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Posts under ‘widge’s videos’

Rick Prelinger Presents Visual Archive at FNC Lab

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 4°C] What to do with archive footage. What is its value and who does it belong to? These questions and others were addressed at the 38th edition of Montréal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma (FNC) by Rick Prelinger. His name and more importantly his archive collection was introduced to me a couple of [...]

Video Portrait #1 From Southern Sudan: Rose Achan Beryl

This is Rose Achan Beryl’s story. During a 7-week visit to Southern Sudan, I interviewed about a dozen Southern Sudanese men and women. Each one offers an intimate view of their lives during the 21-year civil war and since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. We get a glimpse into their family [...]

Africa, Canadian Mining Interests, Human Cargo and Re-education

[Montréal, Québec, Canada  18°C] Last night, I watched the five last episodes of the 2004 six-part television series, Human Cargo, directed by Brad Turner. I watched it on DVD borrowed from the well-stocked video library at La Grande Bibliothèque. The winner of seven Gemini Awards, including best director and best miniseries, the series follows parallel [...]

Mine Risk Education West of Juba

[Juba, Southern Sudan 34ºC] It’s my first day in Juba (Feb 26) and I start working right away. From Juba, I have a “story from the field” to write about Mine Risk Education (MRE). I’m picked up for a briefing meeting at the UNICEF offices. You can’t get in without a badge or an escort [...]

Jetlagged in Nairobi

[Nairobi, Kenya] My Flight to Nairobi straddles three continents, 13 hours of flying time and oceans of sea water and desert sand. The initial 6-hour flight brought me in Amsterdam to languish three hours in the busy Schiphol Airport, before continuing on to Nairobi on another 7-hour flight. North America to Europe to Africa. Three disparate continents just a plane ride or two away from each other. But if the demographics onboard flight KL0565 from Amsterdam to Nairobi are any indication, Africa is still the downtrodden, the unrepresented, the absent continent among the three.