Ilie Mitaru, director of First Frames

Ilie Mitaru is an Emmy-nominated producer and director whose work centers on regular people in extraordinary circumstances.

American cowboys brought to rural Russia to help restart the country’s beef industry; renegade farmers building their own wildfire defense rigs; a lone auto mechanic traversing miles of desert borderland with jugs of water to save his fellow migrants—Ilie’s stories create empathy and a connection to what at first might appear foreign but ultimately proves universal.

Ilie’s films and photography have been featured in The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, among others. A first-generation Romanian-American whose parents received political asylum during the Cold War, Ilie is drawn to stories that push against easy assumptions of otherness and strive for a more complex understanding of the individuals and communities centered in his work.

First Frames follows photographer and Syrian refugee Serbest Salih and his mobile darkroom that brings photography education to overlooked communities across Turkey, where children grapple with access to school, memory, and displacement caused by devastating earthquakes.

The documentary unfolds almost entirely from the children’s perspective. They speak about their friendships, curiosities, and frustrations while engaging with photography for the first time. The children become collaborators in the documentary, capturing their worlds through their unique lenses.

The film embraces the magical nature of children’s thinking and portrays them not as passive subjects of their circumstances but as playful, resilient, and complex individuals, with insights and perspectives that sometimes surprise and inspire.

MM: First Frames seems to spotlight the beauty and resilience in these children’s lives despite their difficult circumstances. How did your own background and the themes you’re drawn to as a storyteller shape this project?
IM: I’ve always been fascinated by the fantastical, quirky insights and observations of young children. For many years, I wanted to make a documentary that would bring you into their lives in an intimate way. When I learned about what Serbest was doing with the darkroom project, I instantly felt that this would be the perfect opportunity to build such a film. This structure allowed us to go beyond their musings and incorporate their images and videos to further bring the viewer into their worlds.

MM: Your introduction to First Frames began with an immediate reaction to the children’s photography. What specifically struck you about their images, and how did that influence your vision for the film?
IM: Our goal was to center the children’s work whenever possible. Their images and video felt intimate and visceral. Even when technically flawed, the images had an energy and exuberance that we fell in love with.

The idea was not to limit ourselves by using the children’s footage or images literally or as cover for what the children were saying at a given moment. Instead, we wanted to show the energy and feel of the children’s work more broadly, to try and convey the range and depth of their perspectives and curiosities as they experimented with photography and video.

MM: You’ve worked on stories that make the unfamiliar feel relatable and universally human. How did you approach making these children, who are living through such specific hardships, feel relatable to a global audience?
IM: As documentary filmmakers, it comes down to what we’re listening for, and ultimately what we end up centering in our films. Regardless of our immediate circumstances, we all have similar needs and desires: to have a safe space to live, to have our basic needs met, to connect with our family and loved ones, and, in this case, to create, to make art, to try to express and grapple with these circumstances through the creative process. Children understand this more immediately, and in many ways can express it more clearly than adults.

The Irish poet David Whyte said, “Poetry is language against which you have no defenses.” I would add that the words of children have a similar ability to cut through one's defenses, which is why we centered them and included almost no dialogue from adults in the film.

MM: Could you share a bit about the creative collaboration with Serbest Salih? What about his approach to teaching photography resonated with your vision?
IM: I was not super familiar with Serbest’s pedagogy as we were planning the shoot, but when we started the first workshop, I was delighted to see how hands-off he was—how he empowered the children to explore their creativity and set their own boundaries for how the class was run and what they wanted to get out of it. In many ways, Serbest’s approach of centering the children and giving them free rein mimicked our approach to the filmmaking process.

MM: You mention that you didn’t center trauma in the film but instead followed the children’s natural thought process. How did you navigate creating a film that was true to their experiences while remaining sensitive to their difficult circumstances?
IM: First, I will note that the whole team has extensive experience reporting on difficult, sensitive stories, and we adhered to the guidelines from Columbia University’s Dart Center for Trauma-Informed Journalism. We never asked the children about the earthquake directly but instead offered open questions centered around photography, art, their aspirations, etc.

This did not feel like a compromise in any way because our orientation for the whole project was to make a film that focused on the children’s engagement with photography, as opposed to unpacking the earthquake itself. The context of the quake was, of course, there, and some children chose to address it more than others, but that was only a jumping-off point.

Rather than doing a traditional sit-down, which can often make children freeze up and become artificially formal, I worked with our Turkish producer Zeynep Bilginsoy to develop prompts that would get the children chatting while they photographed or developed images. Simple things that might spark introspection, such as “Why did you just take that picture?” or, “You seem to really love taking pictures; can you tell us why?”

What struck us most was how freely the children were able to move between sad and happy, dark and light introspection. One moment they were telling you about the old photos they lost in the earthquake, and the next they’d say how excited they were to have the opportunity to make new memories. It was almost this Zen-like detachment that we found so powerful, and we tried to preserve it in the edit.

MM: Were there particular moments or experiences while filming with the children that stood out to you as especially moving or surprising?
IM: The moment when Zumra goes to the market with her camera for the first time. She observes how people are looking at her differently for bringing a camera and taking pictures in a place that had been so devastated by the quake.

As a photojournalist myself, I’ve reported in communities that have experienced tragedy and have often felt this gaze. It’s a reality of the job we have to contend with. But to hear that kind of insight from a seven-year-old was pretty profound.

MM: Photography can be a powerful tool for self-expression. What role do you feel photography plays in these children’s lives, especially in their efforts to make sense of the world around them?
IM: I don’t know if photography played, or still plays, a permanent role in these children’s lives. The organization has limited budgets, and most of these communities get at best intermittent access to the cameras and processing materials. That said, I do think it was a much-needed reprieve from the monotony of some of their circumstances—a chance for the children to learn something new and focus on something totally different than their daily reality.

And part of me hopes that they remember this experience and either keep photographing with their phones or maybe come back to it later in their lives.

MM: You’ve worked with high-profile publications like The New York Times and The Guardian. How does First Frames differ from your previous projects, and what did you learn from this experience?
IM: The thing that interested me most about this project was the possibility of breaking away from news or more conventional documentary formats. We spend almost no time discussing the organization itself, and very little time hearing from the darkroom project’s director, Serbest. Instead, we tried to capture the feeling of the children’s inner worlds and worked to concentrate those moments of insight and intimacy without feeling bound by too much exposition or linearity.

In this, our backers, WePresent, were deeply supportive and really gave us the space and time to make the film we wanted to make.

MM: Photography plays such a central role in First Frames, and it’s clear you have a deep appreciation for the medium. Could you tell us about your own connection to photography and how it has influenced your work as a filmmaker and storyteller?
IM: Most of my colleagues who work both as photojournalists and filmmakers started with still images first. I went the other way. I had been making films and shooting news and TV for about eight years before I started shooting photos.

I liked the freedom it gave me. It was relatively easy to find a photo story and go shoot it with a small camera versus having to raise money for a film and manage all the personnel it takes to make a film or a series. At a time when I was on larger and larger crews, photography gave me the chance to reconnect with my subjects one-on-one and to really embed myself into their lives.

Honestly, I was a bit burnt out working in the documentary space

We extend our gratitude to Ilie Mitaru for sharing the journey of this remarkable project with us. A New York-based documentary filmmaker, photojournalist, and contributing photo editor to Fotonostrum, Ilie continues to craft stories that challenge assumptions and celebrate the shared humanity of diverse communities. We eagerly anticipate the impact First Frames will have as it inspires and redefines global perceptions of these vibrant yet often misunderstood regions.