Usually, when I introduce myself as Katia the question that immediately follows is: Katia what?
Katia Saleh.
Saleh, from where?
Uh…from Kfarshouba.
Oh Kfarshouba…what is your father’s name?
Najib.
Your mother’s?
Salma.
Do you have other siblings?
I tend to confuse them to the max before I reveal that I was born in Haret Hreik.
In 1999, I got tired of those questions and decided to leave the country,
and I moved to London to live and study as well.
In London the question turned to: “What do you do in life?”
At the time, I used to work as an usher, handing out tickets at the cinema while studying
So I wasn't very impressive to the English.
But after 9/11, I was a Shiite Muslim usher, so I became very exotic.
In 2003, a stroke of insight hit me and Saddam Hussein,
there was a high demand for Arab producers working in TV stations, who dared to travel to Iraq,
and who accepted a lower income than the English.
So I started working in Iraq
though I have to confess that the movies I used to produce
were a bit on the lines of Iraq for Dummies and Lebanon for Dummies,
those documentaries that end with: “From the heart of Beirut, Andrew Hilton, BBC.”
I used to work on that type of documentaries,
And most of these documentaries depict such images as
a hand overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s statue,
and the image of an old man beating Saddam’s picture with his slipper.
These types of films, are you familiar with them?
Most of these producers knew very little about our region.
Once we were entering Iraq through the “Em Qasr" road,
we were in a white Jeep and looked like foreigners
so we were being followed by little kids asking us to leave.
They did not want us there.
When we were editing the shots, the producer asked me: What are they saying?
I told him they were hollering and throwing stones at us to leave.
He then told me “can’t we make it look like they were asking for water or food?”
They really knew very little about us.
There’s one more story.
I have a Palestinian friend also living in London who was once asked by a guy,
“Where do you come from?” She answered: “ I'm from Palestine, do you know Palestine?”
He replied: “Palestine? Where is Palestine?"
She answered him: “It’s on the borders with Jordan? Lebanon? Syria? Arafat? Nothing."
"Jerusalem?" He also did not know Jerusalem.
So she had to tell him Israel, but he also did not know where Israel was.
At the end she said: “Look, do you know Jesus Christ? He answered: “Yes!”
“Well then," she told him, "he is my neighbor!”
After 3 to 4 years of working with foreigners, I truly had enough.
I felt the need to make my own movies, movies I liked, that talked about the stories of individual people.
It wasn't necessary that everytime we wanted to talk about our countries, it had to be about war and politics.
I felt like working more on personal stories
so I decided to make a movie about Ashoura.
As you all know, Ashoura entails images depicting blood
and young men who practice self-wounding in commemoration of Hussein.
Personally, Ashoura reminds me of my first love story.
Ever since I turned 13 years old I started frequently going to my mother’s village “Al Nabatiyeh”
and participate in this commemoration to see my boyfriend at the time.
My boyfriend used to self inflict wounds with the sword while we used to watch in awe.
Then at the end he would stand next to me and my hand would accidentally touch his.
This is how I perceived Ashoura for most of my life.
I admit that I never knew anything about Haidar.
Because when they used to self inflict wounds with the sword they would shout 'Haidar, Haidar!'
Haidar is the title of Imam Hussein, by the way.
So I made a documentary about this subject
and followed my cousin who also used to go there to see her boyfriend
following her mother's advice: “dress up and look pretty and don't you dare come back without a groom!”
So she used to spend around 3 to 4 hours doing her hair and make up and getting a manicure & pedicure at the parlor
but she would dress in black.
So I filmed her and made a really nice movie that turned out to be a hit and earned many awards.
But unfortunately I was never able to screen it on Arab TV,
although I originally made it for Al Jazeera.
But because of the sensitive nature of the subject, I started receiving threats on youtube
“ *swears*…that we will do this and that if you don’t remove it”
So I said “Ok I will stop talking like this about Hussein.”
However, this nice movie brought me one of the best and biggest projects of my career:
“Shankaboot”
“Shankaboot” started as a web series - only on the web
and talked about bold issues
that cannot be displayed presently on television
in the way we usually like to talk about them.
And we worked with actors who are not necessarily famous,
When I first started talking about doing Shankaboot,
people started telling me “are you out of your mind?
Do you really want to do a series on the Internet in a country like Lebanon?
And you also want to handle sensitive issues:
violence against women, foreign workers, drugs, corruption and plastic surgeries?
All this has a negative impact on Lebanon’s reputation!
Are you out of your mind?
Then I started thinking: why are we always stuck with this mind-set?
Let’s not participate in this demonstration, we will never achieve something.
And it’s ok if we throw a piece of paper on the street,
look at the piles of trash.
Why do we always have this mind-set?
I was once accompanying my mother in the car in 1982
following the (Israeli) invasion
and we were stopped by an Israeli checkpoint
the soldier asked for my mother’s papers, 'give me your papers.'
she told him, “I have to give my papers to you? What for? Why don’t you give me your papers?
He burst into laughter and allowed her to pass.
Ever since this incident, I started believing that when you tell the truth you’re able to achieve something.
And on that basis we decided to go ahead with Shankaboot.
and so we worked on it and talked about the concierge of my building,
who listens to birds whistling sounds on his stereo in order to be able to hunt.
And about my neighbor whom I would hear every day
beating her housemaid and calling her “an animal”
while forbidding her from having a day off.
And about the woman who went to the police station to file a complaint against her husband
and was told: “You’re complaining about your husband for beating you?
He should beat you again for doing this!”
We have talked about all these issues and dared to expose them
and earned ourselves an Emmy on top of that.
So enough already. Really.
Enough with the talk about the Cedar Tree, the jar,
the Lebanese cuisine and the nice weather.
I now believe that just as my mother was able to pass the checkpoint
and relay her message
and just as we were also able to pass on and make a hit out of Shankaboot,
we should stop constantly blinding ourselves against wrongfulness.
It would be great if every person begins by changing just one thing,
a tiny thing that is bothering him.
Katia Saleh.