after that, question time at the british house of commons with prime minister david cameron. later, a ,> this week, jehane noujaim the director of "the square." >> jehane noujaim, when was the first time he thought about being a documentary producer? be awent to college to

doctor, like a good egyptian. i took up chemistry and realized there were other people better suited for the job than i was. i disappeared into photography and film labs and loved it. i started thinking about it and, i went and college, worked for unfiltered. we sent cameras to kids and we would edit their stories. it was the prelude to youtube. film, where iwn collaborated with incredible amenities filmmakers who had been doing this a long time. them and they were a couple who had been doing this for years. i thought, you get to go wherever you want to go. basically, meet whoever you want

to meet. you put yourself in situations that you would never get to experience. it seemed like a world of lifelong learning and it was something that i wanted to do. a trailer ofshow the documentary from 2004, "the control room." this, give us the timeframe of what you are doing. three --ed in 2000 and 2003, i was living with a friend from college. sorry, i do not know what is wrong with my throat. she was watching it on fox news. newsld wake up and fox would be talking about duct in egypt,r doors and where my family lives, it was a

different story being told about what is happening. peopleht, how are supposed to commit it with each other when their understanding and what they are getting on the news is so radically different. where can i do -- work and i go to be in the center of news can i go to bere in the center of news creation? and, 10central command minutes away, you had out to zeera.- al ja you could be in central command. >> central command for the u.s. military? >> that is right. >> let's watch this clip and you can explain more. they have ahat pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> the captives are in violation of the geneva convention. >> the decision to broadcast this material is deplorable. yesterday, on american television -- >> i can tell what they are showing. i ditto what they're not showing -- i can tell what they are not showing by choice. off, theybomb goes grab women and children and pretend it is them. >> they are working their audience. fox plays to american patriotism for the same reason. room, from your

experience, what was the result? what did you find out that you did not know before you did it? >> i go into these films with a lot of questions and come out with more questions than answers. what was incredible was that we showed it in both the u.s. and in egypt and across the arab world. people saw that people had rushing, he-- josh was an incredible character. he is the military guy. he starts talking about the as human beings and says, it makes me hate war when i see these kind of things. see someone in a military uniform after the attacks in afghanistan and iraq. people who would never want to

speak to a person in a uniform were excited to speak to josh because she showed empathy. the same thing happened in the united states. when people met the reporters in the film, the reputation of them was -- people saw the two journalists that i followed in the film and saw a human personality i cared deeply about the coverage of the area and people connected with them. they saw a human face behind nice new stories and who was creating them. you know, it was a fascinating film to make. i learned a great deal about what was happening in those early days of the war. the showing of the film was incredible. was interviewed on fox news. was a hugehis face sign that said "traitor?"

>> why? >> he was somebody sympathizing with the enemy and saying that these were human beings. we are there to free the iraqi people. >> did he go to work for them? story, heend of the got in trouble from the military by speaking out and doing interviews for the film. zeera.k a job with al ja >> still there? bridgehought he could the understanding and he is someone i am proud to call a friend. >> what services he an -- is he in? >> the marines. it was his job to be dealing with the press. that is why he got close to that story.

his job is to deal with the arab press. i was considered, as a student coming from egypt, and working but,-- i was not a student when we met, he said that somebody from the american university has called me to talk with you and he assumed that i was a student which is why he was a symptom -- assigned to me. having antioned that egyptian father who expected you to be a doctor -- it is mentioned that your father is a an-lebonese-egyptian. >> my grandmother is syrian. my grandfather is lebanese. i am half egyptian.

live -- you parents where do your parents live? >> in cairo. >> how did they meet? >> friends had set them up and my mother had broken off an engagement. was somebodyt this to have fun with and not take seriously. that was my dad. father is in finance. >> are you an american citizen? >> yes. i am a dual citizen. > dual citizen. -- >> dual citizen. >> i was born in washington dc at george washington hospital. they moved to kuwait. we moved to cairo when mubarak took over. i left for college when i was

16. of high school in boston and went to college at harvard. we moved to new york after that to do film. i went back and forth between new york and cairo ever sense. -- since. >> let's run the trailer. >> millions of egyptians came down to the streets in protest. >> this uprising defies definition. people are gathering. they are large demonstrations against mubarak. egyptian] --the secretary

aking egyptian] >> what are we seeing? >> we met a few of the characters from the film. character, whod takes you through the film. you met someone who was with the brotherhood for 25 years. he starts to question his relationship with the brotherhood.

