award nominated documentary "the square." followed by david -- david cameron with question time. and a discussion about the rise of al qaeda in iraq. >> this week, jehane noujaim, the director of "the square." >> jehane noujaim, when was the first time you thought about being a documentary producer? >> i went to college to be a 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, when i left college, i went and worked for "unfiltered." we sent cameras to kids and we would edit their stories. it was the prelude to youtube. i wanted to make my own film, where i collaborated with incredible amenities filmmakers who had been doing this a long time. i've met 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. >> i want to show a trailer of the documentary from 2004, "the control room." before we do this, give us the timeframe of what you are doing. >> i filmed in 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. i would wake up and fox news would be talking about duct taping your doors and in egypt, where my family lives, it was a different story being told about what is happening. i thought, how are people

supposed to communicate 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 creation -- where can i go to be in the center of news creation? you had central command and, 10 minutes away, you had out to zero -- al jazeera. you could be in central command. abc, cnn. >> central command for the u.s. military? >> that is right. >> let's watch this clip and you can explain more. [video clip] >> we know that they have a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again.

>> 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 can tell what they are not showing by choice. >> when a bomb goes off, they grab women and children and pretend it is them. >> they are working their audience. fox plays to american patriotism for the same reason. >> the control 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 empathy for -- josh rushing, he was an incredible character. he is the military guy. he starts talking about the iraqis as human beings and says, it makes me hate war when i see these kind of things. i 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 he 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 these news 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. josh rushing was interviewed on fox news. underneath his face was a huge 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? >> at the end of the story, he got in trouble from the military by speaking out and doing interviews for the film. he took a job with al jazeera. >> still there? >> he's still there, he thought he could bridge the understanding and he is someone i am proud to call a friend. >> what services was 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 with -- i was not a student but, 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 assigned to me. >> you mentioned that having an egyptian father who expected you to be a doctor -- it is mentioned that your father is a syrian-lebonese-egyptian. >> we are immigrants to egypt. my grandmother is syrian. my grandfather is lebanese. i am half egyptian. >> where do your parents live?

>> in cairo. >> how did they meet? >> in boston -- friends had set them up and my mother had broken off an engagement. they said that this was somebody to have fun with and not take seriously. that was my dad. my father is in finance. >> are you an american citizen? >> yes. i am a dual citizen. > dual citizen. how many years did it take before you came to the u.s.? >> 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. i had a year of high school in boston and went to college at harvard.

moved to new york after that to do film. i went back and forth between new york and cairo ever since. >> let's run the trailer. [video clip] >> millions of egyptians came down to the streets in protest. >> this uprising defies definition. people are gathering. they are large demonstrations against mubarak. [speaking egyptian] >> what are we seeing?

>> we met a few of the characters from the film. you met the lead character, who 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. his father and grandfather were

jailed by previous regimes in egypt. he is an incredible person because he 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. we follow these three guys, and 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. these films, you never know if they will be seen anywhere. you want to feel like you are learning something as a filmmaker. you hope that if you are

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 square and all the people -- 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. yet, their commonality is a 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? >> you know, what people are fighting for our basic rights. they are fighting for human rights, you know? a country where you have economic freedoms, personal freedoms, freedom of the press. these -- this was not the country and we lived in. we had been living under emergency law. if more than 4 people gathered and spoke about politics, you can be arrested. living under emergency law, as 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. [video clip]

>> the young 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 was happening, 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. i was making a news piece about him and i fell in love with him. he has a charisma and a joyful and street smarts. he projects a lot of what happens at various points. >> how long did you live in the square? >> our cameras were there over the period of three years. i was there most of the time.

every time there would be a sit-in. >> 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 in. >> you were arrested or detained how many times? >> twice. i was arrested once. my hero was the human rights lawyer you meet in the film. she was awarded the rfk award for human rights in washington. she has someone i have known since kindergarten. she tweeted a picture of me and a person in a police station saw me.

there's an attempt to disappear you. it is a way to get people off the streets. if you worry a family enough times, that is a way to do that. she got me out after two days. >> here is more from the documentary. [video clip]

>> how much of what we see of him was acting on his part? >> when you follow someone for three years, they start ignoring you and don't think about the camera. that interview is the only time 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 been 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. our 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 were speaking and what political

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 born into, your destiny was determined. >> how much warning did you get that you wanted to have a career -- crew and follow this? >> this was built out of the square. i made a film called "egypt, we are watching you." change inghting for

egypt. 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. it was on bbc and international channels. i have been following the protest movement and spoke to the characters in the film. at the end of 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. you could feel the rumbling of things happening. tunisia exploded. people said they would go down in massive numbers on january 25, 2011.

there was no place i wanted to be more. at the same 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. >> which leadership? >> the mubarak leadership-types? >> yes. i thought, if i go, there is a possibility that i can meet the leadership as the country explodes and that would be interesting.

all the middle eastern sessions, i went. nobody showed up. the street exploded in egypt and 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. this time, people went back and i try to get to egypt as quickly as i could. i heard that camera equipment was being confiscated at the airport. most of my camera equipment was and i made it in. 20 minutes after landing, the military came down to the street. they searched the car and found my previous film. it did not have a good title for military intelligence as the country is exploding. they said, come with us, we want to talk with you for a while.

i was taken by people in plain clothes and i did not know who was interrogating me. i 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. i was confident that i had gotten rid of evidence that could have kept me there for longer. five minutes later, the guy cleaning 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 four 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. he looked at me and said, do you 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. we 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. men and women of upper class and 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? >> there were 4 camera people. 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. [video clip]

>> 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. >> that is abdullah. fellow?id you find this >> i met his wife, who became another person shooting the film with us. she gave us incredible access to 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. where -- first of all, you are drafted to be in the army and everybody has to be in the army unless you are an only son. people feel close to the army in egypt. when the army takes control after mubarak steps down, as khalid says, they did not want mubarak's son taking over.

they were not upset about mubarak stepping down. they thought this was stopping the inheritance project. they kept trying to clear people out of the square violently. the protesters that we follow, the people on the forefront of change 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. when we knew we had a story, we 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. he is 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. one of our characters films this and put it online. it is not covered anywhere. foreign media, egyptian media, nowhere. people said that the egyptian army would not do this. people.rushing for

>> here is more of this clip. >> i am not going to go and vote when my friends are being lost in the streets. i know people who have died. i'm not going to go and cast my vote in the circumstances. this is 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. we own the future. people of conscience know what 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. he 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. khalid is an actor and has not had the same troubles. for a lot in the square, there is huge amount of unemployment and still is. >> how many people have died? >> i don't want to give a number. the numbers are drastically different, depending on where you look. thousands. >> how many people injured? >> again, thousands. >> did you come close to being injured? if so, how?

>> i actually feel quite lucky. i was not injured. everybody in our crew came out uninjured. we all met each other in the square. 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. they had to want to be there and the film came out of that. me, personally, it was a difficult situation a lot of times. i was never actually, physically, injured.

>> what did your parents think awayl of this and how far did they live? >> 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 people saw it in egypt. people came down to the square and said, this cannot happen in my name.

my mother called me up and said, there are bodies being dragged across the square. where are you? come home. money?e did you get the >> the film was made on fumes. we got grants from chicken and egg and the sundance institute. small grants. we had to work independently and could not be funded by an arab 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. it was made by personal, family, friends, people donating their time. >> did you use kickstarter at all? >> we did.

that was to finish the film. 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 in. 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 gifts. we are working on getting those gifts out. 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 graffiti artist, who becomes known in the streets of egypt because tear gas canisters fly and he keeps painting. he would paint -- 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. he paints this mural throughout. 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. we frame this. >> there are a whole bunch of names at the end. >> yes. all the supporters are credited. >> here is more from your documentary, "the square." [video clip]

>> how do you keep track of who is on what side? >> in this situation, 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 between morsi 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 change, even if they did not believe in a religious government, which is what the brotherhood stands for. >> can you be in the military 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. we filmed inside of mubarak's prime minister. at that time, 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. >> where is mubarak's son? >> my understanding is that he is in prison. >> is that in cairo? >> yeah. i was driven there when i was arrested. it was 20 minutes outside -- 30 minutes outside of downtown. >> they vote 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. if we try to whitewash the past 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. people need to be accountable and know that their actions will be held accountable. >> your documentary talks about the leader he wants. [video clip]

>> interesting. he asks for a leader and everybody in the square is a leader, 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. we do not have rosa parks or individuals who have changed things. that is important for young people to grow up with. it is important to have a consciousness that you can, as individuals, change things. it involves 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. you cannot elect obama -- it is 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 redefinition of aid and thinking about it as pure the military -- purely military. >> another clip. khalid reflects on what the movement means. [video clip]

>> how many different documentaries could you have made? video? many hours of >> 1600 hrs and many films could have come out of this. we are working on a film about our lawyer who is in prisons, facing the struggles that everyone who went down to that square went to fight, the 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 phone and twitter with all of our characters all of the time. constant contact. if people want to look at what is going on, there are fantastic citizen-journalism sites going on. an organization -- they make short films about what is happening on the ground. >> how do you spell that? mosireen.org. one more piece of video i want to show. this is from the ted talks and you won a big prize.

>> it gives you one way to change the world -- it calls on you to talk to the community, a community of creative and powerful do-gooders. many different types of people. >> did they give you any money? >> they give you $100,000. i spent it on the wish. it was an expensive wish. we basically said, we made a 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. we do not have that with film,

where people exchange on ideas like this. there are 1800 self-organized organizations. >> can you watch this on the web? >> you can. pangeaday.org. >> this is a clip out of that speech that i want to to put in context. [video clip] >> there is working films, 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.

they were sold for $500 million. you were excited about what current tv was doing. now, you have al jazeera america. >> i have not watched it yet. i'm not sure the question. 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. this 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. it is exciting to have fewer ships -- viewerships telling their story. >> how do i keep in touch with the next movement? in?when the next call comes >> 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. >> how many people were the most 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 managed 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. >> you were in the finals for an oscar documentary nomination. waiting to find out if you will be a member of the final five. is that important to you? >> it is the first film i have went on an oscar journey for that i think is usually important. -- crucially important. on a level of recognition that will make it unstoppable. it will be like the world cup. it will be the first time that an egyptian film is nominated. when we were 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 it be available? >> it is on netflix. you can find all the information on thesquarefilm.com. >> our guest has been jehane noujaim. thank you for joining us. >> for a free transcript or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at our website.

>> c-span launched its first c- span schoolbus in 1993, visiting hundreds of schools nationwide and raising awareness on how c- span covers all addicts and government with our public affairs program. today, 20 years later, the c- span bus continues on the road on the campaign trail and visiting book festivals, history events, education conferences, and wools. look for us on the road and online. you can also follow us on twitter. all brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. university students will get a chance to visit the c-span bus and join us mornings live on "washington journal" as we head for the big 12 conference tour. >> next, rich prime minister david cameron answering