The World Film Collective blog
Newsletter January - March 2011
Welcome to the World Film Collective newsletter for the first quarter of 2011. Read the country by country updates from Ntombi in South Africa, Megan in the UK, Vanessa in Brazil and Nida in Palestine, or jump to the regular sections.
read moreNewsletter October - December 2010
Hello,
2010 has been a great year for World Film Collective.
Read about our latest work in Brazil, Palestine, South Africa and the UK here...
read moreBradford-Documentary workshop
While our World Cup reporters provide you all the action from South Africa, we are making sure to continue spreading our work in the United Kingdom. For the next six weeks, WFC is organizing a mobile-phone based documentary workshop in Keighley, West Yorkshire. It is our first workshop in the area, and our students are going to be starting with the level one module of documentary film and then moving to fiction. The workshops are being held at Keighley Association Women and Children's Centre –KAWACC under the tutelage of Hafsah Naib and Dawn Feather from InspirEd.
Who are InspirEd?
InspirEd deliver creative workshops for schools, youth clubs and community centres, specialising in film making, photography and digital media. Visit http://www.inspiredworkshops.co.uk/about/ for more details
Watch this space for updates about the progress of our Bradford filmmakers and their findings.
read moreVisual Arts Workshop-Little Ilford
Hey there! We are proud to share that our Little Ilford students have completed the visual arts workshop under the direction of visual artist,Cecillia Bonilla and WFC tutor, Shazia Ur-Rehman. It has been an inspiring three weeks with the students trying their hands at new and unexplored art forms. As mentioned before, the focus has been a youth-oriented interpretation of works of reputed British poet, Felix Dennis. The students have applied their own perspective by using stop-frame animation and the layering features of Final Cut Pro. The final results are a dynamic mix of image, text and video. With exploration of new themes, our students have shown a more aesthetic understanding and appreciation of filmmaking.
We are thankful Felix Dennis for his support during this venture and as always, our wonderful tutors for encouraging and motivating the young artists!
Partnership with BBC
Hey there!
We are very excited to share that WFC films made by our young students are going to be featured on BBC's new football focused programme Extra Time! BBC is giving young people across the country the chance to air their views on events in South Africa. Here is a link with more details-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/06_june/01/21cc.shtml
Extra Time will launch on Friday 11 June and will be broadcast on the BBC 21CC website – bbc.co.uk/21CC – every Tuesday and Friday for the duration of the World Cup.
We are extremely grateful for your support and encouragement- it keeps us motivated!
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Little Ilford Visual Arts Workshop- Day I
As promised here is an update from our first visual arts workshop at Little Ilford held on the 2nd of June. The session resulted in an exciting mix of mediums with the main topic being exploring the relationship between image and text. The students who have already completed the level one and two workshops with us are now being provided a chance to explore their creative side alongside the works of renowned British poet and magazine publisher, Felix Dennis. We are extremely grateful for his generous contribution and the exciting opportunity that he has provided!Under the direction of visual artist, Cecillia Bonilla and our level one and two workshop tutor Shazia Ur-Rehman, our students will be applying their own individual touch and youth-oriented interpretation to Dennis’ brilliant poems. The visual art workshop will result in works featuring stop-frame animation, which is a new addition to the WFC repertoire.
One of the poems being explored deals with anti-social behaviour. The kids are drawing on their personal experiences with the London stop and search policy in their community for the same. If you haven’t already seen it, do take a look at one of our films produced in the previous workshops wherein the students interrogated the implications of the stop and search policy -http://www.youtube.com/user/worldfilmcollective#p/u/11/J_eOb5IkF8g
We are thankful for the positive response and interest that Felix Dennis has shown in our London workshops. It has been highly motivating and encouraging not just for us but also our students who have received a platform to try their hands at a new and stimulating form of art. Another piece of good news is that the students will be receiving digital cameras upon completion of the visual arts workshop which they can then use to develop and practice their skills or for media projects when they pursue further studies at college.
The broad theme of the next workshop is exploring experimental cinematography and we will keep you posted on our findings!
read moreUpdates from Little Ilford
Hello! Just thought we would give you an update on WFC's workshops at the Little Ilford learning zone. The students have completed the level 2 documentary filmmaking workshop and are now experimenting with something very different and exciting!
