Kickstarter

This website is really great.

We have posted a project! We are trying to finish editing the WhatTookYouSoLong Africa journey. We are a half to one thirds completed! The truth is - I am moving to Hong Kong no matter what to edit, but this funding will secure it.

Article on my work.

http://www.friendsofghana.org/Friends_of_Ghana/Newsletters/Entries/2009/8/18_Fall_2009.html

You probably need to cut and paste it for whatever reason.

WhatTookYouSoLong.org

This is what I am doing now. Starting tomorrow. No time for chatting, but go there and you'll see.
whattookyousolong.org

Bye, But I'll Be Back

I said goodbye to the village. I packed up bags and took them away gradually (not even all). It took awhile. Weeks. I have a lot of stuff. I am a stuff person. But we are talking about nice jars and paper and crayons and string and hooks. And the occasional strip of cloth. So it was a mess but I got through it.

(So, of course I gave a bunch away and much of it was unwanted but I'd always ask, so we get to an empty yellow container that has a small handle- it was used for pancake mix, mailed to me, and Abdulai said it was The Best Thing. Like how could I not know he would love that? Haha, I love it.)

They are putting a new Peace Corps Volunteer in "my house." It's good. I am glad, but I am also sad. Some people told me they are worried the new person will not have a character that matches them, the village, like I do. Well put.

Alidu said I have done 2 good things and one bad. He kept me in suspense awhile.. not revealing that one bad thing. The two good things are the movie and the bikes. The bad thing is, of course, focusing on my own ideas of how to do things and not others (specifically the 'ones who brought me'.) He said he'll be sad when I am gone and he wanted to get into my suitcase. He acted it out, so funny.

Village Bicycle Project

We scraped it through at the last minute, much credit to the crew that goes around and does this in Ghana. They sell bikes half price. Good bikes, and teach about them before letting them go. We signed up 60 people, mostly ladies, yea.

There were rumors we were going to run off with the money (before the bikes came) but now it's the best thing I ever did (I was 'warned' that would happen). The funniest part is that people yell my name when they see these bikes riding around, and some people don't like being yelled Puumaaya at (now they Know), but the people yelling say - hey - it has a good meaning. It means happy stomach but also when you want something and then you get it. It's not just a name, it's a word.

I am also being told I have finally lived up to that name, I brought development they can see every single day. Super.

Marvellous Studio

I met them when doing Mango work and they made us a boom pole for our movie and lent us lights we never used. I like them. They have a video editing and sound recording studio - rugged but functional. Razak, the guy who made the place, practically lives in his edit booth. He has about 30 siblings and they are all somehow involved in some aspect of production. I'll put up pictures soon.

His father was the first guy to shoot video in the North. For television, a long time ago... Razak went to school for Electronics, a vocational one upon his father's insistence. He wanted to go to normal school and is still upset about it but likes that he can build amplifiers and wire things. He has a lot of dreams. He wants to make a computer factory in Tamale and a film school too.

The filmmakers here are mostly uneducated, some making scripts without knowing how to read or write. Some of the acting is so good they are wanted in other parts of the country and Nigeria but they can't 'cause they don't know english. But mostly they look up to Indian movies.

Razak wants to learn more effects, maybe in Hollywood, so he can make movies about the traditional stories - how horses climb trees and dwarves turn into any shap or size (like ghosts). He believes in the power of movies, not just for entertainment, but for development. They have a booming business. BUT there is a Stigma about filmmakers I just found out about! They are seen to be bad people and prostitutes. (Probably because of music videos and some of the Nigerian ones.) But really cause people can't seperate the people from the charachters they play. They think they are real.

I just spent a few weeks with them editing a video for the Ghana Danish Communities Association (GDCA) - about the RIGHTS BASED APPROACH. It's a neat and sensible idea. I'll try to upload some of it.

Village Premiere

We screened in the Chief Palace, two nights. With my portable projector, village amplifier, generator, and a big sheet. It was great. Wish everyone could have been there. (Thank you Cheri for riding your bike 4 hours through a wind storm and bad directions (not from me). The village was though and that's what counts. Below, their comments.

