Mohr: Building bridges to the Middle East

Daisy Mohr has had to deal with violence and death more often than most.

Shortly before her interview with The Jakarta Post , the Middle East correspondent and documentary filmmaker had just heard the news that a colleague had been killed in the Russia-Georgia conflict.

"I've been lucky", Mohr said after a moment of reflection. "During the 2006 war in Lebanon it was a bit scary of course, you know, night and day bombardments.

"In Baghdad, a hotel just around the corner blew up in the middle of the night. It could have been mine."

Originally from the Netherlands, Mohr, 30, has been working from Lebanon for six-and-a-half years covering the region for the Dutch media.

She is in Jakarta this month to present her film The Birthday , a documentary about transsexuals in Iran.

Mohr says the film, which is being shown as part of the Q! Film Festival, has been surprising audiences around the world since it was released in 2006.

With a limited budget, Mohr and co-director Negin Kianfar follow an Iranian man through the process of becoming a woman, including a gender reassignment operation.

The surgeon who performs the operation describes Iran as "a paradise for transsexuals", a comment Mohr calls an exaggeration.

In the 1980s, Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini supported the right of transgender individuals to undergo sex reassignment surgery, and the right is today recognized by the government. Legally changing gender in Iran is easier than it is in many Western counties.

"Almost everyone is surprised by the position of the government and the religious authorities," Mohr said.

"But it's not exactly a paradise. In fact, society is not very used to it at all."

Mohr was in Iran writing for a magazine when she became fascinated with the story. She made a snap decision to stay in the country another three weeks to shoot the film with her translator.

"We didn't have a budget; we didn't have a production company, nothing. We financed it ourselves. I moved in with her and we started working straightaway. We didn't know what would come of it."

Their first film, The Birthday has been shown on Dutch TV and sold in more than five countries.

It has also screened at festivals around the world, winning several awards.

People in the documentary allowed themselves to be filmed on the condition it would not be shown in Iran where, socially at least, life is still hard for transsexuals.

"I did really worry about them. It had to be good for them as well," Mohr said. "That's also why we decided to try and make a movie without any narration or voiceover, so this is really their story."

Mohr has since made two more documentaries. Her second, Daddy is a Martyr , is about the family of a Hezbollah fighter who died during Lebanon's 2006 war.

Her most recent film saw Mohr return to Iran for another collaboration with Kainfar, this time on a documentary about temporary marriages, yet to be released.

These unions enable people to be married for an hour or a couple of years, says Mohr, but it is not just for sex.

"It's also for widows, and there are several reasons for it. We follow several characters who have done this, and see how their families feel about it. We speak to clerics, to matchmakers."

"From Iraq, for example, I wasn't very interested in the political stories, speaking to new ministers and old ministers, but in people my readers in Holland can relate to.

"I think people sometimes have a very strange idea about the Middle East, like 'Arabs are scary.'"

"But if you can relate to them by reading about a mother that has to bring her children to school and the obstacles she faces in Baghdad, I think it's a good way to bridge."

Mohr initially traveled to Lebanon to learn Arabic, intending to spend only six months there. But she soon fell in love with the country.

"It's such a paradoxical place. There are so many things going on in such a small country, it's like a reflection of the rest of the region. It's got everything in miniature."

"It's quite an easy place to live as a foreigner. It's very easy to make friends and to mix and do your thing."

She says when she first landed in Lebanon it was relatively quiet. Then in 2004 former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri was assassinated, and next came the Israel-Lebanon fighting in 2006.

Mohr has traveled extensively in the Middle East covering war and natural disasters. She recently returned from a trip to Sudan where she reported from war-torn Darfur.

"I've done it now for six-and-a-half years and it has been a lot of running around.

"These are not the easiest places to work, of course. Things don't always work the way you expect them to.

"There is the visa issue; you can't just go everywhere and show up as a journalist -- and you have to deal with ministries of information and with minders and with all kinds of things.

"After all that traveling I would like to try and be a bit more in Lebanon and not be on the road all the time."

Since coming close to death or serious injury, and losing friends to the job, is she is not tempted to look for a safer career?

"I don't think I can anymore," Mohr says with a laugh. "I think I'm addicted".

The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.