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To my left, I see a man in a cage, nostrils flared, both hands holding the cage which he calls his home, gnawing at his encasement, our eyes meet. I’m mesmerized temporarily, before fear forces my eyes to the road. Probably a victim of Paco, a highly addictive cocaine by-product that transforms humans into the living dead. My ears are fixated on the sounds the caged man is making but my eyes go their own way and find refuge on the skeleton of a dog partially sunk into the ground.

Picture: Handmade shack

I look to my right, I’m waved into a school, a boy runs up yells “Hola amigo. Que tal”, throws me a high five, his little sister, not wanting to the re-construct the academic sentence of her brother offers a high pitched “hola” and throws her little hand up for a high five. I bend down.  She puts her fingers in her mouth and smiles the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. The sound of the gnawing is still in my head and the audio contrasted with a little angel before my eyes throws my mind into a tailspin. Someone yells “milk time” and the kids run to get their milk. I forget the gnawing.

Picture: Beautiful smile

We sit on the ground to film the post milk dance party, which lacked music but not spirit. Diego, a director of a production company in Villa 20 offered the group of angels his best shot of Reggaeton so they had a beat to dance to. But the song died out quickly, when Diego realized he only knew 6 words to the popular kids dance song. But no beat was needed. They were all turned into the same internal radio station. They didn’t even notice the music stopped. The dance waged on. Afterwords the kids wanted to watch themselves on the camera, they crawled all over me tying to get a glimpse of themselves on the screen. Their soft cheeks against my unshaven cheeks. This makes me smile.

These children have nothing. They’ve been pushed to the margins of society. Being young children, economic wellbeing is out of their control. On the surface, their homes and streets look unfamiliar and unfriendly. Cages, hand made homes, and the curious stares of locals who quickly recognize the un-weathered face of someone with a home with 4 protective walls and temperature control. We look our age, they look their experiences. Yet, these children maintain their innocence and showcase their joy of the world for everyone to see.

Picture: Dancing in the slums

I leave the school, I find myself doing a dance of my own as I try to fend off the biggest  mosquitoes I have ever seen in my life, I’m covered head to toe in bites. I pray that the biggest killer of mankind will stop their attack or at least call a ceasefire while I try to make it to our next destination a few blocks away. The mosquitoes are too bad, we jump in a car and head back downtown.

Picture: Diego thinking of a new song to sing

I get home, my mind overwhelmed with new thoughts and experiences. I feel that poverty is almost impossible to understand. I saw life and death living next door to each other. People who have almost the same, with completely different life outcomes and perspectives. This is why poverty has yet to be properly defined. It is agreed upon that poverty has to do with deprivation or lack of well being, but beyond this point, there is much debate. There is something bigger at play here. There are new conclusions to be drawn.

Picture: Bedroom in one room shack

The next thing I know it’s 8am and I’m jumping out of bed to meet with Maya, my co-director. I’m late, I can’t find a bank machine that’s not broken. I have to try the subway for the first time. Surprisingly I figure it out pretty quickly. I also realize how much I love subways. I take a moment, buy a fruit from a homeless man, and wait for my train. I arrive at the stop “Constitution”. My gut talks to me. It says “put your hand in your pocket to protect your wallet”. I feel bad but I listen to myself.

I hate when my faith in the human race fails me. I feel snobbish, thoughtless, and I also felt obvious about the fact I was protecting my wallet. How unnatural is it to walk around with one hand in your pocket.

I sense people’s eye’s are on me after realizing I’m protecting something of value. I meet another little angel on my way upstairs to see Maya. She sees I have a bottle of water. She asks me for a sip. I say of course, and give her my bottle of water, she takes the littlest sip. I feel suspicious. I check my pocket. I feel horrible about thinking she was capable for that. She gives me my water back. I take a few steps away from her before I realized I should have given her the whole bottle. I turn around, tap her on her little shoulders and tell her she can have the whole thing, she said “no thanks, I just wanted a sip”. Strangely cute.

