;
I like to start my day by admiring the sky..
the beautiful weather
and how Yemen itself is beautiful