Voices for Peace Epilogue

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Schauleh Sahba
by Schauleh Sahba
09-Nov-2008
 

I am not a writer, an architect or a filmmaker. Nor am I Muslim or Christian, nor Jewish or Buddhist. I’m just someone who wanted to do something I was passionate about. Doing marketing for Siegel & Strain Architects is sometimes fun but at times it can be difficult.

One day while driving to work, I heard NPR cover a speech that the president of Iran was giving. The controversy was about him speaking at Columbia University. Previously, he had said "Jerusalem must vanish," and Iran has no gay people. These statements are just his views but I realized that many Americans had never heard any Iranian voices for peace.

Nearly thirty years ago the United States had friendly relations with Iran. At the time Americans were vacationing in Iran and Iranian students were earning their degrees in American universities around the country.

But back in Iran, people were hurting. They were fed up with the monarchy and craved the democratic ideals that the CIA stifled in 1953 by sponsoring the overthrow of Iran’s Prime Minister, who just happened to be Time Magazine’s man of the year.

In 1979, a group of students held hostage 52 Americans who worked in the embassy in Tehran. The captors held the hostages for over a year, at the end of which they were all released. The event left a negative impression of Iran around the world and deeply wounded the American psyche.

That’s why I wanted to start a project to show that people with Iranian roots are good, and tolerant, and peaceful. The idea was to create a public service video featuring 53 Americans of Iranian descent, describing who we are, what we believe, and why we’re for peace -- all in a minute and a half.

My boyfriend Guillaume bought and loaned me a digital video camera, a tripod, and a microphone. I wrote a script. Then I showed it to him and a few prominent Iranian Americans to find out whether they would like to participate.

Terri Griffin, who was the right hand to an engineer whose family started the X Prize Foundation, was the first to say yes. She convinced one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country to participate in the public service announcement, which led many other people to sign on.

Then I started production. My first attempts were terrible. I had never done it before so Guillaume decided to help me. He showed me how to set up the camera, turn it on, and film. We started with me and the truth is I was really bad at reciting the script. I couldn’t repeat 2 words without having to stop and start filming again. We had to do so many takes. But finally, I got through the whole script.

Then I got behind the camera and started filming others. I asked my friend, who is a very well-connected community leader to participate and he said yes. He and his daughter were one of the first people I filmed. They graciously invited me to their home, received me in the warm Persian tradition and gave one of the most heartfelt renditions of the script. We became friends as a result.

Then he called an internationally renowned author on my behalf to see whether she wanted to participate and she said yes. Thanks to him many more people volunteered, including an actress and a rock star slash architect.

Before filming the next participants, I took a 2-week class in San Francisco’s public access television station on Final Cut Pro. It was short, but I learned a lot about the post-production process. Their incredibly kind staff answered my technical questions, gave me art direction, and tremendous encouragement, without which the project would have never gotten done.

After spending countless hours in the editing room, I felt okay with the piece and posted it on YouTube and blogged about it on Iranian.com, whose founder was kind enough to be a participant and feature it on his website. Thanks to him, and his extremely popular site, many more volunteers jumped on board.

This meant going back to the editing room to cut, render, and burn the video a second time.

The feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive. Emails of praise from around the world flowed into voicesforpeacesf@gmail.com. Yet the founder of IranPoliticsClub.net said that the video was a production of Hezbollah, a political party in Lebanon. I really would like it if he removed that page from his site, since the accusation is completely false.

Aside from that, my friend who is an attorney and participant in the project told CNN about me, and I was asked to do an interview. I declined. I just didn’t have the stomach for more personal attacks.

To date, the third and final version of the video has been viewed 32,000 times on YouTube. I hope you’ll watch if you haven’t already and send it to a friend, neighbor, or colleague. Thank you.

PS - I would like to invite you to a presentation of this content at the Autodesk Design Gallery on One Market Street in San Francisco.

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