Demo

We have about ten hours of footage from Liam's shoot in October. The images are incredibly beautiful and it looks just like film. So far so good with the Canon 5D MkII! The Zoom H4N field recorder worked well too. Liam's shots of pigeons landing on the roof with the sun setting behind them, their ankle bells tinkling, takes your breath away.

The stark realities of day-to-day life are also much clearer. Little has changed for the 200,000 Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon and they continue to be abandoned by the State, and the International community.

An older woman remembers being exiled from Palestine in 1948:

"We were told to leave the place only for seven days and come back. For eight months we waited and nothing happened. We did not even take any clothes. Seven days, seven months, seven years and 70 years and we never went back. We were cheated and they say that we escaped. Haifa can not be left. No other city is like it. What is Beirut, Lebanon or whatever. Now this camp is exactly in the middle, 80 km from Beirut and 80 km from Haifa."

The connection between carrier pigeons and Palestinian refugees is explained in this way by Deeb Zebid, whose flock is so familiar the he knows each bird by name:

"There is only one tie between pigeons and Palestinians; that is the loyalty to the land. The return to the land because it is one’s right."

Over in Vancouver, Paul is working away on animating the bird's journey, and on how to visually expand the film's themes of imagination, isolation, escape, and memory.

We're getting ready to make a demo over the next month. It's a mini-test run: what's the look and the feel of this documentary? How can we convey the story this film will tell, in five minutes?

Throughout this process, our team is very inspired by this song by Fairouz called Ya Tayr (Oh Bird). A good soundtrack to this exciting push into January.

Fairouz - Oh Bird

Oh bird
Oh bird atop of the world
Could you tell my beloved what I'm dealing with?
Oh bird

Go ask them about me to the one who's companion is not with him
He's scarred with the injuries of love
He's there not telling me what pains him
While thoughts of childhood recur in his mind

Oh bird who takes with him the color of the trees
There is no longer anything but waiting and boredom
I wait in the sun's eye on the coldness of stone
The hand of separation guides me
I beg your feathers which equal my days
And the thorny rose and the grains of air
If you're going to them and the paradise of love
Take me if just for a minute and bring me back


Sarah