Archive for the 'Documentaries in production' Category
Filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky has begun working on a 2-year documentary project with Landmine Action on a major landmine clearance attempt in the Western Sahara. The project is based in Tifariti - deep in the Western Sahara, some 2,000 km south-west of Algiers - the capital of the so-called ”Liberated Zone” where the ground is laced with about seven million landmines and thousands of unexploded munitions. The film is being produced by the London-based production company Tourist with a Typewriter Ltd. Read more about the project on Taji’s blog.
Production is currently underway on a new documentary about the Dalai Lama. “Dalai Lama Renaissance” follows a group of 40 Western thinkers, including two quantum physicists, who travel to the Himalayan mountains to meet him.
Producer/ director Khashyar Darvich has spent 6 years working on the film, and even got Harrison Ford on board to narrate. The director says he has also assembled a world-class music soundtrack that includes original music from leading sitar player Roop Verma. The European Documentary Portal recently spoke to the American director about his experiences.
Q: How did you get started on the project?
Initially, my company (Wakan Films) funded the project alone. I found a professional crew (18 people) that was so interested in the subject matter and the opportunity to spend time with the Dalai Lama that they paid their own way to India. Once the footage was filmed, we received a non-profit grant as well as smaller individual donations. Co-Producer David Mueller, who had previous experience with fundraising, helped bring in some funding for the film during post-production. Many people volunteered their time on the film, or are working for deferred pay. The rest of the post-production I paid for myself because I believe that it is an important project that can positively impact audiences.
Continue reading ‘New Dalai Lama documentary in production’
A new Canadian production is underway on the plight of Irish refugees escaping the 1847 famine, many of whom died shortly after arriving in Canada on crowded and unsanitary ships.
The arrival of more than 38,000 famine migrants was a major historical event for Toronto which only had about 20,000 residents at the time. A recent archeological dig has shed more light on the fate of the migrants, uncovering remains of the hospital where over 1000 of them died.
Continue reading ‘Canadian filmmaker on history of Irish famine migrants’
The Chinese government has reacted angrily to a Japanese documentary in production, which describes the massacre of tens of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops as “a myth”. The highly politicised film is funded through public donations, and is directed by Satoru Mizushima, the head of a nationalist Japanese TV channel, Sakura.
The documentary apparently insist that the 1937 Nanjing massacre never took place, despite historical evidence that Japanese troops slaughtered at least 142,000 people when they invaded the city which was then capital of nationalist China. (Chinese historians have put the death toll at 300,000 men, women and children.)
“The Truth About Nanjing” is only one of the many films set for release this year, the 70th anniversary of the massacre. The Nanjing story also featured at Sundance this year, through a critically-acclaimed US production with Woody Harrelson. The Chinese government also plans to make its own version of the film, based on Iris Chang’s bestselling book, The Rape of Nanjing.
Read the entry on Nanjing in Wikipedia
Austrian company Mischief Films has started filming a documentary about the life of Muhammad Asad, the most prominent Jewish convert to Islam in modern times. The film, Muhammad Asad — The Lion’s Journey, traces his life and journeys, and the first scenes were shot recently on the Dammam-Riyadh train and in the surrounding desert.
Born as Leopold Weiss in 1900, Asad was a descendant of a long line of rabbis in Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian Empire which is now Lviv in Ukraine. After his conversion to Islam, he chose to be named Muhammad after the Prophet (peace be upon him). Asad is a literal translation of his first name, Leo, which means lion in Greek.
Continue reading ‘Documentary on life of prominent Jewish convert to Islam’
A new Canadian documentary about the world’s second largest corporation Wal-Mart is making headlines in both Canada and the US. Directed by Sergeo Kirby, “Wal-Town” follows six student activists as they travel to 36 Canadian towns where Wal-Mart has established stores.
The film grew out of the anti-globalisation student movement “überculture”, which has been fighting against the hegemony of the consumer giant. It has criticised Wal-Mart for destroying local communities and businesses, using Third World sweatshops to produce goods, and paying its employees substandard wages.
Wal-Mart recorded a $11.2 billion in profit in 2006 but defenders of globalisation say that the corporation brings an estimated 38,000 people out of poverty in China each month, and about 460,000 per year. For more on the documentary and the “überculture” movement, see www.waltown.com.
