Download the press kit for The Dreams of Sparrows here
Download the press release for the Soros Grant here
The goal of the Iraq Eye project is media self-empowerment, by initiating the re-establishment of the infrastructure of the film industry in Iraq, both in terms of talent and financial capital. The impetus is the fact that Iraq's independent media has been decimated by the ideological tyranny of the Saddam regime and the harsh economic restrictions of UN sanctions.
The media collective was founded in December of 2003 by Iraqi filmmaker Hayder Daffar and American producer Aaron Raskin. Daffar had matriculated from Baghdad University and went on to a graduate program of film at the Baghdad School of Fine Arts. Due to a lack of resources, he did not have access to a video camera during school, let alone film equipment. As such, Daffar honed his eye by using a 35 mm still camera that was donated to him by a German diplomat. After the fall of Baghdad, Daffar, then working as a cashier in the Palestine Hotel, offered his services as a translator and fixer for free to journalists and diplomats, so long as they promised to tell any American producers they might know that Daffar was "The Iraqi filmmaker with No Camera" Within a few months, Daffar came in contact with Aaron Raskin of Harbinger Media Inc, and the two rapidly began to assemble the Iraq Eye Group.