hello, everyone. welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. >> mr. president! >> as president trump conjures up enemies at home and abroad, we get warnings from the award winning presidential historian michael beschloss about past presidents at war. then, how can the media win back people's trust in this age of fake news? alan rushbridger, former editor of britain's ground-breaking guardian joins me with his new book "breaking news." last, the lebanese film maker who forged her craft in the fire of the civil war, golden globe nominee nadine lebachi talks

about her latest work "casting refugees. >> uni world is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & company." synonymous with style. when she acquired uni world, a boutique cruise line inspired by her castle she brought a similar style to the rivers with a destination-inspired design for each ship. bookings available through your travel advisor. for more information visit uniworld.com. >> additional support has been provided by -- bernard and arna schwartz, the cheryl and philip millstein family, seton melvin, judy and josh weston and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. welcome to the program,

everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in london. president trump is in a fighting mood and the main focus of his ire is the work of one robert mueller, the man whose investigation into russian influence into the 2016 election has seen five former trump advisors indicted to date including the former national security adviser general michael flynn who was back in court for a sentencing hearing today for lying to the fbi. the judge told him he had arguably sold his country out. at the last minute that sentencing was delayed after requests from flynn's attorney. as the mueller investigation unfolds, mr. trump has also been taking aim at china, suggesting the united states could use the arrest of a top executive from chinese tech giant wawei as a bargaining chip in trade talks, upping the ante which has helped erase the u.s. stock market gains for 2018. these are just the latest in a

presidency that's gone round after round with real and conjured enemies since inauguration day. joining us now, the award winning historian michael beschloss. his latest book is "presidents of war." he's joining me from washington to dig down into this robust bouts that keep going on coming from the white house. michael, welcome to the program. >> thank you. bouts they are. >> put in historical context what's going on now in the sentencing hearing and what this means, in fact, to president trump, the administration, and as we said his sort of predisposed nature to really, you know, go round after round. >> yeah, that's for sure. you know, go back as you were saying to the summer of 2016 in the middle of the trump campaign. who was closest to him? his personal lawyer michael

cohen, his campaign manager paul manafort, and his foreign policy adviser who was introducing him at all sorts of campaign events, both at the convention about hillary clinton saying lock her up, michael flynn who is the chief news of this day. now the three of these people are in big trouble. the earlier two sentenced. the last one in big criminal trouble with his sentencing to be determined today or later on. from donald trump's point of view you're right, this is a guy who uses the metaphors of war. you remember he was talking not long ago, just after 2018 midterm election and he was saying the democrats in the house go after me, i will be in a war-like posture. this is the way he's sort of run his career. that's a real worry if he makes that concrete because one thing we have seen in the history of

the presidency is that at times presidents who have big domestic trouble are tempted to get involved in unnecessary wars to distract the public and regain popularity. >> that is really an alarming thing to recall and one we'll dig into in a moment. first i want to ask you about the specific nature of the judge and what he said to michael flynn. i want to read you what came out in the earlier hours of the sentencing hearing. remarkable exchange between flynn and judge emmett sullivan. this is the judge. all along you were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser to the president of the united states. arguab arguably, you sold your country out. he goes on to say i am not hiding my disgust, my disdain. flynn replied, yes, your honor. is there a parallel in american history for that kind of back and forth between a judge and

what was a sitting national security adviser accused of, you know, going over to the russian side, so to speak? >> not really. can you imagine that? we have never seen something like this. manafort and cohen were not national security adviser to the president with access to all national secrets under suspicion now of having advanced a secret relationship with a hostile power, russia, between russia and possibly president trump. that's something we haven't seen before. if you are looking for the nearest historical parallel, go back to iran-contra under reagan. there were two national security advisers, you remember the names, john poindexter and robert mac far land, both convicted of lying to congress and withholding information from congress. one was pardoned by president george h.w. bush. the other had his sentence reversed. even those things, as bad as they were, you know, they were

