SAN FRANCISCO _ The
2010 San Francisco Book
Festival has issued
a call for entries for
its annual program
celebrating the best
books of the Spring
season.
The San
Francisco Book Festival
will consider
non-fiction, fiction,
biography/autobiography,
children's books,
compilations/anthologies,
teenage, how-to,
cookbooks, science
fiction, audio/spoken
word, history, wild
card, gay,
photography/art, poetry,
unpublished, travel and
spiritual works. There
is no date of
publication deadline.
Our grand
prize for the 2010 San
Francisco Book Festival
winner is $1500
cash and a flight to San
Francisco for our gala
awards ceremony.
The winning author will
also have a choice of fa
free vendor table at our
family of festivals day
events, including events
in New York and
Hollywood.
Genre
category winners will
receive a combination of
books, software, cash
awards and free vendor
tables at our New York
or Hollywood Book
Festivals.
Submitted
works will be judged by
a panel of industry
experts using the
following criteria:
1) General
excellence and the
author's passion for
telling a good story.
2) The
potential of the work to
reach a wider audience.
ENTRIES:
Please classify your
book and enter it in the
following categories.
Multiple entries must be
accompanied by a
separate fee for each
book.
•
General
Non-fiction
•
General
Fiction
•
Children's
books
•
How-to
•
Spiritual
•
Photography/Art
•
Gay
•
Poetry
•
History
•
Teenage
•
Biography/Autobiography
•
Audio/spoken
word
•
Compilations/Anthologies
•
Best
Unpublished
Short
Story
•
Cookbooks
•
Science
Fiction
•
Business
•
Technology
•
Wild
Card
In addition
to honoring the top
selections in the above
categories, The San
Francisco Book Festival
will award the following
chosen from submissions:
1) Author of
the Year- Honors the
outstanding book of the
competition.
2) Book
Design of the Year -
Honors outstanding and
innovative design.
3) Publisher
of the Year- Honors the
top publisher based on
materials displaying excellence
in marketing and
promotional materials,
as determined by our
judges.
FESTIVAL
RULES: San Francisco
Book Festival
submissions cannot be
returned. Each entry
must contain the
official entry form,
including your e-mail
address and contact
telephone number. All
shipping and handling
costs must be borne by
entrants.
NOTIFICATION
AND DEADLINES: We
will notify each entry
of the receipt of their
package via e-mail and
will announce the
winning entries on our
web site (www.sanfranciscobookfestival.com).
Because of the
anticipated high volume
of entries, we can only
respond to e-mail
inquiries.
Deadline
submissions in each
category must be
postmarked by the close
of business on April 25,
2010. Winners in each
category will be
notified by e-mail and
on the web site. Please
note that judges read
and consider submissions
on an ongoing basis,
comparing early entries
with later submissions
at our meetings.
TO ENTER:
Entry forms are
available online at
sanfranciscobookfestival.com
or may be faxed/e-mailed
to you. Please contact
our office at
323-665-8080 for fax
requests. Applications
must be accompanied by a
non-refundable entry fee
of $50 in the form of a
check, money order or
PayPal online payment in
U.S. dollars for each
submission. Multiple
submissions are
permitted but each entry
must be accompanied by a
separate form and entry
fee.
Entry fee checks
should be made payable
to JM Northern Media
LLC. We're sorry, but
entries must be mailed
and cannot be delivered
in person or by
messenger services to
the JM Northern Media
offices.
Entry
packages MUST include:
1) One copy
of the book;
2) A copy of
your official entry form
or a reasonable
facsimile;
3) The entry
fee or receipt for
online payment; 4)
Any press/marketing
materials you wish to
send. Marketing is used
as a tie-breaking consideration
by our judges.
Entries
should be mailed to:
JM
Northern Media LLC
attn: San
Francisco Book Festival
7095
Hollywood Boulevard
Suite
864
Hollywood,
CA 90028-0893
Phone:
323-665-8080
AWARDS:
The San Francisco Book
Festival selection
committee reserves the
right to determine the
eligibility of any
project.
The 2010 San
Francisco Book Festival
is part of the JM
Northern Media
family of festivals,
which include the DIY
Convention: Do It
Yourself in Film, Music
& Books, New York Book
Festival and Hollywood
Book Festival. The San
Francisco Book Festival
is sponsored by The
Larimar St. Croix
Writers Colony, The
Hollywood Creative
Directory; eDivvy,
Shopanista and Westside
Websites.
# # # CONTACT: SanFranciscoBKFest@sbcglobal.net
323-665-8080
Submission Dates: January 1 – March 31, 2010 (postmark or email deadline) by online submission manager or regular mail. Postmark deadline March 31 and email deadline (by 3 am EST April 1).
Awarding publication of a book-length collection and $1000.
Open to any poet writing in English who has not previously published a book-length poetry collection.
Submissions accepted on-line (preferred) and by mail.
Please read the following instructions carefully.
Online submission:
Submitting to us online is easy, saves you money, and saves trees.
• Fill out our
online entry form and follow the directions for online credit card payment on our secure site.
• You will be assigned an online entry number. You will then submit your manuscript through our online submissions program.
By mail:
• Submit a previously unpublished, full-length poetry manuscript by regular mail (USPS only).
• Please include a completed Entry Form. Click here to download the Entry Form (PDF format). (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the Entry Form.)
• Include one cover page with the title of your work and all of your contact information, including your email address if you have one. Your name and contact information should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript.
• You must include a second cover page with just the title of your work, no other contact info.
• No more than one poem per page, please. More than one section of a poem can appear on a page, of course.
• No page limit, but we recommend a length of between 48 and 80 pages of poetry. This page limit does not include your title page, notes, etc.
• Do not include art work.
• Please use a legible font of 12 point.
