2006 TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim is the gutsy filmmaker responsible for Control Room, an astonishing documentary about Al Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq war and the contrasting notions of truth expressed in the US media.
Two weeks before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Jehane Noujaim gained access to both Al Jazeera and the US military's Central Command offices in Qatar. By being in the right place at that very wrong time, she caught the onset and outbreak of the Iraq war on film. The resulting documentary, Control Room, exposed the very divergent ways the Arabs and the West covered the war.
Being raised between Egypt and the US, the exploration of culture is one of Jehane's driving forces. Her reason for making the film: "It's important for everyone, simply as individuals, to try to understand differ
"Through the deceptively simple practice of watching, listening and editing, Jehane Noujaim captures the complexity of reporting, and has a great deal to say about truth, democracy and the ambiguous status of the free press in the modern world."New York Times
“As the world is getting smaller, it becomes more and more important that we learn each other’s dance moves, that we meet each other, we get to know each other, we are able to figure out a way to cross borders, to understand each other, to understand people’s hopes and dreams, what makes them laugh and cry.”
“This station that’s hated by so many people has to be doing something right.”— on Al Jazeera