Camera Obscura

Documentary Brings Forbidden Images to American Viewers

By Judith Gabriel

Egyptian-American documentary producer Jehane Noujaim, whose documentary "Control Room" broke box office records in its first week of screenings at the prestigious New York Film Forum in June, was fascinated by the contradiction between the popularity of Al Jazeera with the Arab public and how it was denounced by many governments, both Arab and the U.S. She was also curious about the people at Al Jazeera, the journalists who were "taking basically hell from the entire world."

"Over the course of the last year, the station was roundly criticized by the U.S. government, yet I would go home to Egypt and my father would be watching," she told Al Ahram weekly, commenting on her interest in Al Jazeera. "The contradiction between its popularity with the Arab public and how hated it was by many Arab governments was fascinating. "

The 29-year-old filmmaker took aim at how the War on Iraq was depicted on Al Jazeera. As the missiles struck Baghdad on March 19, 2003, and the Western media was being "parachuted" into Baghdad to get a ringside seat for the action, Noujaim took a unique vantage point, watching events unfold from inside Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

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