With my hand in my pocket I run up a broken escalator to meet Maya. We get ready to board the subway which is taking us to the presidential speech of Hugo Chavez  in a soccer stadium on the outskirts of the city center. I take my wallet out to get the 70 cents it’s going to cost me. Maya, yells at me and tells me to keep my wallet closer to my chest. She explains “I just watched two different guys get robbed within the last 30 minutes”. I felt less rude and thoughtless about protecting my wallet beforehand, but not better about second guessing the little girl.

After jumping the turnstiles, (not because I didn’t have 70 cents, but because everyone else was doing it and I would have been trampled if I stopped to try and pay), we squeezed into the subway. Then we squeezed some more. I didn’t need to hold onto anything because the human cargo was keeping me in one place. Every inch of my body was being pressed against by another human body with great force. Breathing was difficult and to make matters worse, others in the subway put hygiene on the back burner that day. I have never experienced a “squish” like that before. I decided to do a test between subway stops. I thought it might be interesting to see if I would remain standing if I allowed my legs to give out on me. Surely the pressure from the other humans pushing against me will keep me in my position. Test hypothesis was correct. However, I received strange looks as my change in body pressure started to make others feel uncomfortable, so I turned the power back on to my legs. I was having a blast, this subway ride was ranking near the top of my list in terms of coolest subway experiences.

The train and I had some type of connection. The old beast realized I was having too much fun and decided to light itself on fire. Smoke started filling our car as we barreled down the dark subway tunnel. The smell or rubber filled my already compressed lungs. I hoped my companions who helped me so gracefully conduct my gravity experiment with my legs would be as helpful and cooperative when it came time to evacuate the train. No one other than people in our car realized there was fire so the train didn’t actually stop until the station at which time an official standing on the platform yelled out “get the %^&* out of the subway”, someone smashed some glass, someone else ran for the fire extinguisher. This was my first experience with the subway in Buenos Aires. Incredible. My subway teammates, quickly made their way out the car and pushed me all the way up to the street to fresh air.

We made it to the Chavez rally and we got everything we bargained for. One of George bushe’s biggest critics moved a crowd of, I’m not sure how many, but a lot. The only food I had this day, a yogurt, about 13 hours before started to wear off and a slight fear of fainting kicked in as I noticed my body waving back and forth while I was trying to stand still. We took a cab for dinner at midnight, a common time to eat here then called it a day.

Picture: Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela

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We’re also finalizing finishing touches on the subtitles, sound and music for the short documentary we filmed, then somehow managed to break, last year entitled The Purpose of Life is Rice… Wink. We went to commercial Drive to interview Danse Crowkiller last night in the rain to find out what’s happened to him since we’ve finished filming.  He’s been stabbed, had his corner burned down, his bags stolen and most recently he was attacked with a metal bar which cut open his head and broke his arm. The hospital also cut his hair, which I thought was a sort of tragedy, but he seemed to be indifferent towards the new hairdo. For those of you that know Danse, you’ll know that he loves fashion and he loves his hair.

Sterling: What do you want people to take away from your film?

Brian: El pueblo unido jamás será vencido (“The people united will never be defeated”)

Also, that one should never take democracy for granted. It requires participation by the citizen.

Sterling: Some would argue that political dissent on this scale is unpatriotic (based on the inaccurate definition of many). However, during the citizens’ fight they proudly raise their flag and chant “Argentina” while they are being shot at. These are incredibly patriotic scenes. The people are fighting for the dignity of their country, not only their own personal needs. Do you think something like this would be considered patriotic if it happened in North America? Or do you think protesting and revolution is generally considered un-patriotic?

Brian: In general I don’t find the term ‘patriotic’ to be particularly useful or important as it rarely means the same thing to two different people. Further it is usually used in a North American context as something approaching ‘my country, right or wrong.’

Argentines in general are very ‘patriotic’ if you take that word to mean very proud of their country (often this pride is severely misplaced but that’s another story). What really interests me and I actually find problematic (and this relates to the idea of revolution) is how ‘democratic’ the whole situation was. Listen, De la Rua was elected legitimately and was only halfway through his first term.

