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There's this little piece of land less than a square mile
everyone seems to want a piece of. Jerusalem
the old city at least is seen as holy to Jews Christians and Muslims
that's nearly half the world's population around three million people
visit Jerusalem every year
but if you haven't been or if you have and you'd like to go again
I have some good news for you a group of filmmakers spent five years making a
movie about Jerusalem
it's shot in 3-D for IMAX with aerial footage
and rare access to holy sites and festivals all to make you feel
right there Taran Davies is one of the producers of the film called
Jerusalem and he joins me in the studio Taran welcome to the program
Thank you very much. This is the most fought
over piece of land in history but your film doesn't talk about the conflict
at all why not? It's such an important question
the whole approach
in the making of this film was to come at the subject of Jerusalem
from a completely fresh perspective I've grown up
in a world whenever I think about this
ancient city I think about it in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
what we wanted to do was to actually
get behind that to understand
what is the attachment to this city
why do people care about it so much, why da
why did Jews Christians and Muslims
feel so strongly about this
ancient sacred city and that's what we wanted to get after
and in a sense you can look at Jerusalem from this perspective
um as a celebration this is a city that over half of the peop, half of the people
on the planet are in love with
in one way or another and that's what we wanted to go after how
how is it so beloved. So
you were the one that thought of making this film about Jerusalem
why why did that come into your head why did you say
oh lets do Jerusalem
For me this has been a journey I suppose that I have been
on um for my life of travel
and adventure and filmmaking so
the films that I've made um have taken me from places like
uh Siberia, the Caucasus
central Asia, Mecca and
if at one point in my life all the roads lead to Mecca for me
once at Mecca where I made an IMAX film
they then moved on to Jerusalem where else could we go
but Jerusalem. It was the next logical film.
in your progression, It was the next logical step and for me what was so important is to be
able to explore this extraordinary city that is home to
Jews Christians and Muslims and have the opportunity to
to un, to come to understand the other rather that's
what my journey has always been about is to go to places that
I personally know really little about and maybe other people don't know so
much about
but Jerusalem, Jerusalem there is nothing
like. The narrator says that Jerusalem quote
binds together the hopes up the world what does that mean?
For thousands
of years I mean if you think that there's been um human habitation
recorded
um in jerusalem for almost 5,000
years now um and if
if you think that for thousands of years Jews Christians and Muslims have been
living together in this
crucible with inside these ancient city walls
there are three of the most sacred spots
on Earth to to these people
this is a place where the Jews believe God founded the Earth
where uh Abraham prepared to sacrifice
his son where King Solomon built the first temple
this is the place where Christians believe than Christ was crucified and
resurrected this is the place where Muslims believe that the Prophet
Muhammad
ascended to heaven and all these different communities have been living
within
the ancient city of Jerusalem for thousands of years
and for many stretches of time have done so
in a um peaceful way
And so many people feel closest to God at that
in that spot which is less than a square mile. Well
as they say this city is the closest place on earth
to God and the
and that is what you experience when you go there and when we travelled there in the
film
Jerusalem its it's why
this ancient city I mean how could this tiny city that's located in this remote
barren outpost essentially with no great body of water and no great river
how could it be that this tiny place is
the most fought over piece of land in history
and why do so many people love it and so how has it been able to survive through
118 conflicts and 44 conquests and it was completely destroyed twice
yet each time it was rebuilt
people loved it and rebuilt it in their own image and that's what we
um explore in
the film Jerusalem. Taran Davies
is in the studio with me he's a producer and cofounder of Cosmic Picture
he's one of the producers for the 3-D film called Jerusalem
You choose three teenage girls to tell the story
ones a Jew ones a Christian ones a Muslim how did you
pick them and why did you decide to to do it that way
This is about coming at one of the most
storied cities on Earth
the story of Jerusalem has been told in how many books
how much have we heard about it we want to do this in a way that
no one has ever experienced before so you have the medium
that we chose 3-D and IMAX and the
giant screen technology but we also
wanted to tell the story in a
different way too from the perspective of young people after all the young people
represent
our future and at the same time who really knows what uh
your average Jerusalemite thinks about life in Jerusalem
normally when we hear stories it's an expert and a scholar who we
have many of them attached to this project to advise us but
who has heard their stories what does it mean to be a young person living in
Jerusalem
what is their future like and that's what we were after
here and then in this um effort to
to to um find the perfect
kids to tell their story
quite by accident as one does you gravitate towards those you think have
have have the best story have the greatest character and so on it turned
out that these three young
girls Farrah Revital Nadia
