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Sabour Bradley is ABC2’s danger man

Sabour Bradley runs through a war zone on the Turkish-Syrian border -all in pursuit of a story.

11hefiWhen it comes to commitment to his story you can’t help but admire journalist Sabour Bradley.

In the latest episode of Head First he had to run through a war zone between Turkey and Syria, hiding from the Turkish Military Police. In another he was nearly kidnapped in Ghana.

Bradley’s ABC2 series profiles “the secret world of everyday Australians” but none is more mysterious, or dangerous, than the one pursuing the truth behind the death of Australian kickboxing champion Roger Abbas.

Abbas was reported as being killed last October during crossfire in Syria.

“He had been going to an international kickboxing championship in China. It got cancelled at the last minute so he decided to go to Syria. His family was saying it was to be a humanitarian but the media were insinuating he had been there as a fighter. A Jihadist,” Bradley explains.

Bradley met Abbas’ sister,  Sonya, who was planning to go to Syria to find out what happened to her brother. It provided him with a way into the story.

“In a very short space of time we ended up in Turkey on the border with Syria. We started investigating and found there were people saying he had been there fighting with al-Nusra Front, a US-deemed terrorist organisation,” he said.

“But there were other people in villages saying they had seen him crossing the border as a humanitarian.

“Then someone from al-Nusra Front contacted us to say ‘This guy is more than likely still alive.’

“We had three choices, but the only way to find out was to go into Syria and to do that we had to cross over the border unofficially.”

But running through a dangerous mountain area with a camera crew would mean risking life.

“The area we crossed is not controlled fully by the Free Syrian Army so it’s still an open war zone,” he said.

“We had to find a guide, a ‘fixer,’ to take us in.

“They tell you ‘Don’t stop running even if you hear shooting.’ It was just incredible.”

To his cameraman’s credit the sequences are captured on film, giving the episode real tension.

“We got chased by the Turkish Military Police. We had to hide out in the darkness for a long time. We crossed into Syria multiple times.

“It was an amazing story that just kept getting bigger and bigger and it was unfolding in front of us, which is the best form of documentary because you’re able to shoot and follow the story and just hold on. I love that.”

Bradley says the episode answers the mystery of Roger Abbas but not without encountering conflicting information, much of which tears at his sister.

“There’s a lot relating to the political level, the personal level, and it completes Roger’s and Sonya’s story. It’s incredibly fulfilling for the audience in terms of the action / adventure / murder-mystery, but it’s got a lot of layers to it.”

Yet whilst tension and danger make for compelling documentaries, filmmaking also comes with responsibilities. At what point would he have called off a run across a war zone for the sake of a story?

“At the point where the fixer tells you ‘It’s no longer safe’” he explains.

“We always completely rely on the locals, the fixers in particular, and when they say ‘No. You can’t go there it’s not safe,’ then we don’t go.

“If you don’t have a fixer you can trust you can die, and when you do have a fixer you trust, trust in them implicitly and follow his word.”

If patience is a virtue in the pursuit of a good story, then Bradley was born for the role. The name ‘Sabour’ is Arabic for ‘one who is patient.’ He was named after a writer his hippy parents met in India.

“Growing up in Far North Queensland it’s a terrible name to have, because kids can be very cruel with a name like that. It’s ripe for manipulation,” he insists.

“I like it now but my mum told me the alternatives were Bush, Leaf and River. So I said ‘Thank you for giving me the name Sabour instead of Bush!’”

Bradley studied journalism at QUT, writing / directing at the Victorian College of the Arts, has made docos in Honduras, written for Always Greener, Home and Away and Neighbours and produced the series Extreme Tourist: Afghanistan for Pay TV. His television credits are a world of wild contrast.

Now settled on documentaries, he admires the work of journalists Nick Broomfield, Jon Ronson,  Morgan Spurlock and the man whom he is frequently likened to, Louis Theroux.

“I watch high-brow stuff, low-brow stuff. But I guess the people who inspire me are the ones who go out to make the people in their worlds the stars. Who uncover those worlds and get in deeper. It’s those (journalists) who have survived and thrived and are watched again and again,” he explains.

“A lot of people have been saying ‘the Australian Louis Theroux’ which is flattering but there can only be one Louis Theroux and I’m not trying to be him.

“Louis focusses more on opening up an issue through the people and talking. Every scene has some kind of conflict at the centre of it which he’s able to wedge open. Nobody can do that like him, he’s a genius at it.

“What I do has interviewing and opens people up and stuff but it also has me taking part in the journey and the story in some way. The scenes are building blocks to an overall plot.”

Coming up on Head First he meets with teenage transgenders and spends time living with Indigenous youth enduring the Intervention activities in Northern Australia.

“It’s a series that is a slow burn. It’s an unknown show and the first series of an unknown host in Australia other than Extreme Tourist. In this landscape when you’re up against all this other noise, to break through it only comes by word of mouth.

“It starts off with the idea and the story. But if the story goes off into dangerous places then I’ll follow it if I think the story is worth it. But generally that’s a given because I don’t start a story unless I feel something about it.”

Head First airs 9:30pm Wednesday on ABC2.

5 Responses

  1. I really wanted to like this series (and have watched every episode so far) but I actually feel like Sabor’s poorly written voice overs get in the way of the interesting/powerful stories of the characters. I wish he would give the characters more of a a voice, rather than making it about him and his journey. I am keen to watch the rest of the series (particularly the final episode in the NT) but “Australia’s Louis Theroux”, I think not.

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