NEAL CONAN, host:
September 1st is celebrated as the Day of Knowledge in Russia. It marks the beginning of the new school year. A year ago today, the celebration turned dark for teachers, parents and children at School Number One in Beslan, a farming down in the northern Caucasus region of Russia. A group of armed Chechen rebels stormed the school, taking more than a thousand children and adults hostage. When the siege ended three days later, more than 300 people were dead, half of them children. Many hundreds more were wounded.
Today in Beslan, thousands of mourners gathered to commemorate the attack. Relatives of victims say the authorities failed to give them a proper accounting of what happened and jeered the former principal of School Number One when she tried to enter the school. "Children of Beslan" is a documentary that airs tonight on HBO. Ewa Ewart is co-producer of the film. She joins us now from our bureau in New York City, and welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.
Ms. EWA EWART (Co-producer, "Children of Beslan"): Hello.
CONAN: This--I have to say this is a difficult film to watch, but I also have to say it's one of the most interesting and rewarding films I've seen in a long time. This is remarkable work.
Ms. EWART: Thank you.
CONAN: This film--you decide to--how did you--you decided to tell the story strictly through the words and the eyes of the children. No adult voices are heard at all throughout this entire movie.
Ms. EWART: Indeed. This story belongs to children, and there was never a case in the history of humankind of thing that such a large number of children has been deliberately targeted by terrorists to advance a political agenda. They targeted children because they knew that by targeting the little defenseless ones, they were going to hurt--this is what's going to hurt most. And they were hoping that by doing that, they were going to advance a political agenda. So this is the story that had to be reminded, it had to be revisited by children, because they were the targets and they were the ones who suffered most.
CONAN: The film opens with some heartbreakingly beautiful video--a family videotapes--shot of this--the opening of the school, children in these wonderful costumes, embroidered dresses on the girls, all carrying balloons as they come into the school. And, of course, we know what's going to happen.
Ms. EWART: Yes. That was the original video, the only video that has been found after the tragedy happened, was found by one of the parents. And I happened to come across it, and we actually managed to track down a couple of kids who were on that video, and they are also part of the group of the children in the film.
CONAN: There's--we're going to play a clip from the documentary, and this is after the attack has begun and the terrorists demand that everybody come into the gymnasium there in School Number One and sit quietly, and I'm going to have to ask you to translate for us. The film has subtitles for the Russian that obviously the children are speaking, but this is one of the children who's speaking for us.
(Soundbite of "Children of Beslan," spoken in Russian)
Ms. EWART: This is little Angela. She's seven year old, and she remembered this horrible scene when another little girl--after the terrorists demanded that all the mobile phones had to be handed over, one little girl didn't give her mobile phone and the phone rung a moment later, and one of the terrorists shot her dead.
CONAN: We're talking with Ewa Ewart, co-producer and co-director of the "Children of Beslan," which debuts tonight on HBO. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And those children are returning to school today, obviously, a year later, but the scenes of--there's one little boy. I think his name is Alex, a seven-year-old boy. It's an awkward word to use in this context, but if there's one star of the film, it may be Alex. Ewa?
Ms. EWART: Yes. There is--he's the one who is taking us on this heartbreaking tour of the damage of the school. He takes us around and, with almost photographic memory, was retelling the details of what happened, and there was a climax of that tour when he took us to a second floor, to a classroom, and that was the place where his father was killed and the terrorists threw his father's body through the window.
CONAN: Here it is as Alex tells it to you in the movie.
(Soundbite of "Children of Beslan," spoken in Russian)
CONAN: And he said, `This is the place where they killed my father and threw his body out the window.' But he says it--obviously, we can't see it on radio. He's so matter of fact.
Ms. EWART: He was almost businesslike. It was the silence that followed that statement, the climax statement of his, was absolutely crushing and unbearable, and I could not bring myself to ask, what did he feel at that moment, and actually, he showed absolutely no emotions. These kids, while they were retelling the most horrifying details of what happened to them, was so incredibly disciplined, the memory of what happened to them was impeccable, but yet, the way that they were retelling these stories was absolutely amazing, because it was devoid of any emotion. It was almost dispassionate. That was really, really heartbreaking.
CONAN: At times, it's hard to even remember that they are children; though at times, of course, that quality comes through more often than not. Let's listen to this; this, I think, day three of the siege when people are very hungry, very thirsty, getting desperate, and this is a child talking about a fantasy of his. Let's listen to the tape.
(Soundbite of "Children of Beslan," spoken in Russian)
Ms. EWART: This is nine-year-old Serrai(ph), and he hoped that Harry Potter would come and would rescue him, and he described that he would hope that Harry Potter would come with his coat and that he would wrap him in that coat that would make both of them invisible, and both of them would escape.
CONAN: Another child in the film talks about, you know, waiting for a superhero, The Terminator or the Spetsnaz, the special forces people to come. Of course, the special forces eventually did come, and it was a bloody and terrible conclusion. But I did want to ask you about what it was like to be in Beslan. You were there obviously months after the incident. Nobody will recover from this.
Ms. EWART: No. The process of healing is incredibly difficult and it's going to be lengthy and it's going to be some time before the life goes back to some kind of normalcy in Beslan. And as for children, they are still coping with a lot of difficult alien emotions for their young ages. But I would like to stress that this film is actually about hope and the triumph of good over evil, because these terrorists--they deprived them of their childhood. They stole their childhood in the most brutal way. They put them--what these kids lived through is beyond what we can imagine. But the way that they are trying to rebuild their lives, the way--their defiance and their effort to go back and to have normal life is remarkable, and I would say that there is definitely hope; although it's going to take some time.
CONAN: Ewa Ewart, thank you so much for this film and thank you very much for joining us today.
Ms. EWART: Thank you very much.
CONAN: To see the "Children of Beslan" and hear them in their own words, you can go to our Web site at npr.org. The documentary "Children of Beslan" airs tonight on HBO.
Stay tuned to national public radio news for continuing coverage of the crisis in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast as people continue to struggle with survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan.
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