not under the rubric of a question that we were still trying to find the final answer to which is, is there an illicit relationship between the sitting president of the united states, donald trump, and the leader of a hostile foreign power, russia. that's a question we have never asked about any president before, ever in our history. >> in the context of what we are talking about and given that you have written the book "presidents at war," the fact that it is so wrong to be in cahoots with russia is because russia is not after a hot war with the united states, but after destroying or trying to subvert american and western democracy and all the liberal institutions that go with our free world. is that correct? >> just as it was during the 45 years of the cold war. the current russia is not the soviet union, but the leader of the current russia, as you know, has said he thinks the collapse of the soviet union was the

worst geopolitical development of a long time and he would like to reverse it. >> so president trump is not involved in a hot war at the moment. unlike -- well, a little bit. he's got troops in syria. they were fighting isis. >> right. >> in general they are wars he's inherited whether it was in afghanistan, iraq and syria. there are other so-called wars. he called it trade wars, tariff wars going on not just with an adversary china but with allies such as the e.u. that's going on. the war with the media. generally the cultural war that's going on. put that in context with the historical presidents who you profile in your book. in terms of the actual wars they went for. >> well, the problem here is that donald trump almost likes to go to war as he breathes. by war i'm talking about things like trade wars or when he was a real estate mogul, wars with

other moguls. this is someone who likes conflict, not everyone in life does. the problem here is we've got a history in the united states of presidents getting us into wars for selfish reasons, for reasons that were not necessary. james polk against the mexicans, mckinley against the spanish claiming they sunk a ship, the main, which they did not. lyndon johnson claiming there was an unprovoked attack on an american ship which there was not. led to the nine years of vietnam war. the problem is nowadays a president can get us involved in a major war almost single handedly, almost overnight especially because congress is so complacent. the reason why that keeps me awake at night with donald trump is this is someone who said two mber one, he notices that the great presidents in history have generally been those involved in major wars. not a great idea for a president

to be linking in his mind becoming more popular with historians later on and getting involved in a major war. the other thing is he tweeted more than once in 2011 and later predicting that barack obama would get us involved in a war in order to get re-elected. >> okay. >> this is someone who is conscious of the political advantages of getting into a war. i hope as he gets more deeply into the personal crisis of what mueller finds, i will be basically sleeping with one eye open, very vigilant and nervous about the possibility that he may see this -- be tempted to see this as a way out. i'm not predicting it. just saying it's a worry. >> right. to be honest with you, some people have posited that this administration may deliberately or bumble into a war with iran. given what's going on with the middle east, the alignment of

power between the u.s.-backed saudi regional rivalry with iran given members of the president's administration talk about or would like to see a regime change. there's been a lot of worry around the idea of a potential third disastrous middle eastern war. let me go back to what you said. we have the tweet you mentioned. it was in october of 2012 when donald trump basically said polls are starting to look really bad for obama. looks like he'll have to start a war or major conflict to win. don't put it past him. well, what happened after that? did president obama -- i mean, he didn't intervene in syria. there wasn't any sort of relaunch. but there was the u.s. ramping up almost to war-time levels the war against isis in 2014 in iraq. just put that into context of the tweet. >> sure but hard to make the argument that it was done to

increase his poll ratings or win the 2014 midterms if that was his strategy, it didn't work because the democrats didn't do very well. what i'm worried about is that a selfish and craven and if necessary unpatriotic president will look at a couple of other things. george h.w. bush whose poll numbers had been not that impressive before he went to war in 1991 wins the gulf war and comes out of it with a poll rating of 91%. or george w. bush after 9/11 at the time we are beginning to move toward wars in iraq and afghanistan has similar high poll ratings. i'm just worried that a president will be tempted by that as a hypodermic way of getting himself out of a crisis. people worried about that with richard nixon as well. >> i wanted to get a few stories of the past. president trump has a 39%

approval rating. the stock market has erased all the gains as we said for the year. it possibly is on track as the worst december since the great depression. given your worries, just go back and lay out for our viewers going back to the spanish war -- the spanish-american war, et cetera, some of the deliberate -- i guess misconstruing of the facts on the ground at the time. >> there is this history with the case of james polk. i'm sorry to go really prehistoric. he wanted to add a million square miles of mexican territory to the u.s. he provoked a border skirmish in texas, got a big war that did that, lied to congress and did that for slavery also by the way. lbj did the same thing while he was running for election against barry goldwater. he got this gulf of tonkin

