Ep 2 - Netflix, Boundaries and Film in the Arab world

In this episode, Kim is joined by executive producer Bradley Hope to talk about Project Brazen, their projects, and how the People Like Us podcast came about and why it matters. Throughout this first season, we also asked you to send us your questions about the show, the topics you heard and general questions about the Middle East and American foreign policy. Social media manger Nour Abdel Latif makes an appearance to bring us listeners’ questions. (This episode was produced with help from Megan Dean and Clair Urbahn) Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

A conversation with violinist Haig Papazian and designer Jamal Saleh. In this bonus episode, host Kim Ghattas takes you behind the scenes of the creative process of the music and the logo of the show, the identity and diversity within both. From the onset, Project Brazen and Kim wanted to showcase local talent from the Middle East. Haig Papazian created the original music of this podcast. He’s the violinist of the iconic indie rock band from Lebanon, Mashrou Leila, whose concerts electrified the region’s youth for years with its song about LGBTQ rights, political protests and freedom. Haig, a multi disciplinary artist with a background in architecture, is performing solo shows from NYC to LA. Jamal Saleh designed the logo and identity for People like Us. A graduate of the American University of Beirut, she’s the creative director and co-founder of one Megaphone, of the most successful online news platforms in Lebanon, and has created and contributed to a number of logo designs and campaigns. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

In this episode, I speak to Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, long time American diplomat, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution to find more about how U.S. foreign policy is made, what are its limitations and its possibilities as well as the highs and lows of his career. From meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to a scary meeting in North Korea, Ambassador Feltman takes us behind the scenes. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod For more on our guest… Jeffrey Feltman is the John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. He was a U.S. foreign service officer for over 26 years, focusing largely on the Middle East and North Africa. Feltman was the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2009 until his retirement from the State Department, with the rank of career minister, in May 2012. Before his 2004-08 tenure as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Feltman also served in Erbil, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Amman, Budapest, and Port-au-Prince. After retiring from the State Department in 2012, he served for nearly six years as the under-secretary-general for political affairs at the United Nations in New York. In that capacity, he traveled extensively and was the chief foreign policy advisor to both Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

Can we understand a culture and a region when we don’t read its authors? And what nuances do we miss when we read them in translation? How are authors and poets from the Middle East reaching new audiences? I speak to poet Zeina Hashem Beck, from Lebanon, living in California, about being an Arab Anglophone poet, how the duality of language shapes her work and the audience she is hoping to reach. Then off to Las Vegas to meet Egyptian novelist in exile, Ahmad Naji who spent time in an Egyptian jail for his sci-fi novel full of sexual innuendos and swear words. In his dark damp cell, he met the unlikeliest fellow readers. Finally, Yasmina Jraissati, founder of the Raya Literary Agency, talks to me about her quest to get the world to read authors from her region. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod For more on our guests… Ahmed Naji is an Egyptian novelist, former journalist and literary critic living in exile in the U.S. He is the author of Using of Life which landed him in an Egyptian jail and Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in Prison about his experience in a prison cell. Ahmed is the recipient of many awards, including the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet now based in California, “after a lifetime in Lebanon and a decade in Dubai.” She writes about home, estrangement, language, the body, love, motherhood, and faith. Her latest book of poetry O was published by Penguin Random House this year. Her poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine and more. Yasmina Jraissati is the founder of the Raya Literary agency which she created in 2004 to better represent and promote writers from the region to an international audience. A long time advocate of literature from the region, Yasmina was active in several initiatives to promote books from the Middle East to a worldwide readership. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

How do the new restrictions on abortion in the U.S. impact the battle for reproductive rights in the rest of the world? What does My Body My Choice mean in the Middle East? Across the region, abortion is mostly illegal but also easily available, for those who can afford it and because it is usually permissible to save a mother’s life. I speak first to Nana Abulseoud from RESURJ, in Cairo, about her reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the global battle to preserve progress made on women’s reproductive rights in the last two decades. In Beirut, I speak to Sandrine Atallah, Lebanon’s first doctor in sexual medicine, about her efforts to bring sex education to social media because there is none in the classroom. And Sura, one of the anonymous co-founders of Mauj, a sexual awareness and education online platform, tells me why they created Deem, a vibrator for Arab women everywhere. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod And for more on our guests… Dr. Sandrine Atallah is the first doctor in sexual medicine in Lebanon, working on educating people in the MENA region on sexual health and pleasure. She’s also an MD in psychosexology. She teaches sexology at the University of Saint Joseph in Beirut and at the Lebanese American University. Nana Abuelsoud is an Egyptian feminist advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) based in Cairo. She is focused on young people’s right to access information on contraception. She is also a member of the Advisory Board at The A Project, a Lebanese organization for sexual rights and health and reproductive justice. Sura is the co-founder of Mauj, an educational platform on sexuality and sexual awareness brand launched in 2020 by a collective of Arab women between Jeddah, Beirut, Dubai, and Cairo. From tackling misinformation and misconceptions about sexual health, to creatively breaking taboos around female pleasure, Mauj has created an online space to destigmatize the conversation about sexuality and reproductive health in the Arab world. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