One can argue that calling the state of siege on the 19th ended his claims to be a democrat, but one could just as easily argue that the looting that was going on throughout the country called for just such a decision. I wouldn’t but I certainly understand the argument.

Watching the film it is very clear where my sympathies lie, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some problems intellectually justifying the (for lack of a better word) overthrow of a democratically elected government, moreover in a country with a horrific history of coups and military dictatorships.

I don’t find this a particularly easy issue to deal with. In fact I hope very much to pursue ideas of democracy and revolution (and their at times conflicting nature) in future projects.

You can read more about the film here

A character documentary shot in the first-person by Danse Crowkiller who lives on the street at the corner of Commercial Drive and Kitchener Street in Vancouver.

The film intimately explores Danse’s day-to-day life, his art, his ideas, his involvement in the community, his friends, his contributions and his adventures.

The documentary, shot in the first person, presents the opportunity to share Danse’s unique spirit and his identity beyond his homelessness. It’s an exciting look into the unconventional and beautiful life of an individual who gives more than he takes and is loved by his community.

April 19th, we’ll be showing our film “The Purpose of Life is Rice… Wink” at the Reel Justice Film Festival hosted by Pivot Legal Society and SFU.

Showtimes:

Time: April 19th 2009: 2pm (shows after “The Devil Plays Hardball”)

Location: SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street.

Cost: $5 for everyone, $3 for students, seniors and low-income people.

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It’s a character documentary shot in first person by a subject named Dance Crowkiller. In large part it’s a retaliation documentary against a fairly recent middle class judgment documentary that seeks to make people who fall outside the normal gradient of human behavior adhere to a specific set of lifestyle guidelines.

Dance was featured in the documentary entitled The Devil Plays Hardball where they gave mentors 10 months to fix a homeless person. However, I took issue with the documentary becuase they portrayed Dance in a very negative light. Dance lives ON my street. He lives against a telephone pole about 5 feet from the curb. He’s an incredibly intelligent, generous, funny and widely respected individual. I’m not going to give any of the details of our film away, but I think this idea is interesting becuase it gives Dance an opportunity, not to defend himself, but to allow people who would otherwise be too scared or judgmental to sit down with him and get to know him, to have a peak into his life for 30 minutes and listen to him talk, watch him work on his sculptures, and travel with him through the city on his little adventures. Something the other documentary not so accidentally forgot to do.

On the topic of breaking away from templates, and playing with the medium of video, I took a break last night to watch Julio Medem’s film Chaotic Ana. You can watch the trailer for the film below. It’s beautiful.

Equally as interesting were some big studio names (both directors and producers) admitting to making garbage for blockbusters. They haven’t been able to find the intersection where art and film meet and consequently become overworked on projects they don’t care about and hate the industry. As one director put it “I make “B” films with “A” list actors. As another big name director put it “I make my actors fart and tap-dance to make audiences laugh… It’s fucking pathetic”.

Producer: Eternal Sunshine for a Spotless Mind

Middle: writer for Harry Potter 5 film, Right: writer for Blindness film

In other news I’ve been looking daily at studio space in Vancouver. I haven’t decided on a place yet, but I almost picked up the following studio as a temporary solution. I changed my mind last minute because of a few legal issues plus it’s a bit on the small side.

I also just got back from shooting the DVD cover for Ahora o Nunca (Now or Never) yesterday. What a day. I was sprinting down Broadway trying to find the parts for a makeshift green-screen after I found out the studio didn’t have their own. I didn’t eat all day as I didn’t hire any pre-planning help to do the shoot. I hired a lighting technician for the shoot with the model but it was the pre planning that killed me. The shoot went really well. I rented the latest Nikon digital SLR. It’s a $5000 camera and it takes a beautiful picture. It took me a while to get used to it but after the first half hour the pics starting coming out much nicer. Here is the end result for the studio shoot yesterday.

in the studio

The end result