Kevin McKiernan
November 13, 2013How was his presentation? Did he do a lot of talking with the audience? What did you think of him? Did you learn more about how he made this documentary? What else in his talk was interesting to you?
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Kevin’s presentation was very professional, yet laid back and wasn’t afraid to throw in a little joke here and there. He was most definitely a well informed man who knew exactly what he was talking about. He was open for questions and didn’t seem to try to dodge answers. Kevin talked on and elaborated on his story of when Turkish police tried to confiscate his material. This I thought was an amazing story, and makes one realize how dangerous of a situation he was in as well as the danger of other’s lives he was risking.
I actualyl found out that rather than setting out on a mission to make this documentary, he was actually a photo journalist, and over the course of about nine years he just had so much accumulated materials that he decided to put together the documentary which I think is pretty neat.
I felt that the interview was far better than the overall film. I feel as if the filmmaker had learned a lot since the film was released as a whole, and seemed to make the details of the interview a lot less about himself, if not at all. It made the whole thing seem a lot more pleasant. Of course, a lot of the answers seemed a little tangent-y but, it was nice to know that the people involved in these issues have been resolved. I feel that the interview did help the “dated” aspect of the film that I mentioned in my discussion of the film get resolved. These updates would make a good contribution to continue to exploration of these issues. I think if I ever get the chance I’ll look at how these issues resolved in the coming years…
I thought Kevin McKieran did a good job at explaining his film and answering questions. He said he made the film for Americans, he knew that most Americans did not know much, if anything, about the Kurdish people. Since there is a lot of history within the Kurdish community, he did more of a general summary which is why he did not go into more detail about he Iraqi Kurds. He said when he shows this film to Kurdish people, they often ask why he spent so little time talking about the Iraqi Kurds. His answer is that he just wanted to bring up the topic and give an overview, not necessarily give a complete history. He also explained that he wanted to explore if there are such things as good victims and bad victims. Mckieran gave some more information about the filmmaking as well. He commented that funding was something that was a challenge to deal with. He also said that the hardest part about making the film was getting access to the government representatives his talked to in the film. He said that talking to political people is not as easy as people think. Overall, I thought his talk was interesting and I’m glad I stayed. The film might be a little dated but it is till full of information that we can learn from
I personally think his presentation was great. I was so so surprise that he look exactly the same as he did in the film. He didn’t age a bit, he talk alot by starting off telling us what happen to the family, thatwas in the film. We all realize that the family had a bad strock of badluck, most of the family is dead do to freak accident or murder. Which make me very said because the mom ended up going back toher country because of the tragedy in the family.
we learn that there is a student who is a kurd in the aduience and learning history help us understand more of why the kurd are fighting
I wanted to ask him if he was marry, because I would never in my wholelife let my husband go off to a war country. but i was too coward to ask him that.
I really enjoyed the fact that Kevin was so real. He wasn’t trying to make himself look good or putting himself on a pedestal. He answered a lot of questions without skirting around his responses. He was very straightforward and honest. He admitted to being absolutely terrified when the Turkish government came into his hotel to confiscate materials. He was so cheerful, too. I can’t imagine the memories that he has from everything he witnessed there…