Cysfilm

Interview with Dr. Kim Yi Dionne: part 3 of 5

If I could go back in time and give myself some advice before shooting Bush League I would say, “Take the traditional system of authority (chiefs, subchiefs, village headman etc.) seriously because when the soccer games come to a halt and the imported rules of the game stop working, it’s that system that’s going to kick in, that’s what you’ll actually be filming, that’s what you’re seeing.”

For Wednesday Dr. Kim Yi Dionne reflects on the importance of traditional systems in many sub-Saharan nations:

Interview with Dr. Kim Dionne: part 4 of 5

Interview with Dr. Kim Yi Dionne: Part 5 of 5

Quick, imagine you’re a rural Malawian and put this list of development priorities in order, 1 being the most important to you and 5 the least important to you:

Agricultural Development

Education

HIV/AIDS services

Clean Water

Health Services

Bush League premieres in a week and a half so I wanted to take this week to post an interview I did recently with Dr. Kim Yi Dionne. Kim is a political scientist with a research background in Malawi who reviewed Bush League for accuracy during post production. In reading her work I was struck by the results of a survey she did of rural Malawian’s development priorities. The survey results look very simple, it’s just a short list of what the people in that region would prefer in terms of money/resources spent on development. Here are the actual results – see how you guessed.

In a survey of 1259 rural villagers in Rumphi district, villagers ranked their preferences with respect to development and health in the following order:

1. Clean Water

2. Agricultural Development

3. Health Services

4. Education

5. HIV/AIDS services

How did you do? See anything unexpected? Where did you rank HIV/AIDS services?

HIV/AIDS services were fifth? How many of us could have guessed that HIV/AIDS would be last? So what’s going on? Shouldn’t they be first?

To shed some light on this I’ll be posting a five-part interview with Kim on the facebook/Bush League group page and here over the next five days that looks at this. I hope you’ll find these clips interesting both as an insight on Malawi but perhaps equally so – as a reflection of ourselves.

For today I’m posting a second short clip from an interview with the Subchief of Zolokere (he’s the highest authority in the village where Bush League was filmed) and this will start us with some insights into the extreme end of the conversation –  the HIV/AIDS conspiracy theory.

Subchief Moses Khunga from Zolokere, Malawi, January 2007

Dr. Kim Yi Dionne at UCLA, June 2010

Things to Love: This Video

Off Kim Yi Dionne’s gmail/buzz stream. Congolese-born, Belgian-raised rapper/singer. Oroma Elewa:

Pravesh Gurung

Good news from Pravesh Gurung my old classmate from CalArts. The project he’s on in Bollywood just released it’s first trailer:

It’s amazing. Whether you like this kind of thing or not you have to admire the scale that Bollywood achieves. It’s always epic, shamelessly nostalgic story telling. Maybe most importantly, it’s fun too.. Pravesh’s brother by the way is the perhaps the most talked about young fashion designer around – Prabal Gurung. Pravesh congrats and good luck!

INDENTURED premiere at the UNAFF

The United Nations Association Film Fest just released it’s official schedule. The lineup looks great. I’m excited Indentured will premiere at the festival and also excited to (try to) visit the d.school at Stanford. They do a lot of very interesting design projects many of which serve people in developing countries. Every time I see one of their agriculture projects I think of Chatwa, the farmer in Bush League. He’s such a great farmer and I’m dying to see what he can do with new and better technology.

A Good Article for Doc Filmmakers

Got this article about the use of social media for doc films from Art at New Media Rights a few minutes ago. It’s a great reminder of all the things happening out there.

Unpacking Bush League

The worst thing about finishing Bush League is knowing 98% of the footage will never be seen so over the next few weeks (months) I’ll to pull out and post a few things that work independently. Below are three more songs from one of the church choirs in Zolokere. I posted one song from this group a few years ago and it got a really strong response, I just didn’t have time to get these others sorted out, but here they are. In addition to the music, I got a kick out of the little boy in the pink shirt:

Marketing: A Totally Serious Film About Malawi

Let’s see, how can I explain this?

Bush League is a totally serious film about Malawi but that doesn’t mean much to a lot of people and I understand why – it looks like a niche film. If you’re already passionate about Africa or soccer than you’re probably already game but how can I appeal to everyone else?

Since I’ve been relentlessly flogging those dearest to me with heavy subject matter for years now, I saw this problem of appeal as a chance to lighten up for a moment. So I started my first ad campaign as far away from the seriousness and integrity of Bush League as I could. In short – I’m ripping off old movies that share nothing in common with my work and co-opting the imagery toward my own ham fisted ends.

Here’s the first one. I hope to make a few more. The ad is totally ridiculous but Bush League will remain a totally serious film about Malawi that I hope you’ll watch. Enjoy:

Welcome back

Hi everyone, welcome back to cysfilm. It’s alive! Kind of!

I took a big break from the blog to finish editing Bush League and to think about how I can be better at all of this. To start with, I wanted to redesign the site so it looked a little more professional but also so it could support more. Many thanks to my fellow CalArtian Stephanie Chen for the clean new design and to Jay Tillery who is programming it.

The site should be finished in the coming weeks so please come back soon for updates on Bush League and Indentured, which both premiere this October. Beyond that, I’m going to try and be a better blogger by being more concise and reaching out to interview other filmmakers and tell stories other than my own. Please don’t ever hesitate to contact me if there is something you’d like more or less of. I realize my name is on the front door but I’d like everyone to feel at home here.

Thanks again,
Cy