and a well-known actor. wereather and grandfather jailed by previous regimes in egypt. he is an incredible person because she is articulate about what is happening at a time when things were very confusing. these are the main characters and it is a personal story that shows you the human face of what was happening and the human story behind the headlines. andollow these three guys, human rights lawyer, a young filmmaker, for three years. >> how did you pick the people? >> you pick people that do not bore you and excite you. they take you places that you want to go and you know you want to travel. , you never know if

they will be seen anywhere. you want to feel like you are learning something as a filmmaker. if you areat learning, if you are surprised, if somebody is making you laugh, that translates to an audience. i met them in 18 days being there. i met my entire crew in the people -- all the the film gods were really smiling down on us. it was incredible that we have ran into those people. there was a lot of hanging by the fire and talking to these people to get to know them. i found, pretty quickly, that these were people from diverse backgrounds. is atheir commonality principled nature and being willing to put everything on the

line to fight for changing the country. there is a lovely story where he talks to a cab driver. the cabdriver told him that it is either you take me or me and my grandkids. it is better that you just take me. that was the attitude at the time. >> where is the square in relationship to the river? >> you have the nile. the square is next to the river. it is a very central place. you have the river on one side. you had the egyptian museum on the other. you have the arab league. you have the largest bureaucratic building, any paperwork you want to do, you have to go to that building. you have the university of cairo. you had an american embassy a

couple of minutes away. one funny thing that happened was that, when there was an attack on the occupy movement in california, there was a march to the embassy. >> where do you sit, politically, as to what you want to happen in egypt? what people are fighting for our basic rights. they are fighting for human rights, you know? where you have economic freedoms, personal freedoms, freedom of the press. -- this was not the country and we lived in. we had been living under emergency law. people gathered and spoke about politics, you

can be arrested. law, asnder emergency you know. elections have been a sham. free and fair elections have not existed. elections are not the only thing. it was about building the pillars of democracy and that needed to happen. >> here's a clip from the documentary. >> it is 144 minutes long. >> hassan on power.

kid, where did you find him and what is his background? he is a representative of the people who came down to that square. the population in egypt, in many places, where the arab spring , 70% are under the

age of 40. he is representative of the people who want to change their future. he grew up with a mother who was a vegetable seller who was illiterate. his father died when he was a little boy. it was important for her to put her kids through school. he ended up with two years of journalism training. he was -- i was making a news piece about him and i fell in love with him. he has a charisma and a joyful smarts. streetsmar he projects a lot of what happens at various points. >> how long did you live in the square? >> our cameras were there over the stretch of three years.

i was there most of the time. every time there would be a citizen. >> did you live there? >> oh yeah. i was sleeping there. if you'd asked me if there was any way i would be sleeping into a traffic circle, i would have said that you were bananas. there was no way that this would happen. it was incredible and an incredible backdrop to make a movie and. -- in. >> you were arrested or detained how many times? >> twice. i was arrested once. hero was the human rights lawyer you meet in the film. awards awarded the rfk for human rights in washington. she has someone i have known

since kindergarten. ed a picture of me and a person in a police station saw me. they tended to disappear you. it is a way to get people off the streets. worry at family enough times, that is a way to do that. out after two days. >> here is more from the documentary.

we see ofh of what him was acting on his part? >> when you follow someone for three years, they start ignoring you and don't think about the camera. timeinterview is the only you see him being interviewed on camera. he wears his heart on his sleeve. none of it is acting. all of it is following. i try to make the viewer feel like they have experienced and .een in his shoes

they experienced this revolution live and had to make the difficult decisions that these characters make. that is inspired by penny baker and chris, who made films in the 1960's, where there is no narration or voice of god telling you what to think. you feel like you're sitting in the back of the cab with bob dylan and experiencing those moments. it is the closest that you can get to time travel. i hope that, with this film, people can watch this 50-100 years from now and feel like they are experiencing it. there will be many films and retrospectives, where people will look back and give interviews. what cannot be created is a feeling of being there. >> when you were there under mubarak, what was the feeling

that everybody had? >> there was a fear. there was a fear of what you what politicalnd thoughts were of the president. people would not speak about what they actually felt. there was a fear that they did not know who they were talking to. there was also a feeling that you could not -- you did not have a hand in your future. that was difficult for most people to accept. if felt like -- depending on the class you are built into, your destiny was determined. getow much warning did you that you wanted to have a career and follow this? out of the built

square. i made a film called "egypt, we are watching you." we were trying to videotape everything and all the corruption that was happening, all the people being shunned away from voting stations and uploading that online. bbc and international channels. i have been following the protest movement and spoke to the characters in the film. 2010, in the summer of 2010 and what had happened that summer, there was a young man who had been arrested and brutally tortured and killed by the police. a facebook page was made in his name that was signed onto by millions. feel the rumbling of things happening. tunisia exploded.