We are excited to have the support of well-loved poet, Felix Dennis in this new venture wherein our students are being given a platform to explore new styles of film and art. They are going to be trying their hands at animation and poetry under accomplished visual artist, Cecilia Bonila and our wonderful level 1 and 2 tutor, Shazia Ur-Rehman.
The project starts on June 3rd and will run for about three weeks. Watch this space for updates on the students work and progress!
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Khayelitsha project updates
Yesterday saw final touches added to the report from the Gugulethu group on the funeral of their aunty. We drove to the graveyard where students Linda, Alutha, Mangaliso and Thanda recorded intros to their report. Tutor Lukhanyo Calata gave guidance notes on the footage they shot on Saturday at the burial and the wake. We’re going in for a re-cut and adding a voice-over too. The report should be ready for viewing by the end of the week, so watch this space!
The Khayelitsha group goes from strength to strength. Students booked out phones over the weekend and will be cutting their news reports together today. We watched their intros to camera yesterday and they’re absolutely brilliant. Pelisa and Sisa in particular were straight out of SABC (The South African equivalent to the BBC). Students clapped at the end of these reports, astonished at how quickly they could look and seem like reporters, the reality of what they were preparing to do finally sinking in, their confidence rising.
Our Producer here, the canny Simcelile Kalimashe, appeared on Khayelitsha community radio yesterday to spread the word about WFC, and to warm up our potentially huge township audience. He called me straight after he left the studio to tell me he was being inundated with calls from interested participants. So it looks like we have our next workshop set-up thanks to Simi’s sales techniques!
The weather is holding and we’re making real progress. I remain overwhelmingly impressed by the talent of these young people. During a conversation with workshop participant, Manez, I learned the students in the Khayelitsha group are pleased to be participating. They’re hungry, Manez tells me, and they see the value in this workshop. Now I just hope we live up to expectations!
Witnessing a Xhosa funeral ceremony
Having travelled to Gugs on Saturday for an extra lesson with the Amy Biehl group, we found ourselves in the middle of a Xhosa funeral. The young people needed a lift to the graveyard and would be able to leave after that so I found myself watching a traditional Catholic ceremony over-layed with African songs. The women of the church, in their black and white uniform with a streak of red ribbon around their necks sang the loudest. After a while we gave phones to the kids and they shot the burial, capturing each guest throwing sand into the earth and the faces of the ladies sitting under the awning away from the midday sun.
At the wake, while the students shot interviews, I spoke to the parents about how much they appreciated Amy Biehl and what a difference it made to their children’s lives. Plates of food, fizzy drinks and smiles came from all sides. I had washed my hands in the big tub and was from then on part of the gathering.
We drove over to the school where we had been given permission to use the computers to edit. Having been delayed by the funeral, we were rather late, but the Principal forgave us when we showed him some of the footage from the funeral, along with interviews with the family of the deceased and a report to camera from some of the students.
We converted the footage and began to edit. AS ever the Ram in the computers made playback hard so we whipped out two of the laptops donated by Jenny Estill and Rex Salisbury from Davidson University, which saved the day.
Back at the wake, we gave a DVD of the short report to the sister. It was a great lesson in how quickly their work can turnaround. We found half the group playing on iTunes which they figured out instantly and loved listening to the music in the collection.
It was a great day. More to come soon
If anyone has an old laptop they would be willing to donate to this project, please contact megan@worldfilmcollective.com
Cheers!
read moreSights and Sounds of Delft
The bus from Delft arrives at 9am. We hear the pumping dance music before it turns into the driveway of the St Raphael’s Catholic church where we are gathering, along with the reverend of the church who is also participating and who we call ‘Father’.
We began by doing interviews about our passions; something that really drives us, and that we love. Interview subjects range from social justice to mime, with students talking candidly about schooling in the townships, about the importance of giving youth opportunities and about deficiencies in the police service. Father’s passion is for empowerment of youth and for them to take responsibility for their own lives and destinies.
The same day we did video diaries. The stories are stupendous, involving stabbings and shootings often and told without anger, but with a quiet and noble sadness.
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