were just the most wonderful people and
it was just clear that it had to be their story but then you have this
film about the ancient city of Jerusalem
told from the perspective of three young girls. Now
I haven't experienced that before. What we just wanted to do was to be able to
tell
the story of Jerusalem from the perspective of a young
Muslim person, a young Jewish person and a young Christian person
and understand without judgment what it means
what what it means to them its. I assume that they work together
on on this film how did they get along
Well I'm not sure they did work together on this film
so they didn't interact the three girls? Well you'd have to go and see the film
itself
to to...know. I know that on the film itself
but I mean the girls themselves
even you know behind the cameras they didn't
they weren't interacting? Well this is the great thing
um and is part of the mystery and wonder of Jerusalem this is that you have
these three young girls who if you go and see the film you
will maybe find it difficult to tell them apart
um and and
they live mere footsteps from each other
inside Jerusalem yet they live very much in separate worlds
and one of the really exciting and for what we learned
as the filmmakers as we went through this project Daniel Ferguson our
director and writer took
each of the girls to the old city of Jerusalem
and walked through the same place together with with each of them
separately and asked them to tell him
what does this place mean to you and for each of them
though they could be in the same place their stories were completely different
their attachment to their love
was for a completely different reason so they had
different stories the same stones
and they were unaware of the other stories
so the Muslim didn't know why the Christian liked this the Jew didn't know
why this
the Christian didn't know why this and that
was so exciting to be able to look at the same thing from three different
perspectives
and to realize that the people who live closest together
don't know the others' story. So at the end of the movie the Christian girl says
this she says
I hope we have the courage to meet the people who are living
right next to us and then she adds maybe not yet
so it's this hopeful thing of you know maybe we can all meet
I mean they're living in such close quarters
but maybe it's not the right time
I think we have to leave that for the audience
to to judge
how they feel about that. I think our
work as the filmmakers and I must say Daniel Ferguson in particular as our
director
to get that right so that it was so that the
ending of this film is truthful and authentic
for the girls and for the film
is so critical because the thing about IMAX documentaries or giant screen
films
is is the while they're all about big picture
and the spectacle and boy don't get me wrong I mean this is
a thrill ride through the Holy Land like you've never see. It is I'm sure
but there's an intimacy to
hearing the voices of these girls in on
on the these speakers in these auditoriums where you really feel like
you're connecting with them
and any note of inauthenticity will be registered by the audience
The film were discussing is called Jerusalem it's a 3-D IMAX film
one of the producers Taran Davies is in the studio with me. He's also
cofounder of Cosmic Picture
The old city of jerusalem is divided into unequal quarters
do any of the different quarters intermingle at all?
Yes very much so there's constant intermingling
particularly amongst the Christian and Muslim um
communities um. Though the Christian community is extremely small
it's like two percent. That's correct
um and and getting smaller I'm
one of the you know one of the wonders of Jerusalem is is that you know
um as much as I love Rome and many other cities like it
you go and visit and it's a museum town to a certain degree here
these ancient buildings and sacred sites the most
one of the most important churches in Christendom um the Western Wall Plaza
these are full of people, rituals go on there
ancient rituals that have been going on for They're actually worshipping
they are actually worshiping and so when you go there you're going into
real people's lives and into these ancient
rituals that really no one has the opportunity to see
I mean very very few people have the opportunity to see
and what is so wonderful is is that
its all intermingled if you could look down upon the city of Jerusalem
you would see on any given day you know
uh the Jews on the way to the Western Wall Plaza and the Christians
going along the Via Dolorosa the way of sorrow
towards the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where they believe that uh well many
believe
that the Christ was crucified and buried and the Muslims going to pray on
the great stone platform that they call al Al-Aqsa where the dome of
the golden Dome of the Rock stands and which the Jews call the Temple Mount
so there's constant currents like rivers
moving through these um through
through this ancient city um and
at the same time you have these surprising
wonderful stories that the a Muslim family for several hundred years
one that opens each morning the doors
to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and every night at nine o'clock
locks it a Muslim family opening and closing
the only ones allowed to do it a Christian Church
every day still to this day for thousands of years
these are some of the wonderful stories that we hope that
Jerusalem will will um share. Well speaking about that
Church of the Holy Sepulchre you spent the night
inside that church? One of the great lock-ins of all time
Um oh it was magnificent um we
um got the opportunity after
a couple of years have negotiation um to spend the night
in the Church of the Holy Sepluchre. You said a couple years of negotiation
yes or otherwise known as a million cups of tea