resolution out of congress on which he and nixon waged the vietnam war for nine years based on a nonexistent incident. i'm worried that a president may not necessarily know the history but know if you have problems people unite in a war-like crisis. people around nixon were worried in the last days of watergate he would do this. his defense secretary gave an order in case nixon issued an order certainly nuclear weapons, but even to do something like deploy the 101st airborne, any order like that had to be counter-signed by the secretary of defense to make sure it didn't happen. as it turned out, nixon did not do that. >> i want to ask you about basically you call it a broken system or the system seems broken. because the founding fathers laid out specific ways in which,

you know, a president couldn't just go to war. to guard against using -- well, to use going to war as a boost to their own domestic popular y popularity. >> that's exactly what they worried about. >> so -- >> i'm sorry. please go ahead. >> they worried about it, but why isn't it working then? how come they managed to go to war? >> yeah. because congress has become too lap dog. the last time congress declared war as the constitution requires congress to do -- not presidents but congress -- 1942. have we had wars since then, major? we have had one or two. the problem is congress doesn't assert itself. modern presidents sort of weasel their way into it by saying, i'll ask congress for a resolution to use force. that's what was done for the major wars all the way back to vietnam the last number of decades. the problem with that christiane is members of congress will vote

for the resolution. the war then occurs, doesn't work well. these people voted for the resolution say, well, i had no idea that was for war. i was just voting to authorize the president to use force. the whole idea of the constitution was if there is something important enough to go to war, you know, get congress in on the beginning so the war becomes unpopular. congress remains at the president's side because they had co-signed. >> so i was fascinated actually. i'm always fascinated by the human toll and the human story behind these elected officials. you describe a series of presidents who you are mentioning in this regard who really became ill. it affected their physical and mental health. give us a few examples. it is remarkable. >> every singlene of these presidents i write about which is eight or nine who waged major wars back to james madison either have a big physical breakdown or emotional

breakdown, almost without exception. lincoln suffered from depression. woodrow wilson had a stroke. lyndon johnson, i listened to the tapes he made of his private conversations. he got weirdly paranoid and furious in the last years of the vietnam war. he was almost hallucinating saying on these secret tapes did you know bobby kennedy and martin luther king are paying rit rioters to embarrass me? and the soviets and china is paying college students to demonstrate against me in vietnam. when you are thinking about a president possibly going to war and particularly if we are talking about the current president donald trump, not everyone thinks he is the most well adjusted person on earth. remember that in wartime that's only the beginning. it gets worse. >> let's just quickly ask you what you think will be the reaction to a series of cascading events.

what happens after the sentencing of michael flynn and, you know, continuing pressures with the mueller investigation. what if the economy goes south and poll ratings go worse. some are predicting, as i said, december potentially could be the worst since the great depression. what about these very real issues. what kind of impact do you think they might have as a resident of the oval office. >> trump is likely to have a bad year coming up. i just pray i do not predict. i hope that he does not listen to people around whom who may say the way out of your problems may be to escalate or involve ourselves in a war that's not going on now that may not be absolutely necessary. we have a tragic history of that that goes all the way through much of the last two centuries. we sure do not want to live through that ever again. especially with nuclear weapons. >> well, yes.

it's interesting. you ended your book before the iraq war. arguably, the war that's had a cascading effect that you could almost draw a straight line from the iraq war to the populous policies and dissatisfaction of ordinary people around western dome democracies today. you don't mention it in your book. >> as an historian you need 30 or 40 years to really understand something in history. we don't yet know. we can't get access to the documents that george w. bush saw. plus we don't have the hindsight we'll have in 30, 40 years. i will cite one fact which is that in the 2004 election there was a poll of americans, was saddam hussein behind 9/11 and an amazing number said yes, 40. you remember well in situations like this we have to rely on president to bring sanity and

balance and rationality. i hope we can do it this time. >> a lot of people said great leaders listen to their friends, allies. people who really care about them who are on side. but yet can offer constructive criticism and commentary. you quote benjamin franklin saying critics are our friends. they show us our faults. that's not in vogue anywhere we can see today. how much of a problem is that in context of what we are discussing now? >> well, i think if we are talking about donald trump, sadly i don't think he would say my critics are my friend. he's the one who says my critics are enemy of the people. that shows how opposite he is from benjamin franklin. leaders in history, the great ones, every single one learns from history. harry truman said he had no idea how anyone could aspire to be president of the united states and make tough decisions without knowing american history.

