Victor Bout, Cold War Delight

photo: ALI BASE, Iraq -- Airmen of the 407th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron load and refuel a Russian IL76.      (www.ali.afcent.af.mil/photos/)

It’s been a good year for all of us Cold War kids for whom Ronald Reagan is like an absentee grandfather and the late 80s episodes of G.I. Joe now look like blurry but prescient maps of our geopolitical adulthoods. Whether it’s by mistake or by the misinformed metaphysical will of our youth, we exchanged a fear of Mother Russia for the fear of a real Cobra Commander some years ago. When the clean lines of the old bi-lateral origami unfolded it revealed a new world map that’s now so bent and creased it’s difficult to understand without overdosing on TV news motion graphics and frenetically written tweets. But 2010 was kind and gave us a couple little reminders of the good old days when all the bad guys were Russian.

It started with the arrest of 11 “deep cover” Russian spies who were hiding in the American suburbs decoding Starbucks recipes and ripping Glee DVDs. Compared to the soul snapping strength of the terrorism narrative in America, this was a warm chestnut - the Russians were back to sample the fat of our land, not to blow it up. And that’s what was so great about the Soviets, they played a game with us that had comprehensible goals, structure and symmetry - they wore were red and we were blue. They drank vodka and thought capitalism was corrupt while we drank Coke also thought capitalism was corrupt but still much better than driving a Lada. They had birthmarks and gold teeth and we had Solid Gold and an AIDS panic. As paradigms go, it was a major winner.

The follow up to this Cold War reunion is now emerging. Victor Bout is a big husky Russian, born in a place that ends with “stan”, he sells AK47s for a living, he’s got a tractor size moustache and he’s being extradited by Thailand to the U.S. Like the spy story there is a familiarity in this material that’s reassuring. If you haven’t heard of him, Bout has been one of the busiest arms dealers in the world for quite a while. The short version of his story goes – the Soviet Union collapsed, all kinds of military hardware was laying around, he got some cash together and bought a couple military cargo airplanes for cheap (he was an Air Force officer) and started making money flying cargo for various parties, and his business grew and grew. He’s one of the guys they based the Nick Cage movie Lord of War on and he’s been sexy since way back in 1993 when the NY Times magazine ran this amazing profile on him. His work was also alluded to in the problematic but very successful documentary film Darwin’s Nightmare. Basically, he’s a global bad guy and American justice finally caught up to him.

But there’s a rub - Bout’s cargo aircraft businesses were running full steam to service our war in Iraq. I know because I saw, heard and felt the distinct engine whine of his big Russian cargo airplanes everyday and every night during my 21-month bivouac at the Baghdad Airport. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, everyday at least a dozen Russian built cargo aircraft landed and took off, the Iraqi army trains on and carries AK47s and they’re rebuilding their military, which means they’re buying and we were rushed to bring in MRAPs as quickly as possible. The biggest of the Russian cargo planes, the biggest airplane I’ve ever seen, sat in a special safe area called the “hot pad” because it had “something explosive” inside. But don’t take my word for it:

From The Guardian, Adam Roberts, Sunday 21 December 2008:

From Africa he is accused of moving on, establishing a hub for his privateairline in the Middle East, from where he became involved in flying goods to Afghanistan and later to America-run Iraq. Ironically, as one part of the American government was attempting to have Bout detained for his alleged nefarious dealings, another part of the American government was using Bout's services to fly goods to its soldiers in Baghdad.

So really, this narrative is not a cloak and dagger Cold War redux. Pull back the curtain and what you’ll see is another sad chapter from a decade that history books should call The American Malfunction. There are intensely varying opinions on how the Malfunction started, but it seems like just about everyone agrees that we went off the tracks. To sum up our handling of Bout: we identified him for committing war crimes in Africa, set out to construct a legal framework through international treaties to make it legally possible to arrest him, then did extensive business with his front companies through our own proxies (private war corps), then we set a trap for him in Thailand and now we’re extraditing him back to the U.S. for war crimes. Got it.

Villages in Action

This is an exciting idea. The Villages In Action Conference is a reaction to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals meetings in September. From the VIA website: "In September 2010, international organizations, heads of state, celebrities and specialists gathered to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As you may know, the MDGs were set in 2000 to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by 2015. In the midst of the coverage of these grand events, high profile attendees wined, dined and debated the relative merits of each MDG plan, while the actual “poor,” (the object of these goals) were not invited to these elite events.

Project Diaspora is dedicated to change perceptions about the poor by building a platform whereby the voices of the poor can be heard. On November 27, 2010, the first conference will be held in a village outside Masindi, Uganda. The goal of this one-day conference is to showcase the grassroots efforts driving economic development and improving the welfare of the community – all with little or no assistance from international aid organizations."

I love it. I hope there's video to come.