Negotiating um with each of the, you know the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is
controlled by seven different churches who all control different
parts of it you have the Ethiopians on the roof you have
Egyptian Copts you have the Syrians
you have the Franciscans the Roman Catholics um
and course the Greek Orthodox and the Armenians
and basically there are wonderful stories of you know efforts to
um um change a lightbulb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which requires years
of effort to be able to do and often he intervention of the
uh local municipal government um to affect so as you can imagine
laying cables and setting up lights inside
this extraordinary cathedral really where
um you have the stone of Unction where it is believed Christ was laid
um after he was taken down from the tomb that's built within the
church
and we filmed there over the night we did about four of five shots we were down in the
catacombs
um we were filming this ancient Christian graffiti that's seventeen
hundred years old it's deep underneath the church. Which I didn't even know was
there I didn't know that those
ancient tombs were down there. Well between you and me if we just don't tell
anyone else
I didn't either and but it's amazing you go down
you go down underneath the church and you'll see along
the slabs of rock and you see it in the film
Christian crosses etched into
the the rock and below that even deeper you find this
um uh depiction of a of a ship
um with the Latin verse underneath saying 'Oh lord we have come'
and this with archaeological DNA testing has been dated to seventeen hundred
years ago
before the church was built and right next to this you
find uh a burial site and you can see carved
out rocky graves which was
which is been established by most archaeologists is a Jewish cemetery
and therefore the likely place the Jesus was buried
this is where we got to sleep
overnight and this is what
we have brought back whom to audiences in America
and the in 3-D for
the IMAX and giant screen.Well you also shot aerial
footage over Jerusalem um how hard was that to get permission
given the security situation? That was that was complicated you know
low altitude aerials um haven't uh the the
the Israeli government hasn't allowed it for
the last 20 years um over the city of Jerusalem because naturally you don't
want odd
looking helicopters with big nose mounts with
very large looking cameras or what could that be flying low
over one of the most contested piece of real estate on Earth
Sure. Um so in fact we had to meet with about
everybody you could possibly think of and more to get the permission
to be able to do that but even if we met with the
military the Air Force the mayor of Jerusalem, the governor East Jerusalem
the Islamic waqf
that controls the Al-Aqsa
even to the Jordanians too whom we had to go and meet with
no one really ever says yes you know you just sorta have to
go for it even after all the sort of nods and verbal approvals you just have
to go for it. And on the day that we were Yeah but you can't go for it given that
you could get shot down
Well um one thing what we did is we had to
do um press conferences uh before the day that we were shooting in both Arabic
and in Hebrew to let everyone know who in the city of Jerusalem
All the residents. What was going on but even
we had the sort of permission from all these different entities to go ahead and
pieces of paper and so on
but we were still grounded. We were still grounded when we had the helicopter
there with the rotors going and you know we had the
it was um the Palm Sunday procession and a
procession of a thousand monks was literally cresting
the Mount of Olives on their way down to um the ancient city of Jerusalem to
represent
when Jesus comes to Jerusalem before his crucifixion
Please Lord let us get this helicopter off the ground we've been working for
this
for years and actually we we got it up there
and we had a half minute shot and it made it into the film
and it is extraordinary. The film we're talking about is called Jerusalem
it's a 3-D IMAX film Taran Davies is one of the producers and cofounder of Cosmic
Picture. What what would you say was the hardest permission to get
was it getting that helicopter up?
no I would actually say that the the the that the toughest place to get to
and the most exciting in a way is on to the Temple Mount
um and uh again what the Muslims call
Al-Aqsa where the Dome of the Rock stands because to get there
you have to not only secure the permissions of the Israelis
You mean to get into the mosque? I thought it was open
Not exactly no no not exactly you need to have the permission
you need to have permission to go if you're filming if you're making a film
I see. Uh but even if you're not its not an easy place to get to
um um but if you're if you're trying to make a film and you have a 50 foot crane
and a and a 50 person team
um trying to go inside what is
I think the oldest still standing Islamic shrine on
Earth on top at the Temple Mount Al-Aqsa
um that you need to get the blessing of waqf
which is the Islamic council the controls
access and what happens on top the stone platform
the Temple Mount and if you don't get their permission you're not gonna get
the Israeli
permission so its two levels of
challenges and complications that we didn't always
overcome um in the end we got everything
that we needed u'm but to be able to
build the trust I think amongst the different communities that
what we were doing and what we were trying to achieve is something that they could all
be proud of
and I must say that the images that brought back
we did get the 50 foot crane and and IMAX cameras the size of a car
and a 50-person team into the Dome of the Rock
on top of the Al-Aqsa I I
I would question anyone to find more transcendent
images of Jerusalem than those
I wonder what impact Jerusalem has had on you personally?
Obviously you've been there a lot
There's a funny story about um Jerusalem you know that um
there's a thing called The Jerusalem syndrome I don't know if you've heard of it
but um it happens to uh people who
get I think they're about 200 people a year who
end up having to visit a mental asylum in Jerusalem
um because they've had religious um
obsessions or something and they get overcome and faint
when they're in Jerusalem
you know having spent as long as we have making this film about this
extraordinary city
I've got to say that at the end of the day you realize
sitting where I am now with you that I only know
I know so little this there's so much more that there is to learn
um and and
and I hope that I hope that the film will serve in a way for others
who might not who might not think that
that this is relevant to them that Jerusalem is relevant to them but they
go and they see this film and they realize that this is
this is one of the most extraordinary
cities on Earth that has so much
relevance and importance to our lives what happens in Jerusalem
will affect us all and
people's love for Jerusalem around the world
is so powerful and so strong when you feel it when you're walking
along the stones through the ancient city so I would say that all of us
all of our team all of the filmmakers that
have been involved with this have been really touched by
this experience and I hope that same power
is within the film itself. You were
at Ground Zero on 9/11 what did you see
that day? um that is
eh I mean I couldn't say that I was
at Ground Zero um itself I did that morning ride my bicycle around
um the World Trade Center and I worked on Wall Street at the time
um very close and um as many people
were on such a day they were doing that normal things that they do and I was
brushing my teeth when I heard the first plane hit
and went out to investigate because I thought it was a truck and
and walked down Greenwich Street and was about three blocks away when I saw the
second plane
hit and you know all I can recall is just all the
the the everything that was inside my face
all the liquid just draining away as the horror
of what had happened settled in
and on that was a very obviously formative
experience for everyone um and for me too
and so i at the time I was um making my films
um and uh I was also
on Wall Street and I quit my job on wall street that day
and quite naturally I went to Afghanistan to make a film
um and uh I was in Afghanistan October and November 2001
um and I made a film called Afghan Stories that premiered at the Venice
Film Festival in
September 2002. And you also made a film
about uh Mecca call Journey to Mecca what's that about?
Journey to Mecca is an effort to you know
eh one of the wonderful things about IMAX it's about taking you to places you
otherwise can't go
and uh people think of you know you go to the Antarctic or the Arctic or Space or
deep underwater but you know that of course non-muslims are not allowed
into Mecca so 80 percent. Into the whole city you mean?
Into the whole city it's a sacred area where it's forbidden for non-Muslims to travel
yet if we are expected to understand Islam do we not have to go there?
So Journey to Mecca for me was
um was a way for us to be able to experience
what goes on in Mecca, the Hajj and the rituals
that are performed by the Hajj, the Hajj is the longest running
annual event in the largest
longest-running annual event in human history
it happens each year three, four five million pilgrims go
each year and perform a series of rituals
and I wanted to know what it was all about
and um to experience that and and that is what is Journey to Mecca
What's your next movie gonna be about? Oh I'm still in Jerusalem
(Laughter) Your heart's still there? I my heart is still in Jerusalem and you know what
these um uh giant screen documentaries
that are made for IMAX these are works of love
and passion and there a bit irregular u'm as films go because there it's not hollywood
films and its not
regular theatrical docs but these are
very expensive projects that you
need a team of crazy people
to produce and Jerusalem is such
a labor of love and so our
producer team my partners um
George Duffield and Daniel Ferguson um
on this our focus is very much about
um making sure we can get it to as many museums and science centers as possible
so as many people can
share in this extraordinary experience that is Jerusalem
The film is Jerusalem. Taran Davies
is producer and cofounder of Cosmic Picture he's one of the producers for
that 3-D film
it's distributed by National Geographic Entertainment
Taran thanks so much for being on the program. Thank you