• Include an entry fee of $25 with your submission, by check, made payable to Four Way Books. A stamped self-addressed postcard may be included to confirm receipt of manuscript. Multiple submissions may be mailed together. If you submit more than one manuscript, please supply contact info for both and an increased fee ($25 per submission).
• Please let us know immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
• Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished.
• Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible.
* Please do not submit to this contest if you are close enough to Alan Shapiro that his integrity, your integrity, and the integrity of Four Way Books would be called into question should you be selected as the winner. You may query us if you have questions regarding this matter. We will allow you to submit to us outside of the contest if you feel that you are treading deep water in this regard. Please query by email to editors@fourwaybooks.com.
• Mail submission and entry fee to:
Four Way Books POB 535 Village Station New York NY 10014
Our Reading Policy
Each manuscript is delivered to our readers as a blind submission. That is, it is stripped of identifying material. Only the manuscript, inclusive of any text notes, is sent to the readers and, if chosen as a finalist, to the judge. We do not give a list of submitters to the judge.
Our preliminary readers for the contest are selected by the director of the press and are published poets, experienced editors, and/or poets who have received a graduate degree in creative writing or literature. Each manuscript is read by at least two readers. We regularly rotate our readers.
Our readers select an average of 20-40 manuscripts as finalist selections. They look for work that is beautifully crafted–manuscripts that feel whole and well shaped. They do not try to second guess a judge’s preference. Rather, they look to present a wide range of excellent work to the judge.
Finalists are notified in May that their work will be sent on to the judge. On occasion, a judge may ask to see more work – the judge is not allowed to ask for specific work by a specific writer, but may ask to see a wider sampling of strong work. If that is the case, the press reviews the submissions again and more manuscripts are sent to the judge as finalists. Therefore, we do not inform the public of finalist selections since that list may grow after May.
The judge is instructed to notify the press of any indiscretions. If a submitter contacts the judge regarding the contest, that person will be disqualified. If the judge does not select a winner, the press’s director and senior editor will select a finalist’s manuscript to publish.
* Please do not submit to this contest if you are close enough to Alan Shapiro that his integrity, your integrity, and the integrity of Four Way Books would be called into question should you be selected as the winner. You may query us if you have questions regarding this matter. We will allow you to submit to us outside of the contest if you feel that you are treading deep water in this regard. Please query by email to editors@fourwaybooks.com.
For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centres in Helmand.
It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.
Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers' homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley.
"It's not urban at all," an official of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who asked not to be identified, admitted to IPS Sunday. He called Marja a "rural community".
"It's a collection of village farms, with typical family compounds," said the official, adding that the homes are reasonably prosperous by Afghan standards.
Richard B. Scott, who worked in Marja as an adviser on irrigation for the U.S. Agency for International Development as recently as 2005, agrees that Marja has nothing that could be mistaken as being urban. It is an "agricultural district" with a "scattered series of farmers' markets," Scott told IPS in a telephone interview.
The ISAF official said the only population numbering tens of thousands associated with Marja is spread across many villages and almost 200 square kilometres, or about 125 square miles.
Marja has never even been incorporated, according to the official, but there are now plans to formalise its status as an actual "district" of Helmand Province.
The official admitted that the confusion about Marja's population was facilitated by the fact that the name has been used both for the relatively large agricultural area and for a specific location where farmers have gathered for markets.
However, the name Marja "was most closely associated" with the more specific location, where there are also a mosque and a few shops.
That very limited area was the apparent objective of "Operation Moshtarak", to which 7,500 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops were committed amid the most intense publicity given any battle since the beginning of the war.
So how did the fiction that Marja is a city of 80,000 people get started?
The idea was passed on to the news media by the U.S. Marines in southern Helmand. The earliest references in news stories to Marja as a city with a large population have a common origin in a briefing given Feb. 2 by officials at Camp Leatherneck, the U.S. Marine base there.
The Associated Press published an article the same day quoting "Marine commanders" as saying that they expected 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be "holed up" in the "southern Afghan town of 80,000 people." That language evoked an image of house to house urban street fighting.
The same story said Marja was "the biggest town under Taliban control" and called it the "linchpin of the militants' logistical and opium-smuggling network". It gave the figure of 125,000 for the population living in "the town and surrounding villages". ABC news followed with a story the next day referring to the "city of Marja" and claiming that the city and the surrounding area "are more heavily populated, urban and dense than other places the Marines have so far been able to clear and hold."
The rest of the news media fell into line with that image of the bustling, urbanised Marja in subsequent stories, often using "town" and "city" interchangeably. Time magazine wrote about the "town of 80,000" Feb. 9, and the Washington Post did the same Feb. 11.
As "Operation Moshtarak" began, U.S. military spokesmen were portraying Marja as an urbanised population centre. On Feb. 14, on the second day of the offensive, Marine spokesman Lt. Josh Diddams said the Marines were "in the majority of the city at this point."
He also used language that conjured images of urban fighting, referring to the insurgents holding some "neighbourhoods".
A few days into the offensive, some reporters began to refer to a "region", but only created confusion rather than clearing the matter up. CNN managed to refer to Marja twice as a "region" and once as "the city" in the same Feb. 15 article, without any explanation for the apparent contradiction.
The Associated Press further confused the issue in a Feb. 21 story, referring to "three markets in town - which covers 80 square miles…."
A "town" with an area of 80 square miles would be bigger than such U.S. cities as Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh and Cleveland. But AP failed to notice that something was seriously wrong with that reference.
Long after other media had stopped characterising Marja as a city, the New York Times was still referring to Marja as "a city of 80,000", in a Feb. 26 dispatch with a Marja dateline.
The decision to hype up Marja as the objective of "Operation Moshtarak" by planting the false impression that it is a good-sized city would not have been made independently by the Marines at Camp Leatherneck.
A central task of "information operations" in counterinsurgency wars is "establishing the COIN [counterinsurgency] narrative", according to the Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual as revised under Gen. David Petraeus in 2006.