people said they would go down and massive numbers on january 25, 2011. there was no place i wanted to be more. time, there were many cameras in the square on the 25th and i had experienced many protest before. i knew that the whole country would not change and it would take time. i had been invited to davos. the leadership of egypt was going to be there. >> meaning? leadership-types? >> yes. go, there is a possibility that i can meet the leadership as the country explodes and that would be interesting. all the middle eastern -- i went. nobody showed up.

andstreet exploded in egypt it was bigger than people thought it would be. people continue to go back. that was what was different. it would be cleared and people would not go back. back and, people went i try to get to egypt as quickly as i could. that camera equipment was being confiscated at the airport. most of my camera equipment was and i made it in. landing, theter military came down to the street. car and foundthe my previous film. title for have a good military intelligence as the country is exploding. , we want, come with us

to talk with you for a while. i was taken by people in plane close and you do not know who was interrogating you. othes and i did not know who was interrogating me. excused myself to the bathroom and tried to destroy the dvd. i do not know if you have ever tried to break apart a dvd. they are quite hard. i shove it down the drain. hads confident that i gotten rid of evidence that could have kept me there for longer. a man clean later, the bathroom comes back with a piece of the dvd. the interrogators look at the guy and look at me. he says, i found this. i had been denying.

at that point, i said look, i made a film for years ago about three incredible women in egypt that are fighting for change. people in the square are fighting for change and i want to be in the middle of it. do youed at me and said, think these people represent all of egypt? do you know how big the square is compared to egypt? they're making the president and the country look bad in the eyes of the international media. had an interesting discussion for a while and he let me go. i was immersed in the middle of the scene that you saw. it was magical. andand women of upper class lower class, christian, muslim, altogether and thinking about a different future for themselves and the country. it was a dream and a fairytale that the country could change in the space of 18 days.

it was a magical moment and you make films because you want to share magical moments. >> how much did you shoot yourself? >> i shot a lot of it. that is my favorite thing about filmmaking and an important part. if you are putting a lot of shooters on people, you do not gain their trust. there were four people shooting. they said, you are using the camera's wrong. let me teach you. he taught me how to use the camera properly. >> what type of camera? >> the canon. they look beautiful. it was a lucky accident that we had to use them. >> this is the protest against the army.

>> the army has consistently lied to us, killed us, tortured us over the last nine months. the people know what they want and are not leaving until they get it. isabella -- is a bdullah. i met his wife, who became another person shooting the film with us.

access tos incredible khalid. i met him in the square. >> let's go back to some more video. before we do that, the army is now in charge. what is the attitude of the egyptian people towards the army? >> you see this in the film. all, you aret of drafted to be in the army and everybody has to be in the army unless you are and will be son. only son. army ineel close to the egypt. takes control after mubarak steps down, as

wantd says, they did not mubarak's son taking over. they were not upset about mubarak stepping down. they thought this was stopping the inheritance project. kept trying to clear people out of the square violently. follow,esters that we the people on the forefront of ,hange in pushing for change they start to see the violence on the part of the army that was not expected at the beginning. many people were in disbelief. when some of the protesters begin filming the torture and violence of the army, most of the country is completely shocked and does not believe this is happening. story, weew we had a

were filming characters and we did not know what the story was. after mubarak stepped down, you had a character in the film who is a singer and has turned the chants of the revolution into songs. we call him a musical narrator. he has a song for every chapter. celebrated on international and local news channels as a hero of the revolution and a singer and vision of the new egypt. mubarak steps down and, three weeks after he steps down, he is brutally tortured. our characters films this and put it online. it is not covered anywhere. for media, egyptian media, nowhere. media, egyptian

media, nowhere. people said that the egyptian army would not do this. >> here is more of this clip. to go and voteng when my friends are being lost in the streets. i know people web died. -- who have died. i'm not going to go and cast my vote in the circumstances. an army that has tortured and put people on trial. international governments, who i hold accountable for replacing the stock supports and the tear gas that is clinging to my lungs . whate of conscience know future they want to build and know how to build it instinctively. we need to enter that process and the army needs to step aside.

