Interview with a vamp of ire...

As a primary character in the upcoming documentary film Generation 9/11 (also known as Children of Abraham), I spent hours in the hot seat being grilled by Academy Award-winning director Nigel Noble about everything from my most intimate childhood memories to my most passionate current views of the "war on terror." The film follows me, as a student of Theology in New York City, through a life-changing series of interactions with young civilians from Iraq and Afghanistan who have been severely affected by the wars in their homelands. As we engage, we exchange our realities and have our beliefs about one another deconstructed. We push together through an intense narrative of dreams deferred and inexplicable chasms of misunderstandings between our nations, propelled by the mutual hope of changing relations between the East and the West, one heart at a time.

In this process, I was daily asked to "spill my blood" per se, and often throughout the film I do just that with fury and force. Let's just say that I really found my voice in the course of making this film. The opportunity for rhetorical "vamping" in the improvisational context of a documentary really evoked the urgency I feel about changing our current foreign policy and pushing the media to re-evaluate its methods of story- and "truth"-telling, as well as my intense indignation over the plight of women and girls around the world. I like to call this the "vamp of ire." Since the film has not yet been released, however, I have been granted permission to share only a snippet of an informal interview about my very personal experiences of empathy, and why I choose to volunteer my time serving lunch to the homeless of New York City. There will be much more to come...

See the movie clip here.