Children of the Blue Sky

My friend and Director of Photography, Martina Radwan is single handedly running, fundraising and growing this foundation for street kids in Mongolia. She has a lovely website, and I’m always excited to get her updates.

There is such a sense of progress, real hope and that the money goes to the kids and the kids only. Martina takes each of these children under her wing and sets them up for a new life, hope and a future.  Read some of the stories and donate your old (sturdy) shoes!

info@eternalblueskyofmongolia.org

Living in Boxes

I’m moving. That ranks first, third and not at all on the list of 10 most stressful things in life you can do, depending on which list you consult. Interestingly enough: the list that did NOT list moving as one of the 10 most stressful things to do DID list three versions of breakup, jail term, marriage and pregnancy. Which goes to proof that being single was a very smart choice. It cuts down the clutter of stress lists to bereavement, moving and jail term, the latter of which I (so far) have been able to avoid. But moving I now must.

But what happens to “moving”, when it becomes: “I thought I was moving, but now I might be moving next week, but maybe I won’t move next week but next month instead?” I think it goes off the chart of stressful and into a list all of its own, filed somewhere under: “it’s complicated”, “I don’t want to talk about it”, “great excuse to excuse yourself and not be on time, not find ANYTHING, live in a mess, have cracked fingernails and a constant dust allergy cold and in general be in a real foul mood” – after all you ARE super stressed!

I’m living in boxes. Box #16 holds a lot of the stuff I packed when I thought I’d move next week and I’ve been eyeing #16. Do I open #16? If I open #16 do I also open #2 which also has stuff I need? Do I learn to life without content of box #16 and #2? What precedent do I set if I start opening boxes? Will I fill them with OTHER stuff and rewrite the packing list, or will I leave #16 open and put the stuff back in just before I move?

No wonder moving is stressful.

Everything I take into my hands now is suspiciously eyed under the scrutiny of a move pending, not confirmed, but happening somewhere in the near (or not so near) future. Will this be an item that goes into one of the ‘last minute’ boxes? How many of those ‘last minute’ boxes will I have? Do I pack them the morning of the move or the night before? What could happen that would make this item unnegotiable necessity? Do I need this thing for my summer vacation? Will I move before or after?… arghhhh.

I’m moving; and I will have a new address – soon.

Whoes Reality is it?

“As a documentarian I happily place my fate and faith in reality. It is my caretaker, the provider of subjects, themes, experiences – all endowed with the power of truth and the romance of discovery. And the closer I adhere to reality the more honest and authentic my tales. After all, the knowledge of the real world is exactly what we need to better understand and therefore possibly to love one another. It’s my way of making the world a better place.” Albert Maysles

As documentary film makers we grapple with reality every day. We portray reality in our films and we want others to experience it as well. But we need to take Albert Maysles quote a step further and ask: WHOSE REALITY; mine, the subjects, yours? What is the viewer’s reality – will the viewer see what I saw? On what journey can I take the viewer without losing credibility? Do I have to cater to the smallest common denominator?

I was in a mosque showing my film Abraham’s Children a few days ago. I thought my audiences and my common ground would be the ‘love’ for the children in the film and the acknowledgement of their lives as Americans, students, athletes, academics and practicing Muslims. But the reality for one woman in the audience was much different. She could not get passed the fact that the more liberal families where in the same film and “next to” the conservative families that in her eyes where the only true Muslims.

That was incredibly hard for me to hear, just on a human level, because I know that those families would strongly disagree. What was this woman’s reality to openly express that concern? Was it pure ignorance? I think not, she’s a convert. Was it arrogance?

I can tell you what my reality was: I was standing in a mosque, un-chaperoned as the only non-Muslim and very keenly aware of those facts. I also felt badly equipped to argue my point as I was in a house of worship.

Where do the experiences of two individuals cross and where do we “see” the same thing differently? Who am I to determine what my subject’s reality is? What I see as wrong another person sees as absolute right. Is this just a different opinion, or is one of us lying?

Not screening in a Theatre? No problem…

We are at a stage in the distribution of Abraham’s Children were we hold grass-roots semi-theatrical screenings. What that means is we go to non-traditional venues, like school auditoriums and class rooms, mosques, meeting halls and living rooms to show the film. Last weekend I had the good fortune to show Abraham’s Children twice myself. Once at a high school auditorium and once in a 1-12K private school whose auditorium also functions as a prayer room.

Early on, Caitlin Boyle of Film Sprout had warned a bunch of us filmmakers at her (awesome) workshop on grass roots distribution outreach for social change documentaries, to let go of having the film screened in a ‘perfect’ setting. I took that to mean, that the film might be shown in 4:3 format rather than the intended 16:9 (widescreen) or that the sound was not going to be perfect, etc. I also assumed that I would not be there to have to witness it.

SO on Friday and Saturday I made sure we had it all set up perfectly – right aspect ratio, sound as balanced as possible with the sound system available, room darkened, temperature right, etc. Friday: perfect! Saturday? Not so. For reasons beyond my control it was decided stop the film after it was only about 80% done. Whaat?

Reason being, they had simply run out of time and needed the room for something else. I was dumb folded. Why invite me to attend? Why go through the trouble of holding a screening of a film whose length is known? Why schedule a speech and Q&A session with the director? The Q&A turned into a discussion in the hallway with a few interested parties and I was back at my car before I knew it. It was a bizarre experience and something tells me: not the last.

Moral of the story: you can only control so much and then you have to let go. You where right, Caitlin (and Mom).

All I can say: donate $50, get the DVD shipped to your home and FINISH watching it!

Screening Photos - Abraham's Children Premiere

I can't tell you how wonderful it was to see (nearly) all the kids and their families in the same place and have them all meet and then have them up on stage with the crew! Thank you for all that came to the Premiere of Abraham's Children at the New World High School in the Bronx! It was a trek for those not from the hood, but I hope it was worth it.

And please, don't be shy ACT! and donate to get this film into classrooms! Thank you.

Photos are courtesy of Bob Cowin and Marc Seago.

Yasmine, Susan, Isma, Teresa, Claudia, Terry, Marc, Saraj, Tariq, Kasem & Ahmed

Terry, Claudia, Saraj, Tariq, Kasem, Ahmed, Haleema, Anam, Dareen, Nina















Yasmine with Teresa Pereira and Sister Susan

Ahmed and Saraj

My friend and supporter, Betsy holding up a donation envelope.

Visibility

When I go out biking I tend to wear bright clothing so I’m easily visible in traffic. Today I go out into Central Park for my lunch ride in my favorite screaming yellow fluorescent top. On my way out of the park I’m horsing around at a red light and loose my balance and can’t clip out in time from my pedals and I hit the pavement like a potato sack. I’m intact, only slightly bruised ego. However, as I’m dressed in bright fluorescent yellow, EVERYBODY in the four-way intersection takes note of my fall. Everybody it seems stares at me as I pick myself up and try to look concerned for my bike and not my elbow – I don’t dare make sure I don’t have a scraped elbow until two blocks up the road.

Visibility is a great thing – if you want it.

It got me thinking about a company’s visibility which of course ties in with their economic well-being and I got a new found appreciation for the work of PR firms. How do you spin the fall? Negative PR or no PR at all would spread the word that "Nina has lost her Mojo and fell with her bike, like a beginner at a red light". With good PR we could let word out that "Nina is developing this amazing new fall-proof clothing line for a high end cycling gear retailer and wanted to test the merchandise personally". See? Cool, no?

So: if you saw me fall at the red light with feet still clipped into the pedals (it’s super awkward when that happens, let me tell you), please assume that it was for the good of some kind of ultra cool and rad ‘research’.

What we share and what we don’t

A few months back I read this article in the New York Times science section by John Tierney and marked it because I thought it very interesting. When the topic of viral video distribution came up in our Think Tank “Quo F Vadis” that my friend Wilder and I started, about the future of the film industry on the internet, I had to go back and dig it out.

When it comes to newspaper articles, it seems that the ‘awesome’ factor out ways the ‘cool’ factor and that the stronger the emotions the more the article will be shared – interestingly enough in the newspaper world longer articles did better than shorter ones and I think with visual content we see the reverse. “Short, shorter, shortest” is the recipe for a viral hit.

I think where an article might have an advantage over a video is that it’s “scan-able”; a video is a linear affair. I also think that a forwarded article has a notion of “look how cool AND smart I am by forwarding you this awesome intellectual article about optics of deer vision” (no kidding – read the article). Whereas a video sub-text would be “look how hip and cool I am” OR “how outraged I am by this injustice”. No wonder Mashable has near daily list of top YouTube hits. This Sunday: 10 best wedding dance videos. Tomorrow: (educated guess) 10 funniest dog tricks.

Where does that leave us, content providers? Are we all decimated to 2 minute one-offs or webisodes? How will long format content be consumed in the future? Who will pay for it; consumers, aggregators, advertisers?

Have you watched yourself lately watch content on line? How long is tour attention span, when do you decide to commit or skip to the next video or task? What are you willing to pay for and what do you expect to be free?

Tell me…