>> michael beschloss, thank you so much for that perspective. and we turn now, having talked about enemies of the people, few have been more consistently targeted by president trump than the press. this year the american media has seen itself literally under attack according to reporters without borders the u.s. became one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists after five journalists at the maryland capital gazette were killed in their newsroom in june. while trust in main stream media is recovering after an all-time low in 2016 it is still under threat. something my next guest knows all too well. he was at the helm of britain these guardian newspaper for 20 years. he helped break some of the biggest stories of time. at the end of the tenure he wrote, news, the thing that helped people understand their world. that oiled the wheels of society, that pollinated

communities, kept the powerful honest. news was broken. his new book, "breaking news," the making of journalism and why it matters now is out. welcome, alan. >> good to be here. >> couldn't come at a more opportune time given the conversation we have had with historian michael beschloss. let me start by asking you in context of the administration, the president which has called us the enemies of the people. did you ever in your wildest imagination dream that the united states would be among the most dangerous places in the world? literally that five journalists were killed in their own newsroom in the united states of america this year. >> it's a catastrophe for america. the ripples around the rest of the world and the way dictators are taking the trump rule book and are playing this in their countries is terrible.

it's a worrying time. >> i will get to that in a second. it's now very huge. something like 251 journalists all over the world are in prison as well. one of the other things i mentioned leading into you was there have been tentative small baby steps towards the main stream media regaining credibility. a new gallup study shows efforts to bring transparency, the whole journalism activism that's risen maybe in response to the elections of 2016 around the world, you know, 45% of americans have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media to fully, accurately and fairly represent. that's a recovery from the all-time low of 32% in 2016. does that encourage you? >> i think good journalism is going to be okay. the sense in which the best of

journalism is all we had. we don't know about the supreme court, but the best journalists hold the administration to account and are our friends, not our enemies. it was very powerful. the trouble is so many journalism organizations have been hollowed out, last sense of their mission or are on a mission to profitability not producing good journalism. i don't think the public admires that or wants it. they certainly won't pay for it. >> here we come almost to the crux of the issue. one of them. that's the whole payment scheme, if you like. the economic mo dedel which has been obliviated causing so much problem. how did we get there? "breaking news" does talk about that to an extent. how do we get to this moment and how does one move out of the

real economic constrictions of journalism? >> we had three revolutions in one. a technology revolution, economic revolution and editorial revolution. they are all related. the technology one we know that what was scarce is now completely abundant. 4 billion people can talk to each other on the internet. they no longer feel they need a tablet of stone handed down from people who have printing presses. that's led to them disgusting the people with the printing presses and them feeling they can do with enough social media. we shouldn't dismiss it. a lot of social media is really fantastic. to be frank, a lot of journalism isn't good enough. we have to try to plot our way through. there will be a variety of models that we'll see into the future. >> one thing i found fascinating is the idea you talk about.

it's philanthropy. when you were still editor of "the guardian" you created this sort of system of donations. i don't know what else to call it, from loyal readers to keep the product and the newspaper. the guardian still doesn't charge for online content. tell me about that. has it worked? >> seems to be working. now a million people who are paying because they admire the journalism. in america that's nearly half the revenues the organization is getting. there are two models. one is to say news is a private good and i want to pay for it to read it myself, but not for others to read it. that was the moment we waited 250 years. the other is to say news is so important in a society in a world which is flooded with false news and fakery that i want to pay for it to be

available to everybody. it's amazing that guardian readers were able or willing to put their hands in their pockets and go for the latter model. >> it is amazing. it does give people a lot of hope. i wonder whether you think it can be repreplicated. the guardian achieved cult status. in america it's read online. you have branched into america in recent years. you haven't always been such a big deal in the united states. how much does that partnership bolster the reputation and the knock-on effect for people to want to pay for content? >> the opportunity for digital is enormous. if gua the guardian used to be 300,000 in the uk. now it's 160 million broaround world. . it's a huge increase. my guess is a lot of people realize their lives are

