ARTS: A New Direction

"I hadn't ever been on a plane before, and it was wicked," says Smiya.

"We showed the young people how to use the camera. There was one little boy who didn't know what to press but we showed him how to do it." As well as finding out about how young Egyptians live their lives, Smiya was able to pass on some of the skills she had gained in the past few years.

Smiya is now working with a group of other young people, aged 15 to 20, on a film about the history of London's Tower Hamlets, also organised by Mouth that Roars. The group meets every Saturday and is developing the multicultural historical characters who will appear in the film. Dan Hayes, project worker, says: "The next thing is to get the young people involved in casting the film - they will go around local drama groups." Hayes worked on a number of Mouth that Roars projects as a young person and now works for the company. "One of the only ways to get into the film industry is to work as a runner for free, but that's impossible for young people from a working-class background," says Hayes. "That's why we exist." Some people in the group say they want to work in films. Twenty-year-old Francesca Roche, from BRIT School in Croydon, who would like to act, says: "It is important to know about all the different roles behind the scenes if you are a performer. The lighting, the production issues and so on."