"A Letter to the Prime Minister: Jo Wilding’s Diary from Iraq"

Jo Wilding? Let’s start near the end.

"In the morning I make balloon dogs, giraffes and elephants for the little one, Abdullah, Aboudi, who’s clearly distressed by the noise of the aircraft and explosions. I blow bubbles which he follows with his eyes. Finally, finally, I score a smile." [1]

A Letter to the Prime Minister: Jo Wilding’s Diary from Iraq, documents Wilding’s journey of witness: from the quiet brutality of the sanctions afflicting ordinary Iraqis to the siege of Fallujah, which she shared with Fallujans in April, 2004.

"All the suffering that I had seen meant throwing a rotten tangerine at Tony Blair was something I just had to do."

Iraq Under Sanctions (© Copyright 2005 Year Zero Films)

When she visited Iraq in 2001 to observe the effects of economic sanctions on ordinary Iraqis, it catalyzed Jo’s future efforts to resist economic and military warfare against Iraq.

On her first return from Iraq, she imported dates - breaking the rules of the economic sanctions laid out by the UK government. In court, she aimed to prove that the sanctions were against the British constitution.

Shock and Resistance

Working completely independently throughout the film, director Julia Guest and Wilding traverse the UK and then Iraq. The film depicts Iraq prior to and then during the invasion that was half-aptly named "Shock and Awe.” After, as the occupation wore on, and the resistance grew "...making a disaster expand to fill all available space," [2] the film continued to report the lose and struggle of Iraqis.

Guest’s and Wilding’s views depart from those of the mainstream press: The film doesn’t portray a "surprising level of Iraqi resistance". Wilding doesn’t act very surprised on camera as it becomes apparent that the resistance was intensifying. She knew what was happening and what was about to accelerate. The film shares scene after scene of Iraqis suffering through warfare and occupation, which makes the reasons for the resistance all too obvious.

"If you are doves of peace, then fly off. Take this message to the world"

Iraq Under "Shock and Awe" (© Copyright 2005 Year Zero Films)

The interviews with Iraqis are candid and insightful. Guest’s camera work is empathic as she weaves amongst crowds of rightfully distraught Iraqi families to record their stories and their anguish. While inside Iraqi homes the warmth and familiar hospitality of the Iraqi people shines through onto the screen, the smiles persist amidst the ever increasing tensions and threats to personal security. In a hospital an Iraqi mother whose entire family was killed or maimed by bombing during the U.S. war plan Shock asks, "I just want one convincing reason. Why? If you are doves of peace, then fly off. Take this message to the world."

Boomchucka

Iraq Under "Boomchucka" (© Copyright 2005 Year Zero Films)

Being an international activist and studying to become a barrister is only the beginning. Wilding returned to Iraq a few months later with a circus. Yes, Wilding is also a clown, and a clown on stilts to top that.

"The war had left so many children traumatized. It was this that gave me the idea of bringing the ’Circus 2 Iraq’ "

So that’s what happened. Wilding and a troupe of clowns zoomed all over Iraq bringing circus antics and returning smiles to the faces of children, some of whom hadn’t smiled in quite a long time. During circus performances the children not only smile but yell and rejoice in chorus after chorus of Wo-oh and Boomchucka, a language older than words. Boomchucka breaks the language barrier. If I would reduce the word Boomchucka [3] to a definition its utterance says to those that bomb, detain, torture, and occupy Iraqis, as long as you pollute with violence and fear the children of Iraq will fertilize with noise and color. Louder than bombs.

Fallujah: You can’t bomb a resistance out of existence, but you can bomb one into it

Iraq Under Occupation (© Copyright 2005 Year Zero Films)

"A year after the war, where is the truth? Bulldozed and arranged for the camera, dead and buried under the rubble." [4]

It was in Fallujah, where Wilding helped retrieve the wounded and dead from bomb-ravaged streets and sniper-watched homes, that she wrote, "Finally, finally, I score a smile." This was the morning of April 11th, 2004, a day after Jo Wilding first went to Fallujah because "if I don’t do it, who will?" Inside Fallujah, Wilding does everything she can to help the most vulnerable people of the city.

This may not be an easygoing "feel-good" film, but it does impress the idea that smiling and spreading smiles is essential to Wilding and her powerful work as an activist. Between being shot at by US snipers, and working in makeshift hospitals she still makes balloon giraffes to entertain frightened children.

No "Hotel Journalism" here

This film isn’t another slick makeover of the fancy camera work of whole teams of mainstream "hotel journalists." It is a film that presents the viewer with a unfettered look into the lives of Iraqis while capturing Jo Wilding’s witness of the rending of families, the misery of the wounded, and the triumphant boomchucka blasts of the children.

A Letter to the Prime Minister is a complete antithesis to a culture of death and war. It is a film that is filled with the vibrancy of youth and the desire to preserve it.