Film by alumnus included in Canadian Museum for Human Rights
A video filmed by a Canadian Mennonite University alumnus is featured in the new Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg.
Brad Leitch (formerly Langendoen) created the video, titled “Aras Abid Akram: A Profile of Courage,” as part of his course work while studying Peace and Conflict Transformation Studies (PACTS) at CMU. He filmed it during a six-week internship with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in Iraq in 2010.
%2005.JPG)
Brad Leitch films in Iraq during a CPT internship in 2010.
A portion of Leitch’s film is included in “Breaking the Silence,” a permanent exhibition in the CMHR that explores the role of secrecy and denial in many atrocities around the world.
Leitch’s film shows a man named Aras Abid Akram telling the story of his family during the 1988 Halabja genocide.
On March 14, 1988, Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athist regime began bombing the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja as part of the Iran–Iraq War.
Two days later, on March 16, the regime continued the bombing with various chemical weapons. More than 5,000 people, including Akram’s entire family, were killed that day.
Ralph Appelbaum Associates, a museum exhibition design firm based in New York, approached Leitch for permission to use the video in the CMHR after seeing it on YouTube.
Since Akram has made it his life’s work to tell people about the Halabja genocide, Leitch knew it was important to say yes.
“I was thrilled and excited that his story would be elevated and seen by people,” says Leitch, 28.
Although Leitch filmed his interview with Akram in 2010, it wasn’t until a year later that he edited the video.
Leitch was taking a course at CMU taught by Lois Edmund called Traumatic Conflict, exploring difficult traumas around the world and the people who have experienced them.
As his final project for the course, Leitch created the film and wrote an essay about it.
%2002.jpg)
Leitch stands with (from left) Halabja survivor Aras Abid
Akram and CPTers Peggy Gish, Zach Selekman, and
Mohamed Salah.
“It was difficult to watch,” Leitch says of the footage, adding that the course provided some of the motivation to edit the piece. “I can allow this course to help me process [my experience],” he thought.
Leitch’s interest in theatre and film was sparked as he was growing up in Fenwick, ON, a community located 30 km. west of Niagara Falls.
After graduating from high school, Leitch studied filmmaking for two years at the Center for Creative Media, a Christian film school in Texas.
Leitch, who comes from a Christian Reformed background, was appalled by the support for the war in Iraq that he witnessed being preached from the pulpits in some of the churches he went to in Texas.
During this time, while reading the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., he developed an interest in peacemaking.
This interest led Leitch to CPT, and he was part of a two-week delegation to Palestine in 2008.
After returning home to Fenwick, he began discerning what to do next. He wanted to study peace at a Christian post-secondary institution, and when he entered the phrases “peace studies” and “Bachelor of Arts” into Google, CMU was one of the results.
Leitch says he thoroughly enjoyed his time at CMU. He was pleasantly surprised to find the learning process was more creative than he imagined it would be.
“It wasn’t just lectures and [taking] notes,” Leitch says. “Literally, [PACTS professor] Jarem Sawatsky would make us put our desks in a circle and we would work out our ideas of what peace and conflict transformation looks like through dialogue with each other.”
Leitch graduated in 2014. He recently married Adrienne Leitch (OT ’08, CMU 2008-10), and the couple live in Winnipeg.
%2003.png)
Akram in a scene from Leitch's video.
Brad works full-time with his own video production company, Rebel Sky Media.
He has worked on videos for a variety of non-profit organizations, including a 20-minute documentary about indigenous relations, titled Broken Covenant, for Mennonite Church Canada; and From Rooming Houses to Rooming Homes, a documentary produced by the Manitoba office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that explores Winnipeg’s affordable housing crisis.
“I firmly believe there’s so much overlap between peacebuilding and filmmaking,” Leitch says, adding that both require flexibility, adaptability, and careful listening.
He likens the process of interviewing someone to a counselling session.
“It’s an opportunity for somebody to step back and think about their story... in a way that’s therapeutic for them,” he says.
Leitch adds that like peacebuilding, the filmmaking he does is relational.
%2004.jpg)
Leitch stands in the CMHR earlier this year.
Interviewing people at the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada’s closing events in Ottawa earlier this month reminded him of this.
“There’s constant opportunities to, even when you have a camera between you and the person, really be present... and to honour that story,” Leitch says. “Hopefully, they feel honoured by the end product, too.”
Leitch is glad his video about the Halabja genocide is in the CMHR, because it means more people will hear Akram’s story.
“The story is so important, and Aras’ voice of resilience is quite profound,” Leitch says. “He’s quite an amazing person.”
Printed from: www.cmu.ca/community/blog/134
