By Hipolito Navarrete, Managing Editor/Publisher.
There are many children under duress and attack in this age. For some, 2018 has turned out to be very difficult to keep hope alive, however there are some individuals that are acting to bring a bit of hope to those in the greatest despair. According to the United Nations there are some 2.6 million Syrian-Kurdish children living as refugees or on the run and in search of safety.
In 2017, film producer Meryem Dipdere traveled to the independent Kurdish area in northern Iraq where she worked on the production of a new film directed by Bulent Ozturk. An award-winning Belgian-Kurdish filmmaker, Ozturk has won several international awards for his feature debut Blue Silence and his short film, Houses with Small Windows.
This year, Miss Dipdere returns to the region and to the 6th Duhok International Film Festival with the purpose of creating opportunities for the children at the nearby refugee camps.
Having begun first collaborating as a film mentor with Creating Creators, an education production company, Miss Diphere, now Director of International Outreach, presented the idea of taking the program to refugee children to Creating Creators’ Co-Founders CEO, Jessica Just and Chief Creative Officer, Polo Munoz.
“We need to bring or create opportunities for those children that need it. It is important that these children feel our compassion through actions,’ according to Miss Just.
“The goal is not to execute a onetime event but to develop a sustainable project that is also scalable and guided by the needs of the children and the support of the regions’ organizations and individuals,” stated Mr. Munoz.
In conversations with the organizers of the Duhok International Film Festival and with Mitos Film, Miss Dipdere, a dutch international producer, now residing in the US, wants to tap into the compassion of Hollywood. She intends to extend a line of hope through this sustained program that would help these refugee children tell their stories from their own perspective and through their own voice.
These children feel abandoned and are trapped in an environment where many people feel that because they may have “enough” food and shelter then they are fine.
“They have lost everything; family, friends, home and are forced to live in camps in foreign countries, surrounded with languages they don’t speak, people they don’t know. With no future perspective in change of there situation and unable to pursue their education. These children are so young and traumatized. Instead of making films about them, I want them to tell their stories. I want them to know that we didn’t forget them and that they are not alone,” shared Miss Dipdere.
This project of Creating Creators Abroad program is in its investigative phase to set a strong foundation and is looking for partners to launch next year. The program, Creating Creators Abroad, is designed to support the development of projects that use Creating Creator’s articulated and vetted curriculum outside of the United States.
Creating Creators is an education company based in Los Angeles whose mission is To support and align the lessons in the classroom, with the entrepreneurial, creative, and collaborative rigor of film production and 21st century skills of working professionals.
The Dohuk International Film Festival 2018 runs from Oct 20 to October 27th, http://duhokiff.com/