That task is usually done by "higher headquarters" rather than in the field, as the manual notes.
The COIN manual asserts that news media "directly influence the attitude of key audiences toward counterinsurgents, their operations and the opposing insurgency." The manual refers to "a war of perceptions…conducted continuously using the news media."
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of ISAF, was clearly preparing to wage such a war in advance of the Marja operation. In remarks made just before the offensive began, McChrystal invoked the language of the counterinsurgency manual, saying, "This is all a war of perceptions."
The Washington Post reported Feb. 22 that the decision to launch the offensive against Marja was intended largely to impress U.S. public opinion with the effectiveness of the U.S. military in Afghanistan by showing that it could achieve a "large and loud victory."
The false impression that Marja was a significant city was an essential part of that message.
A short film from the Amanpour “Global Dispatch” series – a series that you can actually submit your work to by the way! I thought this was simple and cool
Fields-Black, Edda L. Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. Indiana University Press, 2008.
Gilbert, Erik. “Coastal Rice Farming Systems in Guinea and Sierra Leone, Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. By Edda L. Fields-Black.” The Journal of African History 50, no. 03 (2009): 437-438.
From the review by Erik Gilbert:
“The role of African technologies and agricultural knowledge in the development of rice farming in the Americas has drawn considerable scholarly attention in the last decade. That Africans might have contributed not just their labor to the tidal rice-farming systems of the South Carolina Low Country but also essential knowledge of the techniques needed to grow rice in that challenging environment is highly appealing. It gives agency to enslaved Africans and recognizes the sophistication of West African riziculture. The most recent expression of this idea has been Judith Carney’s Black Rice.1 Carney’s work has been challenged by David Eltis, Philip Morgan, and David Richardson, who have argued that the number of slaves coming to South Carolina from rice-growing areas of Africa is too small to explain the development of American rice farming.2
Edda Fields-Black’s new book contributes to this debate primarily by adding to our knowledge of the coastal rice-farming systems of Guinea and Sierra Leone, where rice-farming techniques most closely resemble the tidal irrigation systems of the South Carolina Low Country. In this part of Sierra Leone, farmers clear mangrove swamps and, through careful control of the movement of fresh water through the fields, drain and desalinate the soil. This is a process that can take years and that can be reversed almost instantly if embankments built to keep salt water out are breached. Managing the water supply to these fields requires careful harnessing of tides in the river estuaries so that salt water is kept out but fresh water is allowed in. Early observers of this system assumed that the stateless societies of the coast were unlikely to have created so complex a technology and that it must have been introduced either by Europeans or by Africans from the states of the interior….”
Keane Bhatt: Recently you signed a letter to the Guardian protesting the militarization of emergency relief. It criticized a prioritization of security and military control to the detriment of rescue and relief.
Noam Chomsky: I think there was an overemphasis in the early stage on militarization rather than directly providing relief. I don't think it has any long-term significance...the United States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that's what it's good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary; some of the doctors that were in Haiti, including those from Partners in Health who have been there for a long time, felt that there was an element of racism in believing that Haitians were going to riot and they had to be controlled and so on, but there was very little indication of that; it was very calm and quiet. The emphasis on militarization did probably delay somewhat the provision of relief. I went along with the general thrust of the petition that there was too much militarization.
KB: If this militarization of relief was not intentionally extreme but rather just a default response of the US, is it just serendipity that there is a massive troop presence available to manage the rapidly mounting popular protests post-earthquake? A surprisingly large, politicized group comprised of survivors has already mobilized around demanding Aristide's return, French reparations instead of charity, and so on.
NC: So far, at least, I don't know of any employment of the troops to subdue protests. It might come, but I suspect a more urgent concern is the impending disaster of the rainy season, terrible to contemplate.
KB: Regarding relief work, aside from Partners in Health, Al Jazeera noted that the Cuban medical team was the first to set up medical facilities among the debris and constitutes the largest contingent of medical workers in Haiti, something that preceded the earthquake. If their performance in Pakistan [earthquake of 2005] is any indicator, they will probably be the last to leave. Cuba seems to have an exemplary, decades-long conduct in foreign assistance.
NC: Well, the Cubans were already there before the earthquake. They had a couple hundred doctors there. And yes, they sent doctors very quickly; they had medical facilities there very quickly. Venezuela also sent aid quite quickly; Venezuela was also the first country and the only country at any scale to cancel totally the debt. There was considerable debt to Venezuela because of PetroCaribe, and it's rather striking that Venezuela and Cuba were not invited to the donors' meeting in Montreal.
Actually the prime minister of Haiti, Bellerive, went out of his way to thank three countries: the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Venezuela for their rapid provision of aid. What Al Jazeera said about Pakistan is quite correct. In that terrible earthquake a couple of years ago, the Cubans were really the only ones who went into the very difficult areas high up in the mountains where it's very hard to live. They're the ones who stayed after everyone else left. And none of that gets reported in the United States. But the fact of the matter is, whatever you think about Cuba, its internationalism is pretty dramatic. And the people who've been working in Haiti for years have been awestruck by Cuban medical aid as they were in Pakistan, in fact. That's an old story. I mean, the Cuban contribution to the liberation of Africa is just overwhelming. And you can find that in scholarship, but the public doesn't know anything about it.
KB: On that point, you've talked about how "states are not moral agents. They act in their own interests. And that means the interests of powerful forces within them." How does the history of exemplary humanitarian work as Cuban state policy relate to that thought?
