The Shockwave (Inside a Beirut hospital minutes after the explosion)
This is a duPont and emmy award (editing as well as research) winning documentary that presents the heroic struggles of doctors and nurses to save lives in the wake of the August 4th, 2020 explosion at the port of Beirut, along with the stories of the victims they took care of, as well attempts at getting answers from those responsible and show casing the degree of criminal negligence that led to the explosion.
I am credited in the acceptance speech of the producer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic3QJiemkqc&t=3247s
54:10
Role: Initiated the contact with the head of media at Saint George hospital to facilitate access, as well specific doctors.
Managed to get into direct contact with several ministers, the ex-head of the army, and indirect contact with the prime minister at the time, through personal connections, everyone in government was refusing interviews at the time. I also located the house of one of the ministers who was later indicted. Our unsuccessful attempt to interview him is present at 39:10
VICE needed permission from the creators of all the footage from the day of the explosion that was included in the documentary. Most of the footage that was found was from videos that were circulated online and so I would track down the actual creator of the video, in order to get their approval. I would sometimes have to go through several degrees of separation to find the original creator through my own contacts, or finding the person’s social media account, or accounts of his/her friends if he is not active, in order to put me in contact with them so that I can request their approval.
Characters we did interview that I gained access to:
Paul Naggar, father of the 3-year-old victim Alexandra. Was able to get access to him through personal contacts, otherwise the interview would have been impossible.
Riad Kobeissi, local investigative journalist who had been investigation corruption at the port for years, and later uncovered the degree of government and army negligence that allowed the explosion to happen.
Nizar Saghieh, Executive Director of Legal Agenda
There were also several characters that I found who were interviewed, but later edited out of the video.
Additionally, I was the driver and provided context for the reporter to aid her with the reporting.
