Expedition By Camel. Yemen. 2011. Eva was one and half years old, Pam was working on her academic final and I was finally carrying a camera again, after 5 years of doing no documentaries at all. I needed to something good. We ended up staying at Sabri Saleems house and it was the best of places, since we also ended up in the middle of another war, this time between three groups, the Al Ahmar Family, General Mohsen and the sitting president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Quite immediately we ended up in mortar fire, but we had told Eva, that all the shootings going on day and night, where Birthday celebrations, so when the big mortar fire started, apperently from the son of Saleh, Ali, she was the only one laughing.
Read more here at https://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2012/01/20/expedition-yemen-by-camel-kidnapped/
Sanaa. Yemen. 2011. Living in a war zone like in the capital of Sanaa, well, it doesn´t mean the whole city is affected. Some parts were worse than others, same almost free of war, as regards to shootings. Otherwise it was diveded in three parts, I got caught between two filming, scary, my friend Rashad Al Saaeed saved our skin. Scary. We were “saved” by a discussion of our kids and the love we feel for them. I showed a photo of my daughter Eva, who was not that far away. The war affected everyone and worst was meeting friends who had lost everything. What to do. We went several times to Change Square, the revolutionary square and met people living there, trying to get the world opinion to understand what was happening at the same time as snipers were lurking around. And in all this I decided to do a journey by camel. If I made it out of town. Read more at https://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2012/01/13/expedition-yemen-by-camel-trouble-in-hashaba/
We met Sabri Saleem and his wife at the airport in Dubai and he helped us with the visa problems.
Expedition Yemen. 2011. From Zabid to Sanaa. Amin and me with a driver slnk out of Sanaa dead early morning to avoid any obstacles to our journey. We didn´t have needed permits more than half way. In Zabid Antar the camel and Hassan his owner waited for us and we set off on a three week journey through a many times spectacular surrounding and ended up at the Gate of Sanaa, Bab Al Yemen. And walking through the thousand year old souk with Antar, it felt…timeless. It was a fantastic journey, but I knew it wasn´t enought to do a documentary about. Just a teaser. Read more at https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/swede-s-trip-across-yemen-by-camel-to-disprove-purveyors-of-pessimism-1.443701