NC: Well, I think it's just been a core part of the Cuban revolution to have a very high level of internationalism. I mean, these cases you've mentioned are cases in point, but the most extreme case was the liberation of Africa. Take the case of Angola for example, and there are real connections between Cuba and Angola-much of the Cuban population comes from Angola. But South Africa, with US support, after the fall of the Portuguese empire, invaded Angola and Mozambique to establish their own puppet regime there. They were trying to protect Namibia, to protect apartheid, and nobody did much about it; but the Cubans sent forces, and furthermore they sent black soldiers and they defeated a white mercenary army, which not only rescued Angola but it sent a shock throughout the continent-it was a psychic shock-white mercenaries were purported to be invincible, and a black army defeated them and sent them back fleeing into South Africa. Well that gave a real shot in the arm to the liberation movements, and it also was a lesson to the white South Africans that the end is coming. They can't just hope to subdue the continent on racist grounds. Now, it didn't end the wars. The South African attacks in Angola and Mozambique continued until the late 1980s, with strong US support. And it was no joke. According to the UN estimates they killed a million and a half people in Angola and Mozambique, nothing slight. Nevertheless, the Cuban intervention had a huge effect, also on other countries of Africa. And one the most striking aspects of it is that they took no credit for it. They wanted credit to be taken by the nationalist movements in Africa. So in fact none of this was even known until an American researcher, Piero Gleijeses unearthed the evidence from the Cuban archives and African sources and published it in scholarly journals and a scholarly book, and it's just an astonishing story but barely known-one out of a million people has ever heard of it.
KB: You mentioned the Venezuelan debt cancellation. At the same time, the G7 is in the process of eliminating bilateral debt. Why is that?
NC: Well they're talking about it, yeah. The Venezuelans were first. And they just completely canceled the debt. G7 refused. In the Montreal meeting, they refused to even discuss it. Later, they indicated that they might do something. Maybe they're embarrassed by the Venezuelan action. But I'm not sure how it's playing out. As far as the IMF is concerned-the IMF is basically an offshoot of the US Treasury Department-they've talked about it but so far they have not agreed, as far as I can discover, to cancel the debt.
KB: Bellerive, Prime Minister of Haiti, thanked the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Venezuela. The DR has been lauded for its relief efforts: providing food, materials and medical care, for example. But at the same time there are reports from the border of Dominican troops forcibly deporting family members of Haitian patients and sometimes even the patients themselves, in Jiman’, for example. What is your take on these contrary developments taking place and is there any historical context that you would like to add?
NC: Well, what the Dominican Republic does is up to Dominicans to decide, but the much more striking thing from my perspective, is that the United States has not brought in any-barely any refugees-even for medical treatment. And that was harshly condemned by the dean of the University of Miami Medical School who thought it was just criminal not to bring Haitians to Miami where there's marvelous medical facilities while they have to do surgery with, you know, hacksaws in Haiti. And in fact one of the first US reactions to the earthquake was to send in the Coast Guard to ensure that there wouldn't be any attempt to flee from Haiti. I mean, that's atrocious. The United States is the richest country in the world, it's right next door to Haiti. It should be offering every possible means of assistance to Haitians.
Furthermore there's a little bit of background here. I mean, the earthquake in Haiti was a class-based catastrophe. It didn't much harm the wealthy elite up in the hills, they were shaken but not destroyed. On the other hand the people who were living in the miserable urban slums, huge numbers of them, they were devastated. Maybe a couple hundred thousand were killed. How come they were living there? They were living there because of-it goes back to the French colonial system-but in the past century, they were living there because of US policies, consistent policies.
KB: You're talking about the forcible decimation of peasant agriculture in the 1990s?
NC: It started with Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson invaded all of Hispaniola, Haiti and the DR, the Wilson invasion was pretty brutal in both parts of Hispaniola. But it was much worse in Haiti. And the reasons were very clearly stated.
KB: Racism.
NC: Yeah. The State Department said, well, the Dominicans have some European blood so they're not quite so bad. But the Haitians are pure nigger. So Wilson sent the marines to disband the Haitian parliament because they wouldn't permit US corporations to buy up Haitian lands. And he forced them to do it. Well, that's one of the many atrocities and crimes. Just keeping to this, that accelerated the destruction of Haitian agriculture and the flight of people from the countryside to the cities. Now that continued under Reagan. Under Reagan, USAID and the World Bank set up very explicit programs, explicitly designed to destroy Haitian agriculture. They didn't cover it up. They gave an argument that Haiti shouldn't have an agricultural system, it should have assembly plants; women working to stitch baseballs in miserable conditions. Well that was another blow to Haitian agriculture, but nevertheless even under Reagan, Haiti was producing most of its own rice when Clinton came along.
When Clinton restored Aristide-Clinton of course supported the military junta, another little hidden story...he strongly supported it in fact. He even allowed the Texaco Oil Company to send oil to the junta in violation of presidential directives; Bush Sr. did so as well-well, he finally allowed the president to return, but on condition that he accept the programs of Marc Bazin, the US candidate that he had defeated in the 1990 election. And that meant a harsh neoliberal program, no import barriers. That means that Haiti has to import rice and other agricultural commodities from the US from US agribusiness, which is getting a huge part of its profits from state subsidies. So you get highly subsidized US agribusiness pouring commodities into Haiti; I mean, Haitian rice farmers are efficient but nobody can compete with that, so that accelerated the flight into the cities. And it wasn't that they didn't know it was going to happen. USAID was publishing reports in 1995 saying, yes this is going to destroy Haitian agriculture and that's a good thing. And you get the flight into the cities and you get food riots in 2008, because they can't produce their own food. And now you get this class-based catastrophe. After this history-it's only a tiny piece of it-the United States should be paying massive reparations, not just aid. And France as well. The French role is grotesque.
KB: May I ask, regarding Aristide's languishing in exile, was he right to go back to Haiti in 1994 in the way that he did, with US troops? Also, was he right to agree, under enormous pressure of course, to the neoliberal reforms laid out in the Paris Accords?
