Cal State Long Beach Film and Electronic Arts senior Alexandra Petrus is a first-generation American born from an Iraqi refugee family. She is in the process of directing her senior film on the refugee crisis in the Middle East, called “Mourning Dove.”
Petrus is from Oakland, California and finds a connection to what is happening in the Syrian civil war, drawing her interest into making a film about the current crisis regarding the impact that it has on kids specifically.
Her family lived as refugees in Iraq because of racial and religious persecution. Petrus’ father had a choice to either join Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party or to fight in the Iran-Iraq War. Her father fled before being drafted from Iraq when he was 17 years old in the late ‘70s.
“What people don’t realize is these places hold the oldest cultures and civilizations that we know of, and in a very short amount of time are being destroyed,” Petrus said. “I see what I consider to be a homeland being destroyed and the attitude toward it is that these people are insignificant.”
Petrus hopes to bring awareness of what is going on in these countries and how it affects the people who live there through her film.
“[Mainstream media] prioritize subjects such as the election and pop media over the fact that 400,000 people have died in the countries in the past five years. My duty is to give these people a voice because half of the people that are being killed are children,” Petrus said. “There is an apathy toward the Eastern world from the Western world because have learn to sort of demonize anything east of Europe.”
Currently, Petrus is in pre-production for the film after the script was selected to receive a starter fund by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Now she is fundraising online, and once she finds out how much she has raised, pre-production will be finalized. Filmmakers have just finished casting, and now are currently looking for a location to film.
Once the pre-production is done, rehearsals will begin, the crew will be filled out and then filming will begin. The crew is mostly all female, which is Petrus’ way of responding to the gender gap in the film industry.
“[I wanted] to give women an opportunity to both learn and have roles that they are often discouraged from,” Petrus said.
For casting, Petrus had to go through a professional casting director. It was a difficult process to find the main character in particularly because of the specific needs for her. The main character in the film, Youna, was cast for an Arabic-speaking girl.
“A mourning dove makes the sound of someone who is in mourning. The story is about [Youna] healing and so many girls in mourning of the death of their homeland,” said Petrus.
The whole film will cost about $9,000 to $10,000. To donate for the film, go to indiegogo.com and search for “Mourning Dove Film.” Petrus has currently raised about $3,600 of her $4,000 goal.
The screening of the film will occur at the end of next semester in May with the nine other senior films on campus.