international. that your security, my security, the environment, the economy, immigration, all the stories are international stories and have to be reported internationally. that's the nature of the opportunity for people who want to be ambitious and take hold of the opportunity. >> you think it's that people feel connected to the rest of the world and want that or is it that, you know, they're recognizing they need to go somewhere in some proven context for truth, for fact, for evidence, the real investigative work. frankly for a long time for many of the last few years a lot of the huge stories have been broken by the guardian whether it's snowden, wikileaks with assange at the time. the newspaper hacking, all the rest of it. it's also the quality of what's on offer. >> it is. this is a difficult thing for some to understand. nick davis, our reporter, did about seven years work on phone

hacking. there is no traditional system of economics that makes sense for that to work. >> how many years of work? >> seven. >> that's a lot. >> a lot. >> you allowed that? >> i positively encouraged it. the ed toward snowden had 30 people working on it for six months. those are batty things to do for accountants. i worked for a newspaper that saw if you do it, it builds the reputation of the guardian. it ends with a million people putting their hands in their pockets. that's referred to as churnalism. >> the churn out. >> a lot of people recycling press releases. >> let's dig down. we talk about phone hacking for viewers who may not still very familiar with that. tell us what it was about and -- we know rupert murdock and his media empire own so much of the real estate and political sphere

that you have said, you know, people were afraid to challenge them. you went against murdoch newspapers in this phone hacking crisis. >> people were absolutely afraid of the organization. he owned 40% of the british press. politicians, other newspapers, even the police were afraid of murdoch. so when it turned out that at board room level his company approved enormous pay outs to people in order to cover up evidence of criminality in his company, something that if that was happening in a bank or oil company or car company we wouldn't think twice about exposing. i felt we had no option but to look at the story. it ended with people going to jail and the news of the world that will be doing most of the phone hacking closing. >> what happened to those people? some of them -- rebecca wade for instance -- is back at the helm of news international.

you know, it was really public. there were hearings. you thought, whoa, now honesty will take hold in the press at large. they can't get away with these things anymore. did that happen? >> i don't think -- i would be amazed if anybody was still engaged in criminal behavior in newsrooms. it cleaned up fleet street to that extent. at the mirror there was an enormous amount of phone hacking as well. i think it stopped. what you learn is the murdoch organization is a particular kind of organization. imagine if somebody who had been disgraced in a scandal went back to run a bank or oil company. it just couldn't happen at a public company. if you're rupert murdoch you own the company and you can do what you like. >> let's put it in the basket of cleaning up our own house. cleaning up some of the media foibles and mistakes. then there is cleaning up government excesses.

this is where snowden comes in. edward snowden revealed the extene extent. we know the issue generally. when you had to stand up and fight for the right to keep printing this and to keep your sources and all the rest, you came across officials of government who really wanted to close it down. intelligence officials right here in great britain. >> yeah. it's the difference between the national interest and what the government dictates to be the interest of the day. what we have understood what your previous guest that what richard nixon thought was the interest of the day might have been different from what the "new york times" thought, the pentagon papers. sometimes newspapers had to take their own judgment. my judgment was snowden was saying you can be like china where there is no firewall between social media and the big tech companies and the government. the government has a right to

look at all aspects of your life. or you can be like what we thought america should be. we have a choice. but it's right that people should know what's going on. >> except that you did it and it all came out. british intelligence came to the guardian offices in london, right? >> right. unlike in america as a result of the pentagon papers it is inconceivable that even donald trump would walk into the "new york times" and try to stop publications in advance. in britain we have no such laws. the government said either we smash your computers and you stop or we'll go stop you. >> we have pictures of that. it was a remarkable instance. what did they do? they came with hammers and tongs? what did they do? >> we thought it would be unseemly to have the government destroy our computers so we destroyed our computers. it turns out to be harder to

