NET-MED Youth for UNESCO

Date: 18.11.2017

By Raj Yagnik

In May 2017 I responded to a call for proposals from UNESCO. The challenge was to create films promoting NET-MED Youth – an organisation which encourages and young people in the Southern Mediterranean to volunteer and get involved in civil society. It also supports Youth Organisations in the region – which includes: Algeria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia.

We proposed a mix of animation and documentary footage – to lift what risked being quite a dry subect. The animation could maybe make visible some of the invisible work done.

The deadline was uncomfortably tight and some of the filming locations were very challenging. We were going to have to shoot with local crews in parallel and have a different animator for each film.

My first task was to find producers with links in the countries. Long-time collaborator Youssef Alaoui introduced me to Nada Issa and between them they assembled a team of great local film-makers – including the amazing Mariam Shahin and George Azar – as I assembled an international team of award-winning animators in the UK, Spain, Belgium and Hungary.

Co-ordinating the production and post-production on such a large project is never easy and there were inevitably problems, delays and consequently reshoots in several countries.

The animators and the UNESCO team in Paris were given a first look at the edits (done by Adib Nessim and Youssef Alaoui) and could suggest re-ordering before developing a concept.

We worked with Awywav, Audio Networks and Soundthread on the music for the final films – using local musicians wherever possible. The sound effects and the dub were done by the excellent Ruth Rainey at WeAreAudio.

The final films can be seen here (subtitled in English):

NET-MED Youth Compilation film: