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.
Only a few weeks ago we hosted a strategy summit in partnership with POV for the Adoption Stories series which will air in late August/early September. At the strategy meeting, we brought together the filmmakers and POV team with non-profit organizations that work on adoption issues on many different levels every day. During the two day meeting, we discussed the multiple layers and complexities of adoption and identified overarching themes in the films such as identity, race, multiculturalism and the concept of family. Their diverse perspectives gave us insight to the best ways to approach an adoption awareness campaign around the broadcast and the films. We’re really excited about the results of the meeting and can’t wait to see the campaign develop leading up to the first film of the series, Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy on August 31st.
Good Fortune explores how massive, international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa may be undermining the very communities they aim to benefit. Through intimate portraits of two Kenyans battling to save their homes from large-scale development organizations, the film presents a unique opportunity to experience foreign aid through the people it is intended to benefit.
In the rural countryside, Jackson’s farm is being flooded by an American investor who hopes to alleviate poverty by creating a multi-million dollar rice farm. Across the country in Nairobi, Silva’s home and business in Africa’s largest squatter community are being demolished as part of a United Nations slum-upgrading project.
Interweaving meditative portraits of its characters, Good Fortune examines the real-world impact of international aid. With a broad scope and intimate style, the film portrays gripping stories of human perseverance and suggests that the answers for Africa lie in the resilience of its people.
Following the two screenings, there will be Q&A’s with the filmmakers and organizations who are working in unique ways to address international aid that benefits the communities that they aim to support.
The film has already received kudos, as it was the recipient of the 2007 Sundance Documentary Fund, winner of the Fledgling Fund Award for Socially Conscious Documentaries at the 2007 IFP Market, and the recipient of a Fulbright Grant in the Creative and Performing Arts.
The New York premiere will be the following week at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, a leading venue for distinguished fiction, documentary and animated films and videos with a distinctive human rights theme. This screening is presented in association with the Fledgling Fund and IFP and will also include a post-screening Q&A.
Jeremy Levine arrived at Working Films for a summer internship as a Park Scholar from Ithaca College in 2005.
During that time he redeveloped our website, both increasing it’s usability and functionality. He has since graduated from Ithaca College and relocated to Brooklyn, NY where he has launched his filmmaking career with familiar partners, a new film and exciting projects. I recently had the honor of talking with him about his past experiences at Working Films and his current projects.
Kristin Henry: You came to Working Films through the Park Scholar program offered at Ithaca College, which gave you an opportunity to choose where you would like to intern.What attracted you to Working Films?
Jeremy Levine: When I decided to study film, I wanted to be able to tell stories that were compelling and at the same time be able to make a positive impact on the world – but I was lost as to what that really meant. When I read that the mission of Working Films was to use documentaries to provide meaningful change, I knew how I wanted to spend my summer.
POV’s Executive Director Simon Kilmurry 
Good Fortune
