THE RORY PECK AWARDS 2007
Sponsored by Sony
John Williams - British
Saddam's Road to HellFinalist: The Sony Impact Award
“The camerawork is superb. Some of the sequences are almost cinema-quality, the framing is perfect. It is beautifully shot, patient photography for a story about patience.” Judge's Comment |
Parts of this film, which investigates the disappearance of 8,000 Barzani Kurds from government camps in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1983, were shown at Saddam's trial in Baghdad in the presence of the late Iraqi dictator. The original cameraman, Koutaiba Al Jannabi, fell ill during the shoot and was unable to complete the assignment - an overland journey from northern Iraq to Baghdad and then on through the “triangle of death” to the southern Iraqi deserts. John Williams, who was the film's co-director, took over the main camerawork. He died after a heart attack in Iraq in September 2005.
The judges praised the courage and determination it had taken to make that journey, commenting especially on the natural lighting sources made the night scenes more dramatic.
Comment
Reporter Gwynne Roberts says of John: “He was tremendously brave and enormously sensitive in very trying conditions. He told me the night before he died that this would be his last film - he had taken the risks he had because he felt the story was worth it. John said he wanted to tell it from the perspective of ordinary Iraqis - something he felt was sorely missing in most documentaries he had seen on Iraq.”
Biography
John Williams was born in 1945 and brought up in mid-Wales. His first job was as a film projectionist at the Classic cinema in Stockwell, South London and he then became a film editor for Brian Epstein’s Suba Films. In the 1960s he joined the BBC, editing countless films for BBC 1 and 2. He quickly became Senior Producer and worked on such programmes as 24 Hours; Panorama, Nationwide and the Money Programme of which, for a time, he was Editor. John went freelance in 1984 and worked on films – several of which won awards - for many broadcasters until his death in Iraq in 2005.
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