Gross Behaviour: The Control Room

INSIDE THE CONTROL ROOM
Or ALL THAT JAZEERA

As filmmaker Jehane Noujaim - who co-directed Startup.com with D.A. Pennebaker - recalls it, her first encounter with the Arabic news network Al Jazeera was shortly after it began broadcasting in 1996. The Egyptian-born, Harvard educated Noujaim was back home visiting her family. Her father was hooked on its programs and she viewed it as a logical step in the region as an alternative news source to CNN and the BBC. It didn't seem overtly controversial.

However, in post 9/11 America, anything Arabic took on a sinister color and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield was particularly negative in his depiction of Al Jazeera as a mouthpiece for Muslim extremists. As the American public didn't have easy access to it and few spoke the broadcast language, the U.S. perception was largely molded by the attitudes of the administration.

Noujaim had heard that Al Jazeera was planning an English-language channel (it should debut in 2005) and initially thought its creation would make for a compelling documentary. She began by sending letters to the station based in Doha, Qatar about the film she wanted to make.

"It was just dead silence," says Noujaim on a visit to Los Angeles with Hassan Ibrahim, an Al Jazeera journalist featured in her film Control Room. "After some time passed and it appeared inevitable that America was going to invade Iraq, I thought maybe it would be more relevant to do a film about the war from the Arab perspective. I still had no idea whether I'd be able to get cooperation so I also applied to be credentialed by Central Command which was also based in Qatar."

Noujaim says it was Pennebaker who advised her to get on a plane and knock on Al Jazeera's door. So, she hastily put together a skeleton crew and packed a couple of digital cameras, arriving in Qatar 10 days before the invasion. The initial response from the broadcaster was that considering the imminent conflict, it would be too preoccupied with war coverage to help her out. She was free to do some background filming as long as it didn't interfere with daily activities.

Feeling somewhat defeated she repaired to the network cafeteria to consider what could be salvaged. It was there that she encountered Ibrahim, a mordantly obese Sudanese journalist born in England, raised in Saudi Arabia and a civil engineering grad of Arizona State in Tucson.

"I just let her pour out her frustrations," says Ibrahim. "I thought this is a reputable filmmaker and we should be helping her. Of course it wasn't my decision but I let her know I'd do whatever I could and began by introducing her to people who worked at the station."

Ibrahim emerges in the film as someone with a balanced perspective. He jokingly refers to himself as a "Muslim Jews for Jesus kind of guy" and Noujaim describes him as a true professional with the acumen to mask his deep depression. He also has an unusual perspective on Osama bin Laden, having been a classmate of the controversial leader in Saudi Arabia.

"It was only for a term during high school," says Ibrahim. "I'm not sure what he was doing at our school. He was a rich kid with a chauffeur and he'd have him drop him off three blocks away and walk from there. He was a complete pacifist and not really engaged except in mathematics class and in soccer - he excelled in both. I met him again at University where we were in a class together and by then he had much more confidence. He'd been to Afghanistan and was no longer the sheltered and privileged school boy."

Whatever general sense she had of the film she planned to make were quickly abandoned as American forces were mobilized. Control Room became a chronicle of the battle in Iraq from the eve of invasion through the capture of Baghdad. She and her crew would shoot 200 hours of film over a period of six weeks and try to give it a coherent shape with six long months in an editing suite.

While not precisely the war from an Arab perspective or even a behind-the-scenes view of Al Jazeera, the documentary grapples with many issues in the coverage of the war. However, its soul is largely shaped by the personalities of three people including Ibrahim. The others are Samir Khader, a senior news producer at the Arab network with a decidedly pragmatic attitude and Lt. (now Capt.) Josh Rushing, a Centcom press officer who physically resembles Audie Murphy but philosophically is torn by an appreciation for contradictory perspectives on the invasion.

"I've covered many wars," notes Ibrahim. "Without question Josh Rushing is the most decent military spokesman I have ever encountered. He's the first who would actually engage in a discussion and genuinely appeared interested in someone else's perspective."

Rushing, currently based in Los Angeles as a liaison and Marine Corps technical advisor to the film and television industry, has been officially sanctioned from discussing the film but showed up at a screening of Control Room and was willing to make a few non-controversial comments. Though assigned to the film, he expected to be no more than a sound byte in the finished product. However, one morning he checked his voice mail and received a message that went something like: "you don't know me, but I just saw Control Room and you're awesome."

"I had no idea what he was talking about," says Rushing, a 14-year veteran of the corps. "I wish someone had told me that the film was finished and playing at the Sundance Film Festival. No one likes to be blind-sided, particularly in my line of work."

Noujaim can only say that she was in the editing room right up to the festival and didn't know how to contact Rushing. But it's clear he's having a bit of sport with her oversight and is pleased by his 15 minutes of fame. He's also amused by the fact that he's had to explain to Pentagon officials what programs such as National Public Radio's Fresh Air are following those officers turning down requests for interviews with him.

Control Room was largely financed from advances from European broadcasters and immediately acquired for U.S. distribution following its Sundance premiere. It opened last month at Film Forum in New York and broke the theater's house record and, the following week, broke it again. The response for those involved has been overwhelming in every respect and there's talk of an Oscar campaign that would require international broadcast dates being pushed back. However, Noujaim isn't quite sure she wants to get on the awards treadmill having experienced the disappointment of not being nominated for Startup.com.

"It's just an exhausting process," she notes. "And I'm not sure we can compete with Fahrenheit 9/11. We certainly don't have their promotional budget. I haven't seen the film yet but I feel like I have because the press keep telling me about it. The whole experience is still a little bit too close but I'm hoping my frenzy will die down and I can get some perspective," she says with a laugh.