destroy a computer than you might think. the point was we already got our files to the "new york times" and published under the protection of the first amendment. >> they knew that? >> i told them in advance. it felt like a piece of kabuki theater that they wanted to be seen to be doing something even if it wasn't going to. >> it's interesting. in years gone by, newspapers, media organizations would be jealously guarding their scoops. in several of the big ones you have launched and subsequently the panama papers, et cetera. they have been collaborative efforts. why? i see now why it protected you. it could give the actual information and store it in the united states. it would be safe there. >> there is no point in publishing a story unless you can defend it. sometimes you need the law to do that and the first amendment is a very good shield. sometimes you just need sheer numbers in the times where media

organizations are a bit weakened. it helps to have two of you, ten of you or what the panama papers, whatever it was, 130 of you. then you're a bigger target and you can't be picked off. i think, again, this is one of the encouraging things about the current media scene. >> going back to snowden, there was a public inquiry. you had to answer questions. this idea of the enemies of the people, it didn't just start with donald trump. it's really been going gang busters for a long time. many in authority, if you don't walk the walk or toe the line, they question your patriotism, your rights as a citizen. you were asked to testify. the committee chair, you said, had not been going for long when he lobbed what felt like a fizzing grenade in my direction. you and i were both born outside this country. you were born in africa.

i love this country. do you love this country? for a split second you write, i was speechless. i recovered to say my patriotism was rooted in the idea of a britain that allowed a free press that could report on such matters. discu discuss. much of the press, particularly since 9/11, has been sort of intimidated by raising questions of whether they are terrorist-loving unpatriotic scum. >> it's a astonishing to me that you can't be a journalist holding your own country to account and scrutinizing its national security arrangements and not be a patriot. this is a dangerous thought. it's always been there for 300 years. people have been willing to try and attack journalists for being disloyal or a danger to society. but this is what's so insidious about the trump attack to

repeatedly try to delegitimize proper journalists and make them out to be the enemy. it's very dangerous. >> do you think journalists which has had a resurgence of life in the post trump age, do you sometimes worry like bob woodward said he thought journalists were too overemotional, too vested in trump the person. that could cause overly emotional coverage. >> i think it's there. you have to keep your cool. you have to remember what the craft is. the craft is about verification and putting facts in front of people. you can't operate the society without facts. we should stick to our washing and just stick to what we know. i think people would realize you can't have a society without facts. >> precisely. which leads me to where you think the press is failing people and society and the existence of our plan.

you have said clearly on climate the press is failing. the main stream media is failing the public on climate. it's really rising as a major issue, especially for young voters and young people now. they brought australia to a close a few weeks ago demonstrating against a lack of environmental policies. we have seen it in france, in politics, in germany. greens are rising. >> it's the biggest story of our times. this is a threat to our species. there is no story bigger than that. it's an urgent story but you don't see it on the front pages. even when you do it's often dripped in skepticism about the evidence. that's a failure of journalism. the reason why it is so dangerous, you have seen on the streets of paris, political leaders will have to do uncomfortable things. if the population had not been in any way prepared for the story or worse had been told to disbelieve it, that's the kind

of disaster for democracy and the species. so i think journalism has to take the story more seriously. >> what do you feel right now? i mean, do you feel optimistic, the press has regained its rightful place, its footing? look, we saw this year you saw words have consequences. cnn and other organizations and individuals were targeted by these pipe bombs. you know, there was a lot of pointing fingers at the words that have come out of the administration. of course as you said, the words, the action is reproduced and permitted then around the world. >> i do feel optimistic for good journalism. the journalism that counts, that was in the public interest that serves as a public service. i think people recognize that's necessary and they will support it. >> on that note, we certainly agree on that. thank you so much.

breaking news. just as we rely on journalists to bear witness we often rely on film makers to bring important stories to life. a new film does just that. it tells the story of zane, a 12-year-old street kid in beirut who is trying to sue his parents for having him. the actor is a syrian refugee and he's one of several nonactors featured in the cast. they all deliver astonishing performances. this month it secured a golden globe nomination for best foreign language film. we sat down to discuss it. >> first, what's this all about? >> in brief, the film is about a boy who sues his parents for giving him life, for bringing him into this world that's not giving him a chance to survive or tools to survive.