"You made a true story."
"Can you show it every night?"
"I like the whole movie. Every part is good. You won't fall asleep."
"We aren't educated and we can't read, but this puts something in our minds we can think about."
"I was planning to go (south), but now I won't. I would like to go for a visit to know our capital city, but not to stay."
"Some people used to think others were making it up."
"I like the juxtaposition between Accra (capital) and the Village."
"I now understand how girls can get seduced by boys."
"I like the message the movie has, especially sickness and stigma."
"The movie starts out funny, but then it gets serious."
"The station (in our village) looks nicer than it is."
"I am not planning to go anymore, I would suffer more than the characters!"
"I was worried about the character at a certain point."
"The movie is educative about what to watch out for and steps that can be followed."
"I had heard of fire (destroying buildings in the south), but now I've seen it."
"Even though we are discouraged from going, people will, because of poverty."
"Nowadays people have changed. Youth move around and our children do whatever they want without consulting us. This movie can advise them like we (elders) can't."
"Our minds now tell us not to move."
"I like seeing Accra in the movie since I've never been there."
"I see using condoms is good, or we could abstain."
"I don't want to go south but if my husband asks me to I will. I do want to see the nice buildings."
"At night we can think about the movie instead of negative things, which is especially good for us elders."

Doing the Splits

I was showing a 7 year old how it's done, rather - how it's not done. There was a huge popping noise as my pelvis hit the floor, I went down toooooo fast... it really hurts, increasingly.

Subtitling

I think I've spent about three weeks in front of the computer subtitling. First our movie and now the Mango Movie. It's liberating to finally know what people are saying. But also frustrating to be sitting in front of a computer for two weeks. Luckily I am not dreaming about it. I used to dream about editing and there was no escape.

My Urban Migration

I awoke the last day of the festival missing the village and wanting to leave. I flipped a coin and stayed, but the next day made it home in 7 hours - before dark. I hadn't been to Voggu in close to 3 weeks and everything was dusty. Usually people "yell" at me for "keeping long" but they were okay. The most okay I ever saw them after being gone so long.

Bon Appetit.

At the beginning there was bread. Then there was french bread. Goat cheese, soft serve ice cream, yogurt, cotton candy, chocolate croissants, crepes, steak sandwiches, and last but not least strawberries. It was a tasty time. There are men walking around with big boxes on their backs, guess what their carrying? Fresh baked bread and President's butter. 50 cents will get you a full baguette with butter in a piece of brown paper so you don't dirty your hands. Why didn't I learn French?

Burkina Faso Film Festival

(Feb 28-March 7)

We had a screening of our movie, but it was bad. There was a sky light! So no one could see the movie. Just the subtitles, which had to be changed at the last minute cause they were too long. I was still burning the disc the night before the show when the others managed to get us free badges to get in to all the movies.

Me and Daria and Cheri shared a bed in our new friend of a friend, Lucy's room, a model and freelance interpreter who loves movies. Unfortunately Nash (Director) and Kari couldn't come at the last moment because Nash's father fell sick. I didn't invite Abdulai (Producer, Writer and Star) cause we were going into the unknown and he can be a baby.

One highlight was a meal we were invited to by people in the Burkina Faso/ French film/ TV industry. The waiters and waitresses were on roller-blades and they juggled, ate fire, contorted, and flipped. They served us salads and a slab of meat cooked by hanging in fire - we all ate too much and felt sick after.

I got to watch Real Films. My favorite one was 20 minutes. Shot on 35mm, sadly showed on video, called Nora. It was about a real modern dancer from an African village. She tells the story of her early life in surreal scenes cut with brief text. The main characters speak in dance and everyone else acts "normal." The filmmaker was around and I heard she organizes an artistic film festival in Russia, where she is from, but lives in the US. The modern dancer is living in New York but from Africa.

While I didn't talk to her I did talk to a bunch of Kenyan filmmakers who came with a nice short called "Killer Necklace." It was shot on the Red, borrowed from South Africa. They also had an unfortunate screening with skylights in the room! I was interviewed by BBC and that's what I told them about when asked about movies I saw. I actually heard it the night I got back to Ghana! (I had a brief identity crisis and introduced myself as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but maybe that's why they aired it.)

I knew the festival was a big deal, but upon meeting people from around the world there, learned it was the "biggest" in Africa. Mostly I hung with an Ethiopian/ French couple who lives in Amsterdam. Others included a group of Scottish and British living in Ghana, a Ghanaian journalist/ filmmaker, a German graphic designer, a Malian/ German couple, an African/American filmmaker with a funny movie about an after school program, a couple with a Ghanaian Beach Resort, a Global Film Producer (former PC Volunteer in China), and a German film festival rep. We also got a tour of an impressive production studio by locals.