Reshad Kulenovic

Reshad Kulenovic was one of the most interesting people I have listened to talk. Even excluding his ridiculous life experiences to this point, it's worth listening to him just because he seems so precise in his word choice and as a result sounds so knowledgable when he speaks. Reshad has his masters degree from Boston University and is a part-time professor at the University of Rhode Island, but his true identity is that of a film maker. He won a student Academy Award in 2010 for his debut/thesis film, Snovi, and it seems to have been all up hill for him from there.
Reshad's time with our Documentary Film class consisted of a nice mixture of tips and anecdotes from his experience as a film maker, geographical and political analysis (particularly of Jerusalem and Israel), and clips from his new film, "100 Million Dollar House". Although I don't see myself becoming a film maker, I was extremely interested to hear about Reshad's various experiences. I really liked hearing about his various meetings to secure funding. He spoke like a veteran of the process even though he has only done it a few times himself.
It was also really interesting to hear Reshad discuss his time in Hebron, filming "100 Million Dollar House", so casually. As he repeatedly said, Hebron is an active conflict zone, and himself and his crew frequently found themselves staring down the barrel of a loaded assault weapon. However, Reshad never spoke about this, or his arrest, in a showy way but rather just a recount of his experiences.
Another thing that was maybe the most interesting to me was Reshad's discussion of the ethics and trials of making a Documentary film. It made me realize how extremely fine of a line you have to walk to portray your characters ethically, while also following the story accurately, AND producing a sense of drama and story to keep the audience engaged. It made me respect what Reshad has done even more. Even in the brief clips of his new film that we saw, I could tell the high level of attention that Reshad leant to each one of these factors (ethics, accuracy, and drama). If anything, drama seemed to be the least important thing to Reshad, and in a Documentary film that is not a bad thing.