symbolically, he doesn't have papers. he's a nonexistent child, a child that's almost invisible that we don't see. >> he's almost representing not just a forgotten individual but a lost generation of kids. we have seen in this migration out of syria and the global migration that's happening what happens to the kids. there is no school, no prospect of a job. >> they don't have the right to anything unfortunately. yes, since the moment they are born in a way since the moment zero they don't have the right to anything. most of the time unfortunately it costs money to register a child. it starts from there. the story takes place in lebanon. this is what i know. this is where i live. this is where i can tell my story. this is something i know well. this is not only happening in

lebanon. it is happening in almost every big city of the world. the title means chaos. means chaos and miracles at the same time. this is the story of any big city of the world now. >> you were able to get into parts of the city that if i was a tourist, i'm never going to see. >> yes. >> how did you get the buy-in from the neighborhood, from the street. a lot of times people in dire straights say i don't want you to show this side of the city or country. >> it wasn't a choice for me. it was a duty at some point. it was my duty to show it. this is a problem that's becoming almost part of our daily lives. the sight of children on the streets, children begging, children working, selling gum, carrying heavy loads. children who are deprived from their most basic rights.

the children are paying the highest price for our thoughts and conflicts and our wars and stupid decisions, stupid governments and failing systems. so i thought it was my duty in a way to talk about it. i was collaborating in this crime if i was going to be silent. i started researching and going to those places. you imagine this kid's life and family. you don't know the behind the scenes, really. where does this kid go when he d disappears around the corner and you don't see him anymore. what is his everyday struggle? what's he feeling toward this injustice he's living? it started like that, wanting to know more, going to those places, meeting children. talking to children. talking to the parents because i needed to understand also the point of view of the parents. then talking to lawyers, to

judges, trying to understand the point of view of justice. going to courts, trying to understand where is the failure of the system? >> let's look at one of several clips you have from the courtroom scene. >>

>> tell me about zane, the actor who plays him. it's a remarkable performance by this young man. >> he's an american boy, truly american. zane is a syrian refugee living in lebanon in very difficult circumstances for the best eight years through the war in syria with his family.

he was living in one of those very difficult neighborhoods. the situation was even more difficult than what you see in the film. the only difference is from the film zane has loving parents. they knew how to love him. zane never went to school. at the moment where we were shooting the film he was 12. he didn't even know how to write his own name. >> he's quite smart. >> very smart. >> very smart because zane learned at the school of life and the streets. this is where he learned everything. this is where he had to be an adult to survive. he had to struggle every day to exist. when you see those kids fighting. when you see those kids struggling with life, they are not kids anymore. you understand it when you hear him talk, when you hear his foul language, his body language. zane is much smaller than his

age because of malnutrition. he's 12 but you would think he was 8 or 9 maximum when you look at him. you know, he has these sad eyes that show -- that explain to you everything he's been through. it shows that the eyes have been witness to a lot of things, abuse, mistreatment. he's seen other kids mistreated and abused. he's seen his neighbors getting married at 11 or 12 years old. sold. i will say getting married but they are sold under the excuse of marriage. he knows everything he's talking about in the film. he is those kids. he knew, he understood he was in a mission. he was becoming the voice of those voiceless kids he was representing. >> mm-hmm. >> this gave him also a lot of strength. we were collaborating in a way. we felt like a team.

he was part of that mission. >> is this why you chose the cast you did? you were casting as you were shooting the film. these are not professionals. there was not a casting agency or an audition that went out. >> yes. the casting department was amazing. they would go everywhere in lebanon. go to the most dangerous and unfortunate places, interview kids, parents. zane was found in the streets playing in his neighborhood. the casting director saw him and interviewed him. as soon as i saw the interview it was obvious two minutes into the interview i had found him. >> you're telling me basically the real life experiences started informing your script. >> yes. >> what they have already lived through added a layer of authenticity. >> all the time. >> to what you were trying to document. >> absolutely, all the time. of course we had a very solid script to start with. it's impossible to improvise if you don't know your material very well.

