By JIEUN HONG
Reporter
(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — The final film in the digital media production’s three-part series on war journalism follows the lives of journalists in war-torn Afghanistan.
“Frame by Frame,” a film about photojournalists in Afghanistan during the American occupation after the rise of the Taliban, will be screened at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March. 29, in the Elliott Student Union 229.
The film series: “Feeling War: Experiencing International Reality,” highlights international war and crisis from the perspective of photojournalists and videographers.
“We are talking about a way to get some conversation started about journalism and… what journalism is really like,” said Carol Atkinson, professor of communication. “And so, I sort of came up with this idea to have a semester where we had some films about war photographers, war videographers, for the students to watch, and we can talk about journalism.”
Atkinson said she organized the event with Hannah Bray, a graduate student in mass communication, and Marcela Gonzalez, a graduate student in the theater department.
Bray said one of the goals is to make the audience have an emotional connection to international war and crisis by seeing it through the eyes of someone who is actually there, rather than watching a two-minute clip about it on the evening news. With that goal in mind, they selected “Frame by Frame” and the two other films, “Reportero” and “War Photographer,” for the film series.
“(War is) something that is often skewed, depending on which side you’re on, of course,” Bray said. “Everyone always has an enemy, but you don’t always see who this affects and civilians who were there, like what’s actually going on.”
The film screening is free and open to the public. Bray said the film series is both educational and entertaining.
“It gives a whole new perspective to war and tragedy in other countries,” Bray said. “It’s not filtered through a news source, so you are seeing it through the eyes of someone who is experiencing it.”
Atkinson said the film brings viewers to a country that Americans particularly have built up stereotypes about.
“This film, I think, really helps open up our eyes to what journalists in Afghanistan and people in Afghanistan are living like,” she said.
Bray said anyone who watches this film might be impressed with four Afghani journalists’ vocation.
“’Frame by Frame’ follows four Afghani journalists, and so they were working in a place where freedom of speech, freedom of press, was outlawed,” she said. “And there are women who were in this kind of profession, which is frowned upon, so they were working in a very dangerous area. They are still trying to publish the truth.”
Atkinson said people have to pay attention to the rest of the world.
“We are so free, you are so free, and it’s important to think about the rest of the world,” she said. “And we, as Americans, and certainly other NATO countries, have a lot of influence in what goes on around the world.”
