Role: Writer, Director and Producer
The Zamzam Project is a research based independent documentary film and book project, I worked on during 2009 - 2012.
Taking "All truth passes through three stages..." as the precedent, the project aimed to demonstrate the human psyche's prejudicial behavior towards new information that often contradicts or challenges one's established beliefs. This is due to the method of information processing within the human mind called the cognitive miser giving birth to the 175 cognitive biases. Regardless of intelligence, we tend to think and problem solve with minimum effort rather than in a more sophisticated time-consuming manner. Hence, at first, new information is ridiculed, secondly, it is violently opposed and thirdly, it is accepted as being self-evident.
The research aimed to explore and create an awareness of self-imposed barriers to receiving new and challenging information that contradicts one’s established beliefs and yet might open new horizons. While at the same time understand the challenges faced in conveying such information to others and how it will be processed and received. In turn, contributing to raising the level of awareness for effective communication.
An advanced level of research, writing, filming, editing, branding, designing, music production, team management/collaboration and so much more unexpected challenges blessed us all with an amazing learning experience of a lifetime.
This was a self-initiated 100% crowdsourced and crowd-funded project mostly working remotely with an international team. I also decided to specialise further in this aspect and proposed the project for a PhD at UCA Farnham campus in Surrey but unfortunately, we could not find a suitable supervisor at that time. Hash Milhan was one of the volunteers I had mentored for a few years, he was a student at UCA Maidstone, and he undertook the branding and design development aspect of the project for his Graphic Design Degree 3rd-year final major design project.