I’ve had this story in my queue for a few days, and see today that anger against the film maker, Norwegian Lars Klevberg and producer John Einar Hagen, has only increased over the last few days. Leading the mob to tar and feather them (Europe’s Jonathan Grubers!) is Human Rights Watch.
Before I get to Klevberg’s apology here is the basic story I meant to post a few days ago. More red meat for all of our readers from Malta. For other readers, I bet you haven’t heard so much about Malta in your lifetimes as you have in recent months here at RRW!
The ends always justify the means for these Leftist ideologues! From the BBC:
Millions of YouTube viewers have been captivated by the ‘Syrian hero boy’ who manages to rescue a little girl while under gunfire. Now a group of Norwegian filmmakers have told BBC Trending they are behind it. They say it was filmed on location in Malta this summer with the intention of being presented as real.
Lars Klevberg, a 34-year-old film director based in Oslo, wrote a script after watching news coverage of the conflict in Syria. He says he deliberately presented the film as reality in order to generate a discussion about children in conflict zones.
“If I could make a film and pretend it was real, people would share it and react with hope,” he said. “We shot it in Malta in May this year on a set that was used for other famous movies like Troy and Gladiator,” Klevberg said. “The little boy and girl are professional actors from Malta. The voices in the background are Syrian refugees living in Malta.“
Were they comfortable making a film that potentially deceived millions of people? “I was not uncomfortable,” Klevberg said. “By publishing a clip that could appear to be authentic we hoped to take advantage of a tool that’s often used in war; make a video that claims to be real. We wanted to see if the film would get attention and spur debate, first and foremost about children and war. We also wanted to see how the media would respond to such a video.”
Now here comes the half-hearted apology and Human Rights Watch‘s anger. From The Local:
The Norwegian filmmakers of ‘Syria Hero Boy’, a short movie that duped millions around the world into thinking it was shocking real-life footage, have apologized, it was reported on Sunday.
Many media commentators reacted angrily to the fact the mock-umentary style reportage belittles real journalism and war coverage. Charity organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, believe their work and intentions now faces unnecessary scrutiny by the negative consequences of the fake movie. [LOL! We always believed they needed scrutiny—ed]
Fred Abrahams of Human Right Watch said: “If their video achieved any short term purposes by directing the attention towards children in war, then it has become overshadowed by undermining people’s trust of professional reporting and consentious fact-based reporting of war crimes.”
The film’s producer John Einar Hagen said to AFP: “We stand by our good intentions, but we are also sorry if this is creating anger and if it makes documentation and reporting from war zones any more difficult.”
The video’s scriptwriter and director, Lars Klevberg, admitted on Saturday he deliberately made the mockumentary to generate debate about children in conflict zones.
See our entire archive on Malta by clicking here. It is of great interest to us since the US State Department has (since the Bush Administration) turned Malta’s mostly Muslim illegal aliens into “refugees” bound for America.