29 March 2007

BEIRUT: Shooting had begun. The teenagers were ready. Suddenly, a blaring horn from a car on Bliss Street makes everyone jump. The director takes the headphone off in a hurry and rubs his ears. "Do you have any idea what that sounded like?" he declared. Everyone erupts into laughter.

That was take four. "Take five," yelled a student. And the shooting began again - except this time an old man shuffled right into the scene.

Finally, the scene was shot and the kids moved on to another location on Hamra Street. They have only one day -Sunday - to shoot their much-worked-on documentary. The International College students, 22 in all, are out to show the life of a typical teenager in Lebanon. Once edited, the film will be shared with 16 schools in the Mediterranean region.

The documentary is part of the "16-school project" (16S project), created by A Step Away, a Lebanese NGO that aims to promote cultural exchanges. Funded by the European Union, the project brings together secondary school students from 16 schools in Mediterranean countries including Italy, Morocco, Egypt, Slovenia, Cyprus, Croatia, Spain, Turkey, Macedonia, Jordan and Portugal.

The International College in Beirut is among the participating schools.

The film is part of the homework. It was the task of the students to brainstorm, write, act and film the entire 10-minute documentary. The only outsider was a university film graduate acting as director.

"It took a lot of soul-searching to find out how they should do this film," explained Rhonna Jessome, the secondary English teacher at International College who is running the 16S project in her class. "They had to look inside themselves and reflect what it is to be Lebanese and what reflects their cultural norms. They had to look at class, gender, race, ethnicity and the diversity in the country."

This post-civil war generation had to deal with major issues: should they film mosques? churches? Hamra? Ashrafieh? Should they include traditional heritage with their modern lives?

"It's very important that we show that the Lebanese are not always at war," said Maria Saadeh, 15.

During her Internet chats with one of the 16 schools, Maria was continuously asked the same questions: can you travel, can you go out at night, and are you scared to live in Beirut?

"I kept replying that we're normal people like everyone else and we have the same interests," she said.

The film is the culmination of many exchanges among students in the 16S project.

For the past five months, students from the schools have been writing essays back and forth about a predetermined theme - chosen and approved by students on both sides. IC students were first paired off with a school in Croatia. This brought on much soul searching from both sides.

"Students in Croatia wanted to talk about wars," said Jessome. "At first, our students resisted. They just didn't want to talk about it. But they soon gave way. As it turned out, writing about the [summer 2006] war was a part of the healing process for them."

Next, they were paired off with Portugal and Egypt. Students themselves had to decide on the topic of discussion. "I've tried to step back and not make the decisions," said Jessome. "I wanted the ideas to come from them. I worked through their ideas to help them focus and organize their thoughts."

At the end of each session, students would chat for 45 minutes with the school they were paired with.

Since encouraging the exchange of arts is part of the project, a virtual "breathing" space is created for each student on the Internet where they are free to put any artwork they have made.

The completed film will be distributed to all schools involved. In turn, they will get copies of the other student-made films and finally get to see and fully understand their Internet peers.

"They worked really hard," said Jessome. "This is all outside their curriculum. They were working and preparing outside of school. I'm very proud of them."

The students may rest for a day or two. But another 16S project is on its way: to sew together individual patches of a quilt creating an image of the sea in only 24 hours.

"I have seen the kids grow from within," said Jessome. "To understand others they had to look at themselves first. They had to learn to recognize stereotypes and differences. It's been an amazing experience."