>> by the way, how did people survive financially during this time? >> it was a difficult time. you hear from the muslim brotherhood character's mother. she says, who do you think supports his five kids? it is the muslim brotherhood. his loyalties have to be towards

them. started taking odd jobs and started learning how to use a camera. the camera becomes his weapon. he was not only shooting his film. he was on the from line, shooting evidence -- on the frontline, shooting evidence. he has become a good filmmaker in his own right. that is how he is making money now. d is an actor and has not had the same troubles. therelot in the square, is huge unemployment and still is. >> how many people died? >> i don't want to give a number. the numbers are drastically different, depending on where you look. thousands. >> how many people injured? >> thousands. >> did you come close to being

injured? if so, how? >> i feel lucky. i was not injured. n our crew came out uninjured. this film became -- we have an office nearby and revolutionaries in the square have learned how to use sound and edit. it became a school as we were making it. everybody on the team -- i tell the story because everybody came from the square and wanted to be there. they were tear gassed and jailed. every single person on the team. and had to want to be there the film came out of that. me, personally, it was a difficult situation a lot of

times. i was never actually, physically, injured. my parents were about 10 minutes away. i think that they have reached a point in time where they have given up trying to tell me what to do. there was a time where my mother called me in a scene in the film where you see a body being dragged across the square. one of our filmmakers shot at. it was a body being thrown in the garbage. it was shown on international news stations and the local media could not ignore it. many. i in egypt sought egypt.it in

people came down to the square and said, this cannot happen in my name. me up and said, there are bodies being dragged across the square. where are you? come home. fumes.m was made on from the sundance institute. small grants. we had to work independently and arab not be funded by an or western station, due to trust issues and people wanted to hear that we were independent filmmakers and not allied with a station or something. personal family, friends, people donating their time. er did you use kickstart

at all? >> we did. we had a number of executive producers who came on and were incredibly generous. they allowed us to finish the film. that is where the expensive part comes. you are editing and have to do postproduction. we had executive producers come on and we used kickstarter. >> how much did you raise? >> $104,000. >> what do people expect to get back? >> depending on your level, you get gets. -- gifts. we are behind and have apologized profusely for that. you get a dvd, t-shirts, the highest level gets -- if you see

the film, you see a wall being painted through the film by a , who becomesst known in the streets of egypt because tear gas canisters fly and he keeps painting. someone would die and he would paint a picture of them on the walls that could not be ignored. he would paint stories and egyptians have an incredible sense of humor. his sense of humor would be on the walls. he was interviewed by international news stations. people said it was amazing and egyptians are painting on walls. he said, we have been painting on walls for 5000 years. so, not exactly the first time. in the end, it was a wall that

we built and it broke because this huge windstorm came in. we have artifacts from the wall. >> there are a whole bunch of names at the end. >> yes. all the supporters are credited. >> here is more from your documentary, "the square."

>> how do you keep track of who is on what side? >> it was easy. the army is on one side and the protesters are on another. >> you had the muslim brotherhood. later on, it becomes more difficult. protesters fight with the muslim brotherhood and it is more difficult. >> what does the muslim brotherhood stand for? >> that is a good question. they are an organization that has existed for many years in egypt. they have not used violence in

the past 30 years. they ran for office. the choice for presidency was and mubarak's previous prime minister. for many people, it was a choice of the previous regime or change. that is why we had people voting for the brotherhood, voting for they did notif believe in a religious government, which is what the brotherhood stands for. militaryu be in the and in the muslim brotherhood at the same time? >> you can. i say that because, during the process of making this film, we filmed inside of the political campaigns. mubarak'sinside of prime minister.

when we talked to many of the people inside the campaign who are now in jail and have been arrested -- >> where is morsi. >> that is a good question. son?ere is mubarak's >> my understanding is that he is in prison. >> is that in cairo? >> yeah. i was driven there when i was arrested. -- 30 20 minutes outside minutes outside of downtown. >> they voted on the constitution and parliamentary election. when do you think the next election will be held? >> they are saying april. they say there will be presidential elections that are followed by parliamentary elections. >> how do you feel about the situation?

>> i feel like we are in a dark time in egypt. because -- the reason why i say that is that there are human rights abuses that are continuing to happen and i have had a couple of friends be arrested a couple weeks ago who are accused of being muslim brotherhood sympathizers and are simply journalists. this is why i feel like it is important to get this film in egypt. past try to whitewash the and the government tries to whitewash the past, we allow these human rights abuses to continue. it is what is said in the film when the tanks run over protesters, he says, to a family member who has died, i encourage you to do an autopsy. accountableto be and know that their actions will be held accountable.

