The View From 24C
I’m beginning this first blog entry somewhere over the South China Sea on the way from Taipei to Phnom Penh. This trip marks the first time I’m making a film out of the US with the easy ability to upload journal entries, pictures and even post short video clips to the web. So here goes.
We are here to make a documentary – two of them in fact, Matt’s working on a radio story and we’re collaborating on a video—so time will tell if we are able to give this blog the time it deserves. If we do get make some entries, by all means post comments and tell us what you think.
I set off from Newark airport almost two days ago—the mind goes crazy on these flights because you basically loose an entire day. I guess for Halloween I went as a grungy flyer seriously drugged out on high power anti-anxiety drugs. I arrive in Phnom Penh shortly and as I look out the window I can see the brown/green coast of Vietnam and what I think are the many winding rivers that make up the Mekong delta.
I’m getting incredibly excited about this documentary project, though I’m also gripped with a nervous and anxious energy. Part of it could be that I’m about to enter an economically poor country with a horribly sad past, but another part is that this is my first return to South East Asia in over ten years. As a naïve college senior, I made my first documentary film in Vietnam, called Reflections from Sa Pa, Vietnam. It was an ambitious project about the impact of global tourism on the Hmong ethnic group in Vietnam. I traveled by myself to a remote region of a country where I barely knew the language and tried to create something that I knew only through watching movies and taking classes.
Let’s just say that Sans Soleil it’s not. It certainly had some moments, but I've stuck it in the vault and it ain't never coming out. But making the film did a wonderful thing for me: It gave me a sense of confidence that I never knew I had. It still brings a smile to my face that I said, "fuck it, I’m going to apply for a grant, buy a camera, get a plane ticket, go to a communist country and spend two months making a doc." Perhaps more importantly, the experience made me fall in love with the art and craft of documentary filmmaking: The ethics of representation, the idea of truth and authorship, gaining access, visual composition, interview technique, editing. I was thrown into wrestling with these heady ideas in the only way I believe one can: By picking up a camera and turning it on.
I’ve always wanted to come back here, but have been instead in New York building a career and honing my skills as a filmmaker.
And so here I am, back in South East Asia about to give it another go. I’m here because my future brother in law, Matt Ozug, got a fellowship with the International Reporting Project to make a radio documentary about the AIDS crisis in Cambodia. He was initially interested in looking at a charismatic Monk whose Monastery provides care for AIDS orphans. Matt asked me if I wanted to come along and make a video companion piece that intersects—though not replicates—his radio piece. I jumped.
Matt has been here for two weeks working on his radio documentary and has decided to focus on a group called Korsang, made up of a group of Cambodians from the U.S. who have been forcefully repatriated by the U.S. government after committing crimes in the U.S. Amazingly, after landing in Cambodia, a lot of these guys formed a group that does work with AIDS orphans and provides needle exchange and education for intravenous drug users.
The focus of the video documentary is still up in the air, as there are a number of Monasteries, NGOs, and government agencies all involved in the AIDS crises. One of the groups I’m interested in is the Tiny Toones break-dancers, who are loosely affiliated with Korsang. But I suppose that part of the fun with a documentary is that you never know what you’re going to get and I look forward to the first few days when we just start shooting and see where it takes us, always looking for those pieces that connect and bring the story together. We have no distribution deal set up for the film, but we’re hoping to sell it to Frontline World; barring that, we’ll do film festivals and see where it takes us.
OK, we’re beginning our decent into Phnom Penh. Stay tuned for more.
We are here to make a documentary – two of them in fact, Matt’s working on a radio story and we’re collaborating on a video—so time will tell if we are able to give this blog the time it deserves. If we do get make some entries, by all means post comments and tell us what you think.
I set off from Newark airport almost two days ago—the mind goes crazy on these flights because you basically loose an entire day. I guess for Halloween I went as a grungy flyer seriously drugged out on high power anti-anxiety drugs. I arrive in Phnom Penh shortly and as I look out the window I can see the brown/green coast of Vietnam and what I think are the many winding rivers that make up the Mekong delta.
I’m getting incredibly excited about this documentary project, though I’m also gripped with a nervous and anxious energy. Part of it could be that I’m about to enter an economically poor country with a horribly sad past, but another part is that this is my first return to South East Asia in over ten years. As a naïve college senior, I made my first documentary film in Vietnam, called Reflections from Sa Pa, Vietnam. It was an ambitious project about the impact of global tourism on the Hmong ethnic group in Vietnam. I traveled by myself to a remote region of a country where I barely knew the language and tried to create something that I knew only through watching movies and taking classes.
Let’s just say that Sans Soleil it’s not. It certainly had some moments, but I've stuck it in the vault and it ain't never coming out. But making the film did a wonderful thing for me: It gave me a sense of confidence that I never knew I had. It still brings a smile to my face that I said, "fuck it, I’m going to apply for a grant, buy a camera, get a plane ticket, go to a communist country and spend two months making a doc." Perhaps more importantly, the experience made me fall in love with the art and craft of documentary filmmaking: The ethics of representation, the idea of truth and authorship, gaining access, visual composition, interview technique, editing. I was thrown into wrestling with these heady ideas in the only way I believe one can: By picking up a camera and turning it on.
I’ve always wanted to come back here, but have been instead in New York building a career and honing my skills as a filmmaker.
And so here I am, back in South East Asia about to give it another go. I’m here because my future brother in law, Matt Ozug, got a fellowship with the International Reporting Project to make a radio documentary about the AIDS crisis in Cambodia. He was initially interested in looking at a charismatic Monk whose Monastery provides care for AIDS orphans. Matt asked me if I wanted to come along and make a video companion piece that intersects—though not replicates—his radio piece. I jumped.
Matt has been here for two weeks working on his radio documentary and has decided to focus on a group called Korsang, made up of a group of Cambodians from the U.S. who have been forcefully repatriated by the U.S. government after committing crimes in the U.S. Amazingly, after landing in Cambodia, a lot of these guys formed a group that does work with AIDS orphans and provides needle exchange and education for intravenous drug users.
The focus of the video documentary is still up in the air, as there are a number of Monasteries, NGOs, and government agencies all involved in the AIDS crises. One of the groups I’m interested in is the Tiny Toones break-dancers, who are loosely affiliated with Korsang. But I suppose that part of the fun with a documentary is that you never know what you’re going to get and I look forward to the first few days when we just start shooting and see where it takes us, always looking for those pieces that connect and bring the story together. We have no distribution deal set up for the film, but we’re hoping to sell it to Frontline World; barring that, we’ll do film festivals and see where it takes us.
OK, we’re beginning our decent into Phnom Penh. Stay tuned for more.
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