News from Malawi by way of New Jersey

I I talked with Jake for a little while this weekend. For those who’ve seen Bush League, if you don’t remember, he’s the Peace Corps volunteer in the film. Above is a picture of him from last month with his forth graders on Crazy Hat Day. He’s now in his second year of study for a Masters at Rutgers and a fulltime fourth grade teacher. The guy is BUSY! He spoke with Chatwa back in Zolokere, Malawi this week and here’s the latest from the village:

Chatwa (the farmer and team captain in Bush League) is having trouble with elephants trampling his crops at night. It’s very unusual to see an elephant in that area, Chatwa thinks it’s because the elephants are increasing in population that they’re moving out of the Vwaza Game Reserve, which encloses a large wetland south of the village. They’re chasing the elephants away by banging on plastic tubs with sticks. Chatwa also reports that his fifth child and first son is doing well and is “very strong” like his father.

Jacklyn is doing fine and her health appears to be good.

Issac, who appears in Bush League several times but is never named got a serious head injury during a recent football game. He was unconscious for several minutes before coming to.

Tough Gong, the artist and sign painter who made the maps in Bush League (he lives in Mzuzu several hours from the village) is doing well and has a new girlfriend. TG always has a new girlfriend.

No word on Mlawa the soft-spoken young father in Bush League but no news is good news.

The other big news is that the Malawian Government is at work constructing an irrigation system in the Hewe Valley. Chatwa says that they’ll be able to grow vegetables year round once the system is built. Right now fresh vegetables are only available during the rainy/growing season. If this is really happening, it’s a really big deal.

The Goonies

I still love the Goonies. I saw Marth Plimpton at a wedding and had to ask for a picture.

Printer hack that really shouldn't work

Next to HOA fees the biggest racket in America has to be printer ink cartridges, what a rip. My old Epson ran out of black a couple weeks ago so on a whim I filled the empty cartridge up with water (3/4 full according to the utility) to see would happen and to my surprise it works perfectly.

I’ve been printing things for three weeks with it. I guess there’s so much ink left over inside it just kind of mixes. I doubt I could print a photo but for text and DVD labels it looks exactly – normal. It doesn’t smudge either. Huh?

In other news an NGO on a USAID project in West Africa is hiring an Onion Expert. I'm speechless.

Audio Hack: Mics and Fans

I bought this sleeping bag mat for a road trip two years ago and we ended up in hotels every night so I never used it. Now I pull it out when I'm recording voiceover and stand it up around my hard drives to keep some of the fan noise from reaching the mic. With the lower background noise I can sit a little further back off the mic and that helps get rid of all the little mouth noises. It kinda looks like it was specially made for this since it's got the egg crate surface and all the folds.

Niger '66

Here's a trailer for a new doc film about a group of early Peace Corps volunteers who went to Niger in 1966. It's amazing to me how different the institution seems. My Peace Corps (2000-02) wasn't exactly a well oiled machine but they were really good at training. It looks like it was kinda messy back then. I do envy the early volunteers though, they got to blaze the trail for the rest of us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGrB06WagE&feature=player_embedded

Afrika Post

The internet is incredible. An editor from the Afrika Post in Germany found some of my photos from Malawi on flickr and asked to use them in print. It’s really neat to see them printed.

Henry's Wedding: funny ethics

Last spring I was a guest in David Fenster's editing class at UCSD and as an assignment the students had to cut a short from some of the unused Bush League footage. I gave them two hours of footage from Henry Nyimbiri’s wedding, which they had to cut to five minutes or less (Henry is the captain of the rival team in Bush League). One of the students, Bryce Kho, did something that illustrates just how much influence the filmmaker/editor can have on the "reality" of a documentary. It’s a great illustration of the function and/or disfunciton of ethics in doc filmmaking and it’s funny.

http://vimeo.com/11632347

Variety reviews Bush League

Bush League got a great write up in Variety this week: Bush League

by Rob Nelson

Produced by Cy Kuckenbaker, Gregory J. Wilson. Directed, edited by Cy Kuckenbaker. With: Vitumbiko Jacklyn Khunga, Songwe "Chatwa" Nyimbiri, Jake Wilson, Mlawa Khunga. Narrator: Cy Kuckenbaker. (English, Malawian dialogue)
Scoring not just as a sports docu but as an ethnographic study, Cy Kuckenbaker's "Bush League" is an entertaining, educational and immersive pic that portrays life in the Malawian village of Zolokere through a look at the ups and downs of its soccer team, the Tony Bombers. Shooting and cutting the film himself, Kuckenbaker catches plenty of action, from fiery debates over game play to the everyday struggles of villagers to deal with the specter of HIV/AIDS. If anything, "Bush League" is more interested in Southeast African culture than in soccer, which will frustrate some viewers and stimulate many others.
Shown losing their first game on a ref's controversial ruling, the Bombers are sponsored by the U.S. Peace Corps, whose hotheaded rep Jake Wilson is building a school in a neighboring village that has its own soccer team. Rivalry between these two clubs is fierce and seems to sandwich Wilson in an uncomfortable middle. The docu's other indelible subjects include the Bombers' captain, Chatwa, an economically indebted farmer of maize and tobacco, and its head cheerleader, Jacklyn, an AIDS activist fighting both the disease and its stigmatized status.
Camera (color, DV), Kuckenbaker. Reviewed on DVD, Vancouver, Oct. 7, 2010. (In Vancouver Film Festival.) Running time: 80 MIN.

