An Iraqi production company is distributing video diaries on the Internet by three young men in Baghdad. They chronicle their daily lives, fears, frustration, anger and just normal day-to-day existence in a broken city.
The project, called Hometown Baghdad, is made up of dozens of short video clips. Highly edited, highly produced, the series follows the stories of three Iraqi men in their 20s — Safe, Osama, and Adel. They won't give their last names for fear of being targeted. Just last week a beloved radio talk show host was shot outside her home.
The videos were shot over a few months last summer and show them eating meals with friends, watching soccer games on TV, cooking with their mothers, and even dating in a war zone.
Adel, the only one of the three men who hasn't left Iraq, won't say what neighborhood he lives in. He's afraid it might identify him. But when asked why he risked his life to make these videos, and the continuing risk of having them shown, he says he just wanted to do something.
"Every day when I go to school, to college, I see dead bodies on the street and ... destroyed houses and burnt cars and things like that," Adel says. "And I never knew what to do to try to help the situation. Through this, I felt that maybe I can share everything that's happening with people around the world, and maybe knowing the truth would help."
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