Live from Abu Dhabi Connect the World takes you on a journey across continents, investigating the stories that are changing our world.
Award-winning Australian artist and film-maker George Gittoes has travelled the world to tell stories from the front lines of war.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/26/art.gittoes.jpg caption ="Send your questions for George Gittoes."]
For the last forty years, he's worked in area normally reserved only for soldiers and journalists, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Northern Ireland.
Working face to face with those caught up in the crisis of conflict, he uses his artistic interpretation to present his work through painting, photography, video and performance.
His latest film "Miscreants of Taliwood" (2009) is the last in a trilogy of documentaries, showing Gittoes making his way through Pakistan's remote and forbidden North West Frontier.
George Gittoes will be our Connector of the Day on Monday's Connect the World.
Do you want to know what keeps driving him to the world's most dangerous places? Maybe you want to hear his political views, or his position on the latest conflict in Afghanistan.
Leave your questions below, and Becky will put the best to George Gittoes on Monday's program.
How do I break into doing crisis/war photojournalism? I am ready, have 10 years expereince in professional photopraphy and want to make the jump to war correspondent. I can find an open door...
What can I do to get inot Afghanistan and become a war photojournalist?
Your work is so important as it really seems to cut through the hype and show the Afghan people to be as human as we are. In your opinion what hope is there for these harmless actors who want to spread joy and not war?
George, you are considered one of the most unique and exciting artists in the world today, both with your painting and your film making. I watched the youtube interview and performance with Hellen Rose in Bern Switzerland which was fantastic. Will you be doing more art work like this where your painting and film and performance merge into one?
What images from your career in conflict (if any) haunt you the most?
My question would be: amidst all of the bad things that you've seen, how has it tested your faith in humanity, if at all? Do you see hope that one day we would all 'get along' regardless of ideologies?
I am impressed with your appreciation of the women in this shocking situation. I am impressed that you let us hear what they have to say from the women in the sex industry to the intellectuals. These women are heroic and you make them real for us by just letting them speak for themselves. Were these women fearful, defiant in everyday life? How do they live through each day and will they be killed for not wearing a Bourka? Thanks for going there and letting these women and men of everyday life be heard.
I have followed your painting career for many years and your work is so powerful. Your technical skills as a painter are on a par with the great masters. It amazes me that your films too are so original and nothing like them has been made before. Does the film work influence the art or vica verca?
Kay
In your opinion has America any chance of winning the war in Afghanistan?
I loved seeing you filming Hellen Rose in Switzerland, her work is powerful. You seemed to have so much fun and pleasure behind the camera, you don't seem to be a serious person and can have fun just as we see you in your film hamming it up for the show. How do you keep your sense of humour in all those heavy situations?
Your films are totally killa from Soundtrack to War and Rampage and now The Miscreants of Taliwood. Wats next? Lov lov lov your thing! Stay real in the unreal bro!
Do you believe in God?
What value do you bring to the public that other reporting agencies don't?
Four decades as a witness of carnage and chaos yet statistics suggest conflict is less today than 20 years ago.....can you connect the dots and say mankind is capable of advancing to a higher level or are we on a path of destruction..?
How did the image(s) of war change over the years?
Dear George,
being a film director myself, I know how difficult it is making films in the name of humanity. Your work gives me hope and strenght for my own work! Thank you so much! I will spread the news about your films in Germany and other places I am connected with. All possible luck to you and your next projects, and see you in Berlin!
Ilona Ziok
P.S. I would love to make a film about you:-)))
Where does the journalist end and the human being begin in a situation
of war?
George, how do you explain that you have in fact survived, physically and mentally for all these years? How has Berlin with the northern artistic tradition of Max Beckman and Kathe Kollwitz nourished you recently?
Hi George,
you seem to be very careful when approaching dangerous people, still, danger lies within most of the interviews you have done in your films.
Is there any among the experiences you made in the past that could really make you stop what you are doing if you were sure it would happen again someday?
What moves you to record in video and paint today's conflicts in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan? Who are your models? Goya (The Disasters of War) Robert Capa? Susan Meiselas?
What was the reason to make films in war zones?
What is it that keeps you going on especially after all the horror you lived in Rwanda and why don't you realise anymore such direct and realistic paintings as you did through all the years before ?
George,you are highly talented artist.pls do more.
What in your opinion, could or should the US government, as well as the rest of the world present in Afghanistan do, to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people?
Does your love of Islamic culture make your images of the consequences of war in Pakistan and Afghanistan especially potent, or more deeply personal?
Hello George
Plz tell us about the dangerous moment of your life when you feel that now you have loose your life or ready for dead while covering war moment.
Amazing ! Where can I see your movies ? I am from...Prague (used to be.. from Syd..:))