Peace by Peace

Lisa Hepner, 33, made her directorial debut with Peace By Peace: Women on the Frontlines. Narrated by actress Jessica Lange, the film features Hutu and Tutsi women in Burundi, 9/11 widows, and a variety of experts on peacekeeping, including author Isabelle Allende and the executive director of UNIFEM. It recently premiered before the United Nations and will air on PBS on June 11 (check here for upcoming screenings.). Below is a conversation with the director.

How did Peace By Peace come into being?

Our executive producer Patricia Smith Melton basically funded the documentary. Patricia is a retired woman in her early 60s in Virginia. She woke up on Sept. 19th, eight days after Sept. 11 and said, "You know, I've got to do something. The world is coming to an end, I have the means and I really think that women are the key to healing after Sept. 11." She got together this private three-day dialogue in Vienna where she lived and invited prominent female human rights activists including many who appeared in the film. Patricia asked these women: What is peace and can women achieve it?

How did you choose the women and countries to visit?

We decided to go to Bosnia, Burundi, Afghanistan, Argentina and the US. Some of the countries were dictated by the original women in the dialogue circle. For example, Susan Collin Marks who heads Search for Common Ground, the largest NGO for peace and conflict resolution in the world, suggested Burundi. Search for Common Ground started a peace radio station there. Hutu and Tutsi journalists work side by side challenging the government radio stations by talking to Hutu rebels as well as Tutsi government officials. Afghanistan was Fatima Gailani, because she was one of the seven women drafting the new Afghan constitution. It was her second time back after being in exile for 21 years. When we got there we shot this underground teacher under the Taliban who is now teaching women and girls how to read and write. As soon as we arrived in each country, I would figure out what the stories were. How do we encapsulate this woman's life and her passion and her theme about peace that has manifested?

How do you?

Well, we talked to them a lot. We tried to figure out what are they passionate about, what makes them tick. What can I show on camera that will accurately represent them, their family and their work. We traveled up to Angozi outside of Burundi to a solidarity day where Hutu and Tutsi women spent the day listening to each other's stories of what happened to them during the war. There was singing and dancing and tears. It was incredible. These are people who have seen their husbands have their arms chopped off by machetes in front of them, seen their sisters raped and then killed by their neighbors. The atrocities are so huge, they're hard to fathom. It's very dangerous. These women went against the wishes of their husbands to come to this meeting.

Did you ever feel unwelcome?

In Afghanistan we had trouble shooting in some of the classrooms. We went to Paghman, just outside of Kabul, heavily shelled by the Russians, and school was just beginning again for girls. It was Sept. 2002. In the first classroom the women did not want us to film because they were afraid of what the village elders would do to them. And of course there is no way I would ever endanger their progress. But then we went to the next classroom and held our breath and they capitulated.

Did you ever feel in danger?

When we left Burundi in Feb. 2003, violence broke out two months later, very near where we had been staying. Truly scary. Of course we felt useless now that we were safely back in the US. When we were in Kabul, there was a car bombing very near where we had been scouting a bank location. An assassination attempt on Karzai that same day in Kandahar didn't make us feel much safer.