>> your documentary talks about the leader he wants. >> interesting.

he asks for a leader and everybody in the square is a .eader, he says do you know leadership types? .> he is really young he is 26. this will take time. these are disorganized social movements. what he said to us is that, with this film being out there, this gives voice and they cannot prevent our story from getting out there. >> is he being moved around quietly? >> definitely. people are showing it quietly and we are attempting to have a wider release there. a constitution that protects the right of every egyptian, no matter who.

what he is also talking about is an active citizen. we come from egypt, the land of the pharaohs, where you always have a leader who can transform the country. ordo not have rosa parks individuals who have changed things. that is important for young people to grow up with. a is important to have consciousness that you can, as individuals, change things. us holding government accountable. >> what you think of the united states and their position towards egypt? >> the united states has to do the same thing. -- it ist elect obama the same thing and the u.s.. you have to have an active citizen. what do i think of the u.s. and --

>> the foreign policy towards egypt? we still send money and military. >> there needs to be a and thinkingof aid about it as pure the military -- purelty military. >> another clip. halid reflects on what the movement means. >>

>> how many different documentaries could you have made? >> 1600 hrs and many films could have come out of this. on a film about our lawyer who is in prisons, facing the struggles that everyone who went down to that

there went to fight, dignity and respect of human beings. >> is there a network and a way for you to stay in touch? >> for sure. >> how do you do it? >> i am in constant contact through twitter with all of our characters all of the time. constant contact. at whate want to look is going on, there are fantastic citizen-journalism sites going on. they make short films about what is happening on the ground. >> how do you spell that? one more piece of video i want to show. talks androm the ted you won a big prize. -- it calls on you

to talk to the community, a community of creative and do-gooders. many different types of people. >> did they give you any money? dollars --d thousand $100,000. >> what did you do with it? on the wish and bought a lot of shoes. we made aly said, call out to filmmakers around the world. if you had a few minutes, what story would you tell? we put it to music and the idea was, we have the world cup, the olympics, these moments in the

world where people talk about the same athletes or goal that was scored. film,not have that with where people exchange on ideas like this. self-organized organizations. >> can you watch this on the web? >> you can. >> this is a clip out of that speech that i want to to put in context. films,e is working current tv, an incredible platform. it is amazing. i have watched it and i am blown away by its potential to bring independent voices from around the world to create a truly global democratic television.

>> they were owned by al gore and others. $500 million. for you are excited about what current tv was doing. now -- >> i have not watched it yet. question.re the what do i think? >> you are excited about this and a lot of video was provided by individuals like you to current tv. they were sold for a lot of money. a lot of what we were trying to do was capture the conversations. --s film was not about

it is about the zeitgeist of our time. all of these people are communicating through facebook and it is a fascinating time that we are going through. i'm a big proponent of television stations and was excited. --is excited to have exciting to have fewer ships viewerships telling their story. >> how do i keep in touch with the next movement? >> i will give you the twitter handles. a lot of the calls are through twitter and facebook. it is word-of-mouth, for people who are not online. were the mostople

number of people protesting? >> the number that was the largest number that was said to have gone down was the protest against morsi. that was said to be 20 million. >> how many people had a phone? >> everybody. >> if they're working the phones, do they jam up? >> definitely. i could not use my phone. >> what you do? -- >> there is nothing to do. the phone lines get jammed. at the beginning of the revolution, the government turned off electronics. people manage to gather. they went down to the street and were tear gassed.

they became part of the movement. there was a lot of communication of people without cell phones. they had a cell phone before a television. were in the finals for an oscar documentary nomination. your way to find out if you will be a member of the final five. is that important to you? have is the first film i went on an oscar journey for that i think is usually important. lly important. it will be like the world cup. it will be the first time that an egyptian film is nominated. shortlisted, i just wanted to run down the street screaming and shouting.

people always say that history is written by the victors. not in this case. >> the movie is called "the square." when will be available? >> it is on netflix. you can find all the information quarefilm.com. >> our guest has been jehane noujaim. like you for joining us -- thank you for joining us. a free transcript or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at our website.

>> tonight on c-span, british prime minister david cameron answers questions in the house of commons, followed by a review of the house, senate, and governor races for 2014. and then, a winter meeting in washington dc. later, another chance to see "q &a." >> bill and hillary began their teaching careers at the university of arkansas. in 1973 andom yale hillary clinton came later. hillary's career began right inside this building, where she was a professor and taught classes such as criminal law, trial procedure. hiy