The Sharma Image!

Maneesh Sharma who was one year ahead of me in the Film Direction dept at Cal Arts is finishing his first feature in Bollywood. Globalization is awesome and this movie looks awesome. Congratulations Maneesh! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tpLa34YLp8

From UNAFF: Indentured Premiere

It really shocks me every time an audience sees a film I made but I guess I'm extra shocked about Indentured since it's so unconventional. It makes me feel really optimistic actually because as films go, Indentured asks a lot from the audience. There are long passages of text, and no sound/picture effects for fun or any moments of levity. So when people respond to it, it's kind of proof to me that people are smart and that there are audiences with appetites for the tough stuff.

Hopefully, the film will clear the legal obstacles that remain and I can either put it on the web myself or try and get the story picked up by a media organization. UNAFF was really a great place for it to start. Thanks UNAFF, really.

If you saw the film or are interested in the subject matter please join the INDENTURED group on facebook.

If you're a filmmaker, blogger or citizen journalist dealing with a legal question and you're unfunded here are two amazing resources you should know about:

Online Media Legal Network

New Media Rights (In San Diego)

From UNAFF: Water Themes

It's a rainy day in Palo Alto, CA. The United Nations Association Film Festival has a really nice, intimate atmosphere. I met a filmmaker tonight named Anjoo Khosla who made a short doc film called Wahid's Mobile Bookstore, the URL is pasted below (10min). It's about a charming little boy in India who reminds me for some reason of the boy in The 400 Blows - hmm. I guess it's because they're both charming self-sufficient kids.

It looks like Iraq is back in the news with the release of all those docs from Wikileaks. It's good timing for Indentured to come out - I really hope it finds its place in the larger dialog about Iraq.

The rain, new surroundings and film festivities have got me slipping in and out of imaginary film scenes. I ate dinner in an empty sushi place on an empty rainy street and swore I was in a Wong Kar Wai movie for a second.

Indentured screens tomorrow night at 920pm at the Aquarius Theatre in Palo Alto, CA.

The INDENTURED group on facebook.

Watch Wahid's Mobile Bookstore here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJYD2U1gjnM

INDENTURED

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/2911981311/ Indentured screens at the UNAFF on the Stanford campus next Monday night so I'll be blogging from the road next week. If you're on Facebook, please join the INDENTURED group at: https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=168400833252

The more people I can get in the group the easier it is for me to prove people care about this subject. I'd love to lay everything out about the film but it's still under legal review. Here's a synopsis of the film:

Indentured investigates the living conditions of South Asian laborers working on U.S. military bases in Iraq. Testimonials are presented along side the U.S. government’s guidelines to define human trafficking, which suggest that large-scale labor abuses are happening inside U.S. bases in Iraq.

10 minutes

New Media Rights

Indentured, my ten-minute doc about labor abuse in Iraq, will premiere next week at the United Nations Association Film Festival. Yeah! But what I want to write about is not the film so much as the help I received to finish it – very important legal help.

San Diego, a city that is not famous for its art scene or progressive cultural movements does have some amazing things going on besides the tacos and weather (double rainbow!). One of those things is New Media Rights. For the media makers and filmmakers out there, bookmark their page because it’s an amazing resource. If you’re creating media, blogging, making video or you name it, sooner or later you’re going to have a legal question you'll need to address. This organization is working really hard to make sure you know your rights. It’s also worth mentioning the man behind the curtain is a really smart attorney not just an advocate.

So thank you New Media Rights for the guidance through what could have become a complete personal and professional disaster.

Very Sincerely,

Cy

New Media Rights

Links

I have to get ready to shift gears from Bush League/Malawi to Indentured/Iraq, but before I jump off into that, here are some websites I follow for my Africa fix. Some are just curiosities but they're worth looking at, at least once: The Good: http://chrisblattman.com/ http://waterwellness.ca/ http://barefooteconomics.ca/ http://www.buildafrica.org/ The Bad: http://www.africom.mil/interactiveMap.asp?target=_self And the money: http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Ira Glass video

Rachel Jones, who if you don't know her is a Canadian-American ex-Associated Press journalist turned novelist living in the most dangerous city I've ever been to - Caracas, sent me this link, which I love. Thanks Rach: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE