#Thanks for being an artist, Deeyah Khan,
Deeyah Khan
Deeyah Khan is a two-time Emmy Award-winning and twice BAFTA-nominated documentary film director; she is the founder of Fuuse, a media and arts company that puts women, people from minorities, and third-culture kids at the heart of telling their own stories.
In 2016, she became the first UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for artistic freedom and creativity.
Born in Norway to immigrant parents of Pashtun and Punjabi ancestry, Deeyah’s experience of the beauty and the challenges of living between different cultures shapes her artistic vision.
Her 2012 film, Banaz: A Love Story, which earned Deeyah her first Emmy Award, chronicled the life and death of Banaz Mahmod, a young British Kurdish woman murdered by her family in a so-called honour killing.
Her second film, Jihad, was nominated for a BAFTA; it involved two years of interviews and filming with Islamic extremists, convicted terrorists and former jihadis; and White Right: Meeting the Enemy, in which Deeyah travelled to the United States to filmed with neo-Nazis.
One of Fuuse’s recent initiatives, born of Deeyah’s own experiences, is sister-hood, a digital magazine and a series of live events highlighting the voices of women of Muslim heritage
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Deeyah’s documentary work, and the platform she provides to voices that are often overlooked and misunderstood, has led to increasing demand as a speaker at international human rights events and platforms including the United Nations.
She has also received many honours for her work supporting freedom of expression, human rights and peace including the University of Oslo’s Human Rights Award and the Peer Gynt Prize from the Parliament of Norway.
I was mesmerized by Deeyah on the podcast with Russell Brand, the one in which he barely speaks and that alone is a tribute to the Wonderfull and healing power of her words. The power she attributes to the act of listening, the decision to be hopeful in hopeless situations and to love in the middle of hatred.
you can find the podcast here:
I listened to this intervieuw with Deeya Kahn. She spoke about ‘How loving extremists will defeat hate’.
She has made several films and she chooses to go and find her enemy, often people with extreme and hateful opinions and sit with them and speak together.
Since I am very interested in connection, in re-humanizing and looking for nonviolent ways to overcome our differences.
She is doing this in an amazing way.
I have also thought about power a lot.
And then, she, in the interview relates hope to power and also love to power.
