Imagine if someone blew up the Pyramids at Giza. 

Or leveled the Eiffel Tower.

It’s hard to comprehend the shattering impact it would have on our sense of the world - but we need to imagine it. The Eiffel Tower was ordered to be destroyed by Hitler - saved only by the refusal of one of his Generals. Coptic churches along the Nile were torched in 2013. In a politically unstable post-Arab Spring Egypt, are the Pyramids any safer than Bamiyan's Buddhas, blown sky high in 2001? After 9/11, we can't assume that even our most monumental structures are going to outlive us. 

Over the past century, cultural destruction – the purposeful destruction of buildings, books and art in order to erase collective memory and identity - has wrought catastrophic results on every continent. But the war is by no means over. If anything, this kind of cultural warfare has been steadily increasing.

The film looks at how and why this has happened, and how the push to protect, salvage and rebuild has moved in step with the destruction. People willingly risk their lives to protect not just other human beings, but their culture - to safeguard the record of who they are. People who never thought of themselves as heroes have fought back, and it's these people and their resistance that is at the heart of the story.

TO VIEW OUR TRAILER, PLEASE EMAIL tim@vastproductions.com.au

Here's a 60 second message from director Tim Slade, on why this vitally important film needs to be made now, and how you can help.

We are a dedicated and highly experienced team. Director Tim Slade has been nominated for International Documentary Association Awards, AFI Awards, Banff World Television Festival Awards, and won a Gold Hugo. His films, including the critically acclaimed feature doc '4', have screened at over 70 film festivals and had theatrical runs lasting more than three months. Cinematographer Derek Wiesehahn filmed the documentaries 'Music by Prudence' (Oscar®, Documentary Short Subject 2010), 'How to Survive A Plague' (Oscar® nomination 2013), 'God Loves Uganda' (Sundance 2013), and parts of 'Restrepo' (Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Oscar® nomination 2010). 

The film, which was developed with the assistance of Screen Australia and Screen NSW, is based on a critically acclaimed book of the same name by Robert Bevan. 

The heroes of the story

Are men and women who risk their safety to protect, bravely speak out against the destruction, or work tirelessly to rebuild - heroes like... 

András Riedlmayer, a bibliographer from Harvard University, who traveled 3,000 miles across war-torn Bosnia to document intentional cultural destruction, with a single Swedish police officer as his guard. He later testified against Milosevic, Karadzic and others, charged for these acts as war crimes. 

Fatou Bensouda, who on becoming Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in 2012, immediately spoke out against the intentional destruction of World Heritage listed sites in Mali, then opened an investigation, active now, into these acts as possible war crimes.

Daniel Libeskind, architect and Ground Zero Master Planner. Born in post-war Poland, Daniel's perceptions of the devastation of Polish and Jewish identity would help shape his life and work. His remarkable Jewish Museum Berlin opened to the public on September 11, 2001, and closed its doors that same day once news came in from New York. Daniel told us: 'I suddenly realized, you can never really say you're finished with history...'

(above: András Ridelmayer, Fatou Bensouda (photo: ICC), Daniel Libeskind)

Corine Wegener, of the Smithsonian Institution, is a member of the present day Monuments Men and Women team, and has worked vigilantly against destruction in Iraq, Mali, Syria and now is a champion for reform.

In the US, Amr Al-Azm, Salam al-Kuntar, Brian Daniels, Katharyn Hanson, Susan Wolfinbarger and Brian Lione are working with networks in Syria and Iraq trying to stem not just widespread destruction, but to provide training and resources to heritage workers desperately trying to protect sites inside the country, and to push against industrial scale looting by ISIS. At risk is 6,000 years of continuous human history. 

Other heroic men and women we meet are protecting Armenian and Coptic Egyptian cultural heritage.

In 1992, Amila's sister, Aida Buturovic, a 32 year old woman who worked at the National Library in Sarajevo, was killed by a mortar shell as she left work. The Library wasn't open, the staff weren't being paid, their offices didn't have windows. They continued going in every day to protect their books, and the rich, beautiful histories they told.