NC: Well, I happened to be in Haiti almost at that time-1993. I was there for a while; this was the peak of the terror. And I've been in a lot of awful places in the world. Some of the worst, in fact. But I don't think I've ever seen anything like the misery and the terror that was going on in Haiti under the junta, with Clinton's backing at that time. And there was a lot of discussion, I talked for example to the late Father Gerard Jean-Juste, one of the most popular figures in Haiti, who the government recently forced out, he was then underground in a church but Haitian friends took me to him. He was very close to large parts of the population. I talked to labor leaders who'd been beaten and tortured but were willing to talk, and to activists and others. And what most of them said is, Father Jean-Juste for example, what he said is, "Look, I don't want a marine invasion, I think it's a bad idea. But on the other hand," he said, "my people, the people in the slums-La Saline, Cite Soleil and so on, they just can't take it anymore." He said, "the torture is too awful, the terror is too awful. They'll accept anything that'll put an end to it." And that was the dilemma. I don't have an answer to that.
KB: Was Aristide wrong to argue against calls (made by some of his more militant supporters) for armed struggle inside Haiti to restore democracy after the 1991 coup?
NC: Not in my opinion. Armed struggle would have led to a horrendous slaughter.
KB: On February 17th, Sarkozy was greeted to street protests by thousands of Haitians holding up images of Aristide, demanding his return, and demanding reparations for what the French extorted in exchange for recognizing Haiti's independence. At that same address, Preval was shouted down and he withdrew into his jeep. With this kind of sentiment brewing in Haiti right now, do you see Aristide's return as an important priority, or is it something that might be desirable but not that pressing?
NC: Well, the answer to that question is going to be given in Washington. The United States and France, the two traditional torturers of Haiti, essentially kidnapped Aristide in 2004 after having blocked any international aid to the country under very dubious pretexts, not credible grounds, which of course extremely harmed this fragile economy. There was chaos and the US and France and Canada flew in, kidnapped Aristide-they said they rescued him, they actually kidnapped him-they flew him off to Central Africa, his party Fanmi Lavalas is banned, which probably accounts for the very low turnout in the recent elections, and the United States has been trying to keep Aristide not only from Haiti, but from the entire hemisphere.
KB: By which way is Aristide compelled to remain exiled? How exactly is his persona non grata status in the hemisphere maintained and by whom? What is preventing him from flying into a sympathetic country near Haiti, like Venezuela, for example?
NC: He might be able to go to Venezuela, but if he tried to go to the Dominican Republic, for example, they wouldn't let him in. And there's good reason for that. International affairs is very much like the mafia, and the small storekeeper doesn't offend the Godfather. It's too dangerous. We can pretend it's otherwise, but that's the way it is. There was one country, I think it was Jamaica if I remember correctly, that did allow Aristide in, over serious US pressure and protest. And not a lot of countries are willing to take the risk of offending the United States. It's a dangerous, violent superpower. I don't have to tell you, you know the history of the Dominican Republic. I don't have to tell you about it-that's the way it works.
KB: Using, as you've said, the historical US legacy in the DR, can we turn to recent Dominican history? As this humanitarian aid is provided on behalf of the DR, and it fills in the vacuum left by a weak Haitian state, if we go back to the events leading up to the coup of 2004, it worked under US aegis to actively destabilize Haiti by training the paramilitary rebels, Guy Philippe and Louis Jodel Chamblain...
NC: I know. And providing a base for them.
KB: Is there some kind of a contradiction to provide charity for people who you've actually worked to dismantle and destabilize?
NC: Well, you can call it a contradiction if you like, but it's also a contradiction for Sarkozy and Clinton to appear in Haiti without abject apologies for the terrible crimes that France and the U.S. under Clinton, particularly, have carried out against Haiti. But they don't do it. The head of Toyota has to go to Congress and apologize for hours because some people were killed by Toyota cars, but does Clinton have to go and apologize for what he did to Haiti? He dealt a death blow. Does Sarkozy have to apologize for the fact that Haiti was France's richest colony and a source of a lot of France's wealth and they destroyed the country and then posed an indemnity as a price for liberating themselves, which the country was never able to get out of?
A couple of years ago, in 2002 I think, Aristide appealed to France, to Chirac, to pay some remuneration for the huge debt that Haiti had to pay them...
KB: Twenty-one billion dollars...
NC: Yeah, for this huge debt that Haiti had to pay them. And they did set up a commission led by Regis Debray, a former radical. And the commission said that France has no need to give any compensation at all. In other words, first we rob and then destroy them, and then when they ask for a little bit of help, we kick them in the face. It's not surprising.
KB: Although at the same time there are sources that say that while France put up an indifferent front, it was actually worried about a head of state bringing a legal case with overwhelming documentary evidence for international arbitration.
NC: Well, they really didn't have to worry, because the way power politics works, the World Court can't do anything. Look, there's one country in the world at the moment which has refused to accept World Court decision-that's the United States. Is anybody going to do anything about it?
KB: You mentioned Clinton, now UN special envoy to Haiti, who intends to woo foreign investors and continue on a low-wage textile focus for Haitian economic development. The lens of neoliberal economist Paul Collier, special adviser to the UN in 2009, dominates the UN perspective of Haiti. An advocate of sweatshop-led growth himself, he's lavished praise on the much-resented MINUSTAH occupation force there, and has even said that the Dominican Republic "is not engaged in the sort of activities, such as clandestine support for guerrilla groups, that beset many other fragile states." Can a true humanitarian like Paul Farmer-representing a different development model based on fair wages, public health, strengthening the Haitian state-influence the UN as deputy special envoy?
NC: It's a hard choice. I don't blame him for trying. We live in this world, not another one that we'd prefer, and sometimes it's necessary to follow painful paths if we hope to provide at least a little help for suffering people. Like Father Jean-Juste and the marines.
