Five summers ago, I arrived in the Wilmington firehouse for my first day of work as a summer intern at Working Films. Three days later, I got appendicitis and was rushed into surgery. And one week ago, I watched Good Fortune, a feature documentary I produced and edited, air on POV on PBS. All of these events feel connected to me, I’m just not sure how exactly.
Perhaps it’s the surreal feeling to it all—arriving to work the first day confused to find a firehouse in place of a standard office building, being rapidly wheeled across the ER by a bunch of strange nurses with strong Carolinian accents, and watching, after five years of blood, sweat, and tears, your film beam out to millions of people.
I worked with director Landon Van Soest to tell the stories of Jackson and Silva, two Kenyans whose lives are being destroyed by massive, international development projects. We followed them as they, along with their friends and neighbors, banned together to fight back to protect their community. It was empowering to see their fight, and we felt their stories served as a cautionary tale against imposing aid on a community. So it was an amazing feeling to know that their stories were being watched across the country last Tuesday.
But POV was involved in more than the broadcast. They worked with us to develop discussion guides, community screenings, and an interactive and ridiculously in-depth website. The site features updates on the film, videos exploring positive alternatives to development (made possible by our friends at the Fledgling Fund), an interactive map showcasing similar examples around the world, and more information about foreign aid and Kenya. But perhaps the feature I’m most excited about are the responses to the film by development experts. My favorite was from Erica Hagen of Map Kibera, who showed the film to a group of youths in Kibera. She describes their response this way: “They said ‘This is the truth. This is what it is like to live in Kibera. This is the kind of thing that happens to us. Someone comes by and marks our house with a red X, or cuts our power line, or tells us a new scheme has just been passed and it’s time for us to fall in line.’”
This was the most gratifying thing we could have read as filmmakers. We are continuing our work with the film and hope to bring it back to the communities in East Africa. We are also finishing a companion film, The Captain, about a polygamous family on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria that a presents holistic view of modern poverty by exploring the family’s relationship with the poverty, health, and environmental conservation.
And we hope the POV broadcast and our campaign beyond will help advocate for a rethinking of aid and development. Change needs to come from the grassroots; when it is imposed on a community, things often don’t turn out as they are planned.
From a pool of over 60 films, we narrowed the finalists down to eight powerful stories told by committed filmmakers, all attending our Films for Good workshop this weekend, 3 – 25 July, in Islington, London. We designed this workshop with the Channel 4 BRITDOC team to create effective strategic community and audience engagement campaigns for social issue documentaries accepted into the program. We’ve already developed some ideas for each film’s campaign with a suggested range of potential partners – including leading NGOs as well as some corporate brand partners.
Last year, filmmakers said the workshop was “inspirational!”, “thrilling” and, most importantly perhaps, “pragmatic”. Presenters this year include Jess Search (C4 BRITDOC), Christo Hird (Dartmouth Films), Sarah Cropley (Wellcome Trust), Claire Ebrey (The Co-Operative) and others. Attendance is by invitation only, but watch out for a report out on the week, and the high profile release of each of the films involved.
Participating projects include:
Planeat Dir. Shelley Lee Davies
PLANEAT tells the story of the scientists, farmers and chefs tackling one of the greatest problems of our age, our love affair with meat and dairy. Through an extraordinary personal and mouthwatering culinary journey we discover why it’s bad for our health, the environment, and our planet’s future, and what a balanced diet actually means.
Dancing with Hugo Boss Dir. Heather Leach
Dancing with Hugo Boss’ is an intensely personal feature documentary that looks at the importance of life, love and mortality. This life affirming film raises issues about coping with cancer, family relationships and a desire to line dance in a pair of Hugo Boss boots!
Ping Pong Dir. Hugh Hartford
Elders from across the planet compete in the “World over 80s Table Tennis Championships” in Inner Mongolia. 8 characters from 4 continents guide us through the life affirming world of athletics for the over 80 crowd.
The Flaw Dir. David Sington
What caused the great American financial meltdown of 2007, an event whose consequences will continue to be felt all over the world for years, perhaps decades, to come? The Flaw delves into the history of American capitalism to provide a definitive – and surprising – answer.
Calvet Dir. Dominic Allan
Jean Marc Calvet has a dark and violent past. Now a successful artist, he must find the son he abandoned in France 12 years ago at the age of six.
We Are Many Dir. Amir Amirani
Only a few days after 9/11, a small group of peace activists met in London to discuss the potential repercussions of the attack in NY. Little did they know, one small meeting would later grow into a global protest against the planned invasion of Iraq, 30 million strong — the biggest peace march in human history. Through the first hand testimony of the key figures involved, we will unveil the drama, and magnitude of the events that led up to this historic day, and why its lack of an impact was so troubling.
Save us from Saviours Dir. Kat Mansoor
They don’t want to be saved. They don’t need rehabilitation. They need rights. This film will follow the campaign of VAMP, an amazing group of Indian sex workers, as they fight for their right to be treated as human beings, and for an end to social stigma.
Not on the Label Dir. Rachel Seifert
In Mexico, the war on drug trafficking has left over 13,500 dead, with Ciudad Juarez currently having the highest murder rate in the world. This film looks deep behind the motives of the coca growers, Latin politicians and the doctors who have witnessed the negative impact the drug trade has had on people in their communities.
In an OpEd in the New York Daily News, No Impact Man Colin Beavan tackles the connection between our consumption-based economy and the BP oil spill. He opens his piece comparing oil to alcohol:
Question: When an alcoholic leaves a bar, gets behind the wheel and drunkenly drives into his third or fourth wreck, do you blame the bartender who served the drinks or the alcoholic who drank them? Now answer this: When a society addicted to greater and greater fossil fuel use experiences what may amount to the largest oil spill in world history – after a growing number of other fossil fuel catastrophes – do you blame the oil company that drilled for the oil or the society that uses it?
Colin goes on to provide examples of how we might find ourselves being guilty of over consuming fossil fuels. He states, “Typically, our knee-jerk is to blame the greedy corporations and do-nothing politicians. But how much more could be accomplished if each American accepted that he or she plays a part in the problem and therefore could contribute to the solution?”
The No Impact Project challenges us to take a step back and look at our lifestyles to see where we can make less of a carbon foot print on earth by using as little energy as possible. Through the experiment, people realize that they can live fulfilling lives without the things they take for granted everyday. For more information about the No Impact project and to participate in the experiment, visit www.noimpactproject.org.
Watch the video below to see the impact of the No Impact Week Project:
Chicken & Egg Pictures and Rooftop Films have joined together to offer a short film grant of $6000 to women filmmakers. Any filmmaker who has ever screened at Rooftop Films, or who has ever applied for or received support from Chicken & Egg Pictures is eligible to apply. For more information on what to include in your application, please visit Chicken & Egg Pictures. Application deadline is August 3, 2010.
One of our former board members, Jon Stout, was recently awarded the 2010 Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award by the Cultural and Critical Studies Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Jon co-founded Free Speech TV, an organization that works tirelessly to cultivate an informed and active citizenry while promoting voices and perspectives that have been under-represented in commercial media.
We’d also like to welcome Jon’s newest addition to his family, Farryn Welkin Barnstead Stout.
A few months ago, Working Films consulted with the filmmakers of A New Kind of Listening and Speaking in Tongues about the redesign of their websites. Their new websites launched just in time for summer and we are impressed by the outcome! See the transformation for yourself by clicking on the before and after images below!
In an 
One of our former board members, Jon Stout, was recently awarded the 2010 Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award by the 
