Al Jazeera Documentary Meets LOOKSfilm
Al Jazeera Documentary Meets LOOKSfilm Gunnar Dedio | Managing Director of LOOKSfilm
I was born and raised in East Germany and in 1989, I watched the Berlin Wall fall from the East. That was when I understood that whatever happens in history, it will have a different interpretation depending on the perspective of the narrator. This proved a decisive moment in my life in all respects: one of them was choosing documentary film producer as my profession and passion. My aim was to help us understand history and the present from all perspectives. In March 2001 I met a great fellow film enthusiast from Al Jazeera in Cannes and was very kindly invited to Qatar. A couple of months later I arrived at the Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha, where I was given a very warm welcome. “We will create a channel dedicated to documentaries, we should cooperate” was the main message. I will never forget the hearty reception and the discussion we had about Afghanistan at that time. I was told that Al Jazeera had an office in Kabul if that might be of interest one day.
Some years later, in 2017, I got a call from Al Jazeera Documentary. Now it was my turn to offer an invitation - and shortly afterwards, two AJD commissioning editors visited our studios in Leipzig. We shared an immediate understanding of documentaries, in part due to us all having studied under the same EURODOC training programme. We had technical and artistic discussions about different documentary styles - and I learned about a project AJD had in mind: ‘Al Shaqab’. The idea behind this project had at its core the essence of what LOOKSfilm stands for: understanding the past in order to build the future. We made our pitch and were full of joy when we won the commission. What followed was a very intense cooperation, alternating between Leipzig and Doha. It was about building bridges between cultures and perspectives. It was about striving for a great film in all regards and connecting Qatar’s past with its present. We took the time necessary to create the film we wanted it to be and were supported around the clock by the AJD team. They made everything possible to ensure we were working to the highest international standards. Finally, it was a great honor be invited to present our film in the cinema of the National Museum in Doha.
Based on the trust we had built with the outstanding ‘Al Shaqab’ production we started the next production together. It was as if it had been planned nearly 20 years ago: a series about Afghanistan. We wanted to make the impossible: to tell the story of 40 years of war from the different perspectives of those involved – rural and urban Afghans, Soviet communists, Western supporters, the Mujaheddin, the Taliban. And we especially wanted to hear the voices of Afghan women. This production, again, was only possible through in-depth discussions and outstanding support from the AJD team. Against all odds we delivered a great series to the world, a coproduction between AJD, LOOKSfilm, NDR, ARTE and Russian Format TV, joined by NRK, DR, TVP, CT, VPRO and Tout l’Histoire. In June 2021 the series ‘Afghanistan – The Wounded Land’ received the GRIMME Preis, the highest German TV award. It is also nominated for the Rocky award and the Rose d’Or.
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