KB: You've talked about how the media created an artificial distinction between the South American 'Bad Left' and 'Good Left,' omitting Brazil's important collaboration with Venezuela in the interest of maintaining this view. However, with respect to Haiti, hasn't Brazil legitimately earned a secure place within the 'Good Left'? A center-left government of the South has spearheaded the MINUSTAH occupation and has pledged to increase its presence, after taking it over from the imperial architects of the coup (US, France, Canada). What factors made it so vigorous in supporting another deposed president of an equally geopolitically-unimportant country in recent times (Zelaya of Honduras)?
NC: Good questions. I haven't seen anything useful on Brazil's decisions on these matters.
KB: Any comments on the US media regarding Haiti following the earthquake? For example, Pat Robertson's 'pact with the devil,' David Brooks' 'progress-resistant culture,' pleas with transnational capital to create more sweatshops (Kirstof), Aristide being a despot and a cheat (Jon Lee Anderson). Even Amy Wilentz has compared Aristide to Duvalier in the New York Times.
NC: It's been mainly awful, but I haven't kept a record. The worst part is ignoring our own disgraceful role in helping to create the catastrophe, and consequent refusal to react as any decent person should-with massive reparations, directed to popular organizations. Same with France.
KB: I guess my final question is for the future: there have been a discouraging two decades, from 1990-2010, about the popular mobilization for political change in Haiti, and how to proceed, and I guess now that the Haitian people have struggled so hard through parliamentary democracy for 25 years and have so little to show for it, what are the lessons learned and possible strategies now that they've exhausted this parliamentary, democratic approach? Two coups d'etat and thousands tortured and murdered in this process.
NC: The lessons are, unfortunately, that a small weak country that is facing an extremely hostile and very violent superpower will not make much progress unless there's a strong solidarity movement within the superpower that will restrain its actions. With more support within the United States, I think the Haitian efforts could have succeeded.
And that applies right now. Take the aid that's coming in. There is aid coming in-we have to show we're nice people and so on. But the aid ought to be going to Haitian popular organizations. Not to contractors, not to NGOs-to Haitian popular organizations, and they're the ones that should be deciding what to do with it. Well you know, that's not the agenda of G7. They don't want popular organizations; they don't like popular movements; they don't like democracy for that matter. What they want is for the rich and powerful to run things. Well, if there was a strong solidarity movement in the United States and the world, it could change that.
This is a brilliant performance by Dianne Reeves and Peter Martin that reprises this classic song as it appeared on Ms. Reeves' Grammy winning soundtrack for "Good Night, and Good Luck".The recording was made in St. Louis, Missouri, USA on Friday, February 5, 2010 at The Sheldon Concert Hall.
This is a brilliant performance by Dianne Reeves and Peter Martin that reprises this classic song as it appeared on Ms. Reeves' Grammy winning soundtrack for "Good Night, and Good Luck". The recording was made in St. Louis, Missouri, USA on Friday, February 5, 2010 at The Sheldon Concert Hall.
I complied this list (below and attached in MS Word format) of African-American (mainly literary) journals and publishers for my writer-friends. Thought it might be of interest to this group as well.
If you have suggestions for additions/changes/corrections, please contact me directly. One change I just learned about: Since the (recent?) retirement of Eugene Redmond, Drumvoices Revue will now only be publishing special issues on an occasional basis.
Thanks for being a part of the SeeingBlack.com Family. Thanks to those who have supported our paid subscriber drive. If you can't give, join the SeeingBlack.com homepage drive! Make SeeingBlack.com your homepage and get your family, friends, co-workers etc. to do the same. This simple act goes a long way to support Black-owned, grassroots media in an era of corporate giants. Click this post for more info. and more ways to help...Didn't I tell you that we won't stop? :>
Henry Glover with his daughter, Nehemiah Short, before his death in September 2005. Photo courtesy of Rolanda Short.
Federal investigators have widened their probe into the New Orleans Police Department and are now looking into the circumstances surrounding four other incidents that include three deaths and one non-fatal shooting in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Mar 18, 2010,
11:52
Oscar Notes: Why "Precious" fits into the Oscars tribute to horror films...Why Lee Daniels should not be the first African American director nominated in the Best Picture category...The bumrush of the mic...And "Avatar" versus the haters.
By Esther Iverem Mar 9, 2010,
12:07
Federal panel finds NY Dept. of Education discriminated against Arabic school principal. Study: Black and Latinos face longer prison sentences. Wife of Justice Clarence Thomas creates Tea Party-linked lobbying group. Unemployment rate for young veterans reaches 21.1 percent. Hundreds of students protest cuts in Atlanta. House might pass health care bill without direct vote. Study finds link between childhood obesity and school lunch. “The War Next Door” in Mexico.
And MUCH more...Check the REAL news! Mar 16, 2010,
14:17
Wesley Snipes and Don Cheadle star in "Brooklyn's Finest."
Though “Brooklyn’s Finest” might be dismissed easily as yet another cop movie, it has several strong points that raise it above what we have come to expect from this graft and guns blazing genre. It also raises the question, Is dark the color of my true criminal’s skin?
By Esther Iverem Mar 5, 2010,
13:07
Study: Median wealth for single Black women: $100, single Hispanic women: $120, single white Women: $41,000. AIG units settle allegations of discriminatory lending. Rangel takes leave as Ways and Means chair. Report: Right-wing extremist groups grew 244% in 2009. Study: Common weedkiller turns male frogs into females. From New York to Liberia, investigative journalist Greg Palast tracks vulture funds preying on African debt. PA rejects talks with Israel in settlement row. Report: high number of birth defects seen in Fallujah. And MUCH more! check the reeeeal news! Mar 12, 2010,
10:03
The Split This Rock Poetry Festival is happening now through March 13, 2010. The festival in Washington, D.C. features readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism, opportunities to speak out for social justice, imagine a way forward, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change. Feb 22, 2010,
11:16
While the recent Supreme Court decision on corporate personhood, The Citizen's United case, has evoked considerable comment, Corporate interests have owned the political process -- and politicians -- for the better part of a century.