From Syria to Ukraine, the devastation of war is overwhelming after 11 years of war in one and barely one in the other. In Syria it started with a civilian uprising against dictator Bashar al Assad. Then in 2015, Vladimir Putin stepped in to shore him up. In both Syria and Ukraine, Russia carried out the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets and a scorched earth policy. But only now, in Ukraine, is there talk of Putin’s war crimes. In this episode I talk to Wafa Ali Mustafa, in exile in Berlin, who’s been without news from her father in a Syrian prison since 2013 about her quest for justice against Assad and Putin. From Kyiv, I’m joined by former Ukrainian member of parliament Olena Sotnyk for an emotional conversation about her quest for accountability. The two women share a surprising solidarity across borders as they push back against impunity. Then I connect with veteran war journalist Janine di Gionvanni, collecting evidence of war crimes in Ukraine about the pervasive impact of impunity across the conflicts she’s covered. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod And for more on our guests… Janine di Giovanni is the co-founder of The Reckoning Project Ukraine together with Peter Pomerantsev. She’s a veteran war reporter with extensive experience covering conflict and documenting war crimes from the West Bank to Grozny and Syria, throughout the past 35 years. She is an award-winning writer, human-rights and war-crimes educator and adviser and author of 9 books including The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria. Olena Sotnyk is a former Member of Parliament in Ukraine (2014-2019) and a human rights lawyer. She is a well-known legislator and public policy maker in areas such as rule of law, judicial system reform, anti-corruption, and youth policy; and is currently an advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Olena has been fiercely advocating for accountability for war crimes, and for unity and solidarity among Ukrainians during the war. Wafa Mustafa is a Syrian activist, journalist and former prisoner in exile in Berlin. She has campaigned relentlessly for news from and the release of her father, detained arbitrarily in a Syrian prison since 2013. She is a prominent advocate on the issue of detainees in Syrian prisons and accountability for the human rights violations committed by the Assad regime. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

In this episode I explore the world of film in the Arab world and talk to directors and producers who are pushing the boundaries. I speak to Jordan’s Tima Shomali, director of an Arabic language original Netflix series Al Rawabi School for Girls, a huge hit about teenage girls and bullying, which is now going into its second season, and Lebanon’s Wissam Smayra, director of the first Arab Netflix original film, Perfect Strangers a remake of an Italian film about a dinner party that goes awry. We discuss their effort to make content that tells local stories but with universal resonance and the pushback they faced from conservative segments of society for tackling issues like bullying, same-sex relations and infedility as well as censorship on streaming platforms. I discuss the world of independent film houses with Butheina Kazim, founder of Cinema Akil in Dubai and explore with her the challenge of keeping a movie culture going in the region, the past and future of the region’s movie industry. And for more on our guests… Wissam Smayra is a Lebanese director, producer and scriptwriter. He recently directed Netflix’s first Arabic language original film, an adaptation of the 2016 Italian film Perfetti sconosciuti- Perfect Strangers. In 2018, he produced Capernaum, directed by Lebanon’s beloved actress and film director Nadine Labaki. Capernaum  was nominated for a BAFTA and an Oscar and won the Jury award at the Cannes film festival. @wissamsmayra Tima Shomali is a Jordanian filmmaker and producer, and the first Jordanian to have her own comedy show on Youtube, FemaleShow which got over a million views. She is often described as the Tina Fey of the Arab world. Her hit series Al Rawabi School for Girls  was a Netflix original series and a second season is currently under production @timashomali Butheina Kazim is the founder of Cinema Akil, the only independent arthouse cinema in the Gulf region programming repertory cinema programs at their flagship home in Alserkal Avenue in Dubai and through the nomadic cinema across the UAE. Kazim is a member of the Steering Committee of the Network of Arab Alternative Screens where Cinema Akil is a member. Kazim lives and works in Dubai. @butheinahk People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts.  For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

In the first episode of People like Us, I bring you to the heart of the show’s purpose and genesis of its concept, connecting the dots between far away places that have been on my mind. Even before Putin invaded Ukraine, the global world order was imploding with stunning rapidity as Xi Jinping’s China strangled Hong Kong, Lebanon’s economy crashed and Afghanistan fell to Taliban rule. What does it mean for people there, and people like us everywhere? I speak to Muqadessa Yourish, a former deputy minister of commerce of Afghanistan who had to flee Kabul in August 2021, Lina Mounzer in Beirut, writer and translator who captured the mood in Beirut in her essays for the NYT and Shawn Yuan, an award-winning journalist who covered the protests in Beirut and Hong Kong protests and had hoped China’s future would look like Hong Kong. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod And for more on our guests… Muqaddesa Yourish was a deputy minister of commerce and industry in Afghanistan until she had to flee Kabul when Taliban took over in August 2021. She is now living in the U.S. and a visiting professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Muqaddesa grew up a refugee in Pakistan and returned home to Afghanistan in 2002, after the Taliban were ousted. She was politically active to rebuild her country until she had to leave. Twitter @YourishM Lina Mounzer is a Lebanese writer and translator based in Beirut whose work has appeared in The New York Times, LitHub, New Lines Magazine, and L’Orient Today One of her notable essays is “War in Translation and Giving Voice to the Women of Syria” published on LitHub. Twitter: @warghetti Shawn Yuan is an award-winning, American-Chinese journalist and photographer who has covered Hong Kong and the Middle East. His work has been published in a number of renowned outlets such as Vice, Al Jazeera English, BBC, and Bloomberg, among many others. His most recent articles are published on his website. Twitter: @shawnxyny Instagram: @shawnxyny People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com

A new podcast show hosted from Beirut by NYT best selling author, Kim Ghattas, connecting the dots between today’s Middle East and the world, how it works and why it matters to you, wherever you are. From Dubai to Kyiv, from Amman to Las Vegas, every episode brings you conversations with great people doing great things in the region and beyond, breaking barriers, connecting people around pressing themes and defining issues of the moment for people everywhere, from impunity in war to reproductive rights, censorship and protest movements around the globe. Get in touch on Twitter and Instagram on @peoplelikeuspod People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts or at brazen.fm/plus and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts.  For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works.