Many have died whilst bravely protecting our collective heritage, and it is for them that we are making this film.

Where you come in...

• We've already conducted key interviews with some of the amazing heroes and experts listed above. You'll see some of these interviews in our trailer. After receiving initial development funds, we forged ahead capturing these interviews and editing sketch sequences with our own resources, and with the moral support of truly amazing people - industry experts, international organizations, and our creative team. 
• We currently have three broadcasters with confirmed 'pre-sale' offers (to pre-pay a license fee based on the strength of our materials) - in Europe and Canada - but to conduct crucial interviews, location filming and post production, we need your support. 
• We need to raise $35,000 which will go towards filming final key interviews in the US and in Paris (with UNESCO rep. and other experts), location filming in Bosnia, in Mali, and capturing the stories of brave people working to protect their heritage in Syria and Iraq. Monies raised through Indiegogo will also go towards editing costs. Monies above and beyond our target would enable us to add a filming day in Warsaw, to be able to tie off a narrative thread about that place in an ideal way.
• This is how the simple budget breakdown works:

• We want audiences to know who supported this film and how crucial your support was. Our unique rewards include downloads, autographed books, Skype conferences, rough cut reviews, premiere screening invitations and credits on the production, but above all, the value of your involvement is centered around being kept intimately involved with the process of making the film, and by being regularly updated about the positive awareness, traction and debate the film is encouraging, thanks to your support. 
• We have flexible funding, so your funds will be gladly received - this story is too important to limit ourselves to a cap. If funds raised are lower, we will work to a contingency plan which would generally involve rationalizing our location shooting schedule.
• We aim to complete the film in middle to late 2015. 

The impact of your contribution...

will be immeasurable, beyond the creation of the film. It will help trigger debate and change, and will help protect global culture. 

We have had initial letters of interest from key film festivals like the Tribeca Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, and the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (NY and London), as well as from international distributors. We will always encourage panel and public discussion at screenings of the film, but we'll also conduct campaigns and petitions around these issues, through strategic institutional and NGO partners, where it's felt that the voices of concerned individuals needs to be heard to advocate for change. We'll keep contributors informed about these opportunities.

Our team has collectively worked on films that haven't just screened at festivals like Sundance, been nominated or won for Academy Awards®, but have successfully reached audiences in longer term, broader outreach efforts. We know how to create successful films that reach and speak to diverse audiences. 

The time to tell this story is now...

We'll provide contributors with regular updates so you can track progress with legislation, policy and awareness, that is moving forward in real ways, and set to shift in late 2014, into 2015. For example;

• The 'Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act' was introduced on  14 November 2014 into the US House of Representatives, by a Democrat (Rep. Engel, NY) and a Republican (Rep. Smith, NJ) - whatever parts of this Bill are finally passed, it shows that this issue transcends politics.
  
• An international conference on Syria at UNESCO on 3 December 2014 brings together political decision-makers, humanitarian workers and cultural heritage experts to consider different ways of integrating cultural issues into the political response to the crisis, as well as security, conflict resolution and peace-building strategies. 
• Key international court decisions will be handed down in 2015, and new, key cultural heritage positions are set to be created to help stem the issue.

Risks & Challenges

The challenge is being on the front foot of the issue, but we have this well in hand by being connected to expert interviewees from the UN, UNESCO, the ICC, the Smithsonian Institution and other strategic bodies who are at the forefront of the issue. 

We may wish to seek further funds to clear licenses for some archival elements that we'd ideally like to use in the film, as well as to clear licensing for some music tracks - we'll do a final assessment once the edit is nearing completion and decide what to remove, what to replace, and what to seek additional funds for.

This is a complex story, but we are tenacious, skilled and proven at getting the story told that needs to be told.

Other Ways You Can Help

At the end of producing the film, we will need outreach support - we need audiences to see, be engaged by, and learn from the film. As the film is nearing completion, we'll be seeking advocates to get the word out to audiences and communities in all parts of the world.