By Mumia Abu-Jamal Mar 4, 2010,
12:09
A memorial poem by Ruth-Miriam Garnett and six of Lucille Clifton's poems: blessing the boats, sorrow song, jasper texas 1998, wishes for sons, my dream about being white and mulberry fields. Feb 17, 2010,
14:16
Ronald Madison was shot to death on the Danziger Bridge.
Ex-police Lt. admits to cover-up in post-Katrina killings. Following string of racist incidents, UC San Diego students occupy chancellor’s office. Van Jones to head think tank’s “Green Opportunity Initiative.” Obama signs extension of PATRIOT Act. Documents reveal Pentagon spied on Planned Parenthood. Hundreds of thousands lose unemployment benefits due to GOP filibuster. Dodd abandons efforts to create Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Admin to seek improved wages, benefits at federal contractors. VA to review disability claims of Gulf War vets. FBI, US Attorney investigating Penn. school district’s computer spying on young students. US firms probed for role in Greek financial crisis. UN approves Goldstone Report resolution on Gaza war crimes. Check the REAL news! Mar 1, 2010,
12:29
Robert Parker, the man who imagined "A Man Called Hawk," died last month, at the age of 77. Parker was primarily known for his series of detective novels based on the character Spenser. The novels were the inspiration for the television series "Spenser for Hire," which debuted in the fall of 1985 on ABC television.
By Mark Anthony Neal Feb 9, 2010,
18:51
What is the purpose of Hillary Clinton's recent speech about Iran? The most obvious conclusion is that it is to promote conflict, and to convince Americans that Iran is an actual threat to their security.
By Mark Weisbrot Feb 22, 2010,
10:43
Why no Internet buzz about Denzel as a Black hero in "The Book of Eli"? Are we Black film goers conditioned to not see our heroes? Or conditioned to see and cheer only Black stereotypical heroes? If Neytiri of the Na'vi (played by Zoe Saldana) in �Avatar� was not a hero, then I don�t know what a hero is.
By Esther Iverem
Haitians hold day of mourning one month after earthquake. Study: Haiti damage could top $13.2B. Haitian president: it will take three years to remove rubble. Second major rainfall since quake hits the country. UN launches record $1.4B appeal. UN relief coordinator “disappointed” in Haiti response. 8 missionaries freed, return to US. Check all the Haiti news. Feb 19, 2010,
13:59
Quite frankly, I know very few Aboriginal performers. The only Indigenous Australian actor that immediately comes to mind is David Gulpilil, whom many of you would be familiar with from films like Rabbit Proof Fence, The Tracker, The Proposition, and most recently, Baz Lurhman’s epic Australia. I had to do a little digging to find the name of another who’s just as prominent. Maybe you folks can enlighten me on that…
Below is a trailer for a film called Bastardy – a documentary about Aboriginal actor and self-proclaimed fringe dweller, Jack Charles (pictured above) – described also as a cat burglar, junkie and gay, as well as a man of “irrepressible contradictions and conflicting personas.”
Over a period of seven years, the filmmakers of Bastardy followed Jack Charles around and documented his every step and word, as he traversed the criminal underworld to support his “raging heroin habit,” all the while performing on the stages and film sets of some of Australia’s most renowned films and film directors.
Charles founded the first Aboriginal theatre company in the 1970’s, and has performed with some of Australia’s most renowned actors (Geoffrey Rush, David Gulpilil, and Bill Hunter), as well as directors in feature films (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bedevil and others) none of which I’m at all familiar with. He’s also appeared in several local TV series, and hundreds of plays!
Jack was awarded the prestigious Tudawali Award at the Message Sticks Festival in 2009, honoring his lifetime contribution to Indigenous media.
Described as “provocative, funny and profoundly moving,” Bastardy is the inspirational story of a self proclaimed “Robin Hood of the streets.”
For Forty years, with infectious humor and optimism, Jack Charles has juggled a life of crime with another successful career – acting. However the law finally catches up with Jack; and when he faces a jail sentence he might not survive, he is forced to make some life-altering decisions.
Sounds and looks intriguing, and I hope it comes my way eventually. To my knowledge it’s only screened in Australia.
As soon as I met Jack Charles I knew I had to make a film about him. BASTARDY is the culmination of seven transformative years of hard work researching, following and filming one of Australia’s near-forgotten treasures. The title of our film comes from a play written in 1972 by playwright John Romeril – “Bastardy” – based on the life story of Jack Charles, and performed by him in Melbourne.
During those seven years, 120 hours were captured on camera and condensed into a feature film that presents the many incarnations of Jack: drug addict, critically acclaimed actor, cat burglar and Aboriginal elder. What also formed was a deep friendship between Jack and myself. Like my previous documentaries, this film came about through a personal connection with Jack that grew into an insatiable curiosity about his life. Jack Charles is an old family friend and I had grown up hearing stories about his escapades as both an actor and cat burglar.
In 2001 I had just finished my second documentary and was back in Australia when I heard Jack was also in Melbourne after completing a performance of Marriage of Figaro with Geoffrey Rush at Belvoir Street Theatre. Soon after that performance I met Jack for the first time to talk about the possibility of making a film together. I was taken by his infectious optimism from the moment I sat down. Jack lead the way from the outset – asking me where my camera was and suggesting we start shooting straight away. Within two minutes I was filming Jack at the café table and I didn’t stop shooting for over six years.
When I started making BASTARDY in 2001, I had no idea where Jack’s journey was going to take me. From the beginning, researching Jack’s childhood and making the film was an amazing education for me as I had come from a place of total naivety about Koorie culture – urban or otherwise. Like my previous documentaries I assumed that I would shoot with him for several months, edit the film and that would be it. But as Jack’s story began to unfold and I witnessed the reality of his lifestyle as a homeless man and a heroin addict, I started seeing him more and more regularly until it was normal for Jack to visit my house every day.