so that's -- our script was our solid base. it was our starting point and our landing point every time, in every scene. but in the meantime we are open to whatever life is going to give us also and to whatever the actors have to say, give, add. i felt that i don't have the right to impose anything on them or any reality or anything i had imagined when i was researching i knew i have to draw in whatever i was seeing. that reality. in a way, trance pose it in the script. i don't have the right to imagine that story. i have to be the vehicle for them to express themselves, for them to tell me their real story. it was a collaborating process the whole time. >> another character in the film that was quite a good performance is rahil. >> she ended up in lebanon in

very difficult circumstances. she lost her parents at a very young age. she was an orphan when she was very, very young. she had to take care of her siblings. she had a difficult life. she ended up in lebanon at one point. in lebanon also under the sponsorship system, the situation is very difficult. it's almost like modern slavery in a way. she had no papers. she was living illegally because she wasn't obviously happy and how with the employer she was working with. >> working as a maid. >> yes. most are domestic workers in houses. she was not happy. so she left. she was a runaway in a way. she was living illegally in lebanon. when the casting director saw her also and interviewed her in

the beginning it was difficult. she was scared of who are the people interviewing me while i am in an illegal situation. it took time to build this trust relationship and, you know, she's magic when you see her in the film. she's magic because she's been through very difficult circumstances. she knows everything she's talking about in the film. she knows that suffering. she's been there. you don't need to explain it. you don't need to act it in a way. she is that person. >> there is a certain universality in the importance of papers, of identity. you can talk about it to a character that's a refugee from

syria or the undocumented living in the united states every day. >> that was a very important theme in the film. if you analyze it almost each one of the characters has the same problem for a different reason. i wanted really to talk about the absurdity of having to have a paper to prove that you exist where you are here. your own flesh and blood, you do exist. you have to have this piece of paper. if you don't, you don't have the right to anything. >> there is no sugar-coating this film. it is a hard film to watch. that's the point. is there anything we can hope for because you get out of this film -- >> thinking it's -- >> pretty bleak. >> yeah. >> not that you should make people feel good if it's not the

truth. >> i think -- you know that smile at the end of the film? the fact that zane looks at you this only time for the first time looks at you as a viewer in the eyes, it's a way of engaging with you and saying, you know, i'm here. i exist. look at me. stop being oblivious. we are not talking about hundreds of kids or thousands of kids. we are talking about millions of kids across the world. they say there are 280 million children across the world in those situations. children working to feed their families. children deprived from schools. children hungry. this is what the look at the end of the film means. we have to look at those children and we have to acknowledge the problem. otherwise, we are on the verge of a big catastrophe. it's going to explode in our faces. these kids are very angry and

one day they are going to grow up. >> as fallout from syria, jordan, lebanon, the neighboring countries are picking up the brunt of the weight and their economies can't handle it. >> it's unimaginable to think only ten countries in the world have almost 60% of the burden of this crisis, of the syrian refugee crisis. in lebanon, one in six people is a syrian refugee. in jordan, one in 14. in turkey, there is 3.5 million refugees. it's really the neighboring countries and unfortunately they are in their own economical crisis. each one of those countries is struggling with their own economical situation. in lebanon, ever since we were kids in school, the teacher used to tell us, you know, you see

that invisible dot on the map. this is lebanon. this is your country. this invisible dot on the map is actually hosting in proportion with the population the highest number of refugees in the world. it's almost half the population. >> hmm. >> this cannot be the burden of one, two or three countries. this is a shared responsibility. >> thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> a film with a really important message for the very important we live in. good luck to that film at the golden globes next year. that's it for the program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour & company" on pbs. join us again tomorrow night. >> uniworld is a proud sponsor

of "amanpour & company". synonymous with style. when she acquired uni world, a boutique cruise line inspired by her castle she brought a similar style to the rivers with a destination-inspired design for each ship. bookings available through your travel advisor. for more information visit uniworld.com. >> additional support has been provided by -- bernard and arna schwartz, sue and edgar walkenhiem the third, the cheryl and philip millstein family, seton melvin, judy and josh weston and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with sue herera and bill griffeth. s it more likely the economy will grow in way calling for two interest rate increases over the course of next year. >> fed up. the central bank hikes interest rates and lowers the forecast for fewer increases but that did not aleave investor angst. the stocks sink to a new low and so does the transportation index. pfizer and smith klein create the world's largest seller of over-the-counter medicines. that story and more tonight on wednesday, december 19t