As Jack and I became closer, he effectively moved into my house several times and there were periods of months where the filmmaking paled in comparison to the increasingly profound friendship we developed. This intimacy finally culminated in becoming embroiled in Jack’s criminal activities to the point where I was unsure if what I was doing was legal anymore.
A mesmerizing, kaleidoscopic story of one man’s life, BASTARDY is cyclical in structure – beginning and ending in vérité style with Jack roaming the streets of Melbourne in the present day. In this way he is seen as an almost anonymous character coming to the fore for the duration of the film and then remerging with the landscape again at the film’s conclusion.
Visually, BASTARDY is a rich patchwork, delicately stitched together to include dramatic recreations, archival and observational material shot on a variety of Super 8, 16mm, DVCAM and HDV.
This visual approach also reflects Jack’s personality. Jack tells his stories in fragments of images that dovetail into other stories from his life and the film’s structure mirrors this, in that it is made up of a kaleidoscope of dream-like images and sounds – utilising repetition of various motifs throughout.
The more transgressive elements of Jack’s life are gradually revealed throughout the documentary – his current day story unfolding concurrently with his history – layer upon layer of his identity unfolding before us.
By telling Jack’s story this way, he is humanised as a character from the outset. I wanted to let the audience establish a relationship with Jack without thinking in terms of neat packages and easy labels. We have structured the film so the audience discovers his character in slow release: just as the audience feels as though they have a hold on Jack, the prism through which they are viewing him is rotated and another element of his personality is revealed.
I wanted the soundtrack for BASTARDY to also be a rich sonic experience and I spent several years collecting and sourcing a very particular type of music to reflect Jack’s bowerbird-esque character. Like the visual style for the film, the soundtrack is extremely diverse yet unified in its organic intimacy and handmade charm. Alongside the personal and raw songs Jack Charles sings as a busker on the streets, the soundtrack for BASTARDY comprises tracks from an array of international musical artists: including a haunting solo violin piece from Warren Ellis from the Dirty Three, Huddie Ledbetter’s classic Black Girl, and a variety of pieces by Jackie-O Motherfucker, Oren Ambarchi, Jennifer Gentle and Islaja- all book-ended by several delicate melancholic tracks from Brooklyn psych-folk sisters CocoRosie.
Sydney painter and composer Steve Benwell composed the original music for the film in a single intensive recording session and his sparse yet evocative guitar and piano based score provides the sonic spine of the documentary – underpinning and unifying Jack’s story and its many elements. BASTARDY is also graced with the organic, beautifully restrained sound design of Melbourne composer Rob MacKenzie who recently completed Wong Kar Wai’s ASHES OF TIME REDUX.
“The artist, like the criminal is a social explorer.” - Marshall McLuhan
Since my first feature documentary Chasing Buddha I have developed a fascination with how people maintain a sense of hope in the face of adversity and how they manage to transform themselves for the better when faced with crushing circumstances.
Another reoccurring theme I am drawn to is solitude and how people deal with loneliness in the atomised nature of modern existence. Again and again I seem to gravitate towards people who have always felt innately different to the rest of society. In Jack Charles’ case I was awestruck by his ability to maintain a reputable career in acting while also living in the throes of a seemingly unbreakable cycle of crime and incarceration.
Despite his circumstances as a homeless heroin addict, Jack’s personal philosophy is so life affirming, infectious and effervescent that it is a pure pleasure to be around him.
What particularly interested me about Jack was his totally unique artist’s vision of the world – a poetic and beautiful sense of wonderment that has actually intensified over the years. Jack’s own sense of otherness is also intrinsically linked his identity as a criminal.
“When I first started robbing people I put it under the classification of “collecting the rent” I justified myself as a hunter gatherer, going onto prime Aboriginal land.” – Jack Charles
Jack’s identity as an actor, elder, potter and musician on the streets of Melbourne means he is constantly speaking through his art – reaffirming himself in the world around him. His need to create and perform drives Jack in life; whether on the streets, in jail, or working in film or theatre. He is constantly crossing borders; adapting and moving between the worlds of the criminal underworld, high theatre, intellectual bohemia and the broader Aboriginal community. As in his acting, creating various parts in theatre and film, Jack has also had to create himself in life.
“It’s double jeopardy when you’re black and you’re homosexual mate – and you’re a bloody thief and a thespian too.” – Jack Charles
Jack recently told me that the process of making this film together over nearly a decade actually helped him change his life for the better. I was moved to tears by this comment as I could never have dreamed that this documentary would have such a positive impact when I started filming back in 2001.
I want to thank Jack Charles for sticking it out with me over the years and as I come to the end of the production of Bastardy seven years after our first meeting, I know more than ever that making this film together has fundamentally enriched and changed my life.
Combining visceral imagery with highly personal stories, Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s unique directorial style has evolved from working in documentary and drama over the last thirteen years.
After making his first film at age 9, Amiel’s short film CHARLIE’S TOY MEETS MADELINE MORITZ won the Longford Nova Award at the 1996 St Kilda Film Festival when he was 17 years old.
In 1998, Amiel directed and produced the feature documentary CHASING BUDDHA which premiered at Sundance in 2000 and was nominated for an AFI for best direction. “Chasing Buddha” also had a successful theatrical season in both Sydney and Melbourne and went on to win a string of awards including Best Documentary at both the 2000 Dendy Awards and the 2000 IF Awards.
In 2000, Amiel co-directed the docu-drama ISLANDS which won the Documentary Excellence Award at the “Real Life on Film” Festival (2001), Best Short form Documentary at the 2001 ATOM Awards and went on to tour the U.S. for a year in 2002 as part of the Margaret Mead International Documentary festival.
After collaborating with Opera Australia and the ‘Chunky Move’ contemporary dance company, producing a series of music clips for SBS and Film Victoria and directing several successful music clips of his own, in 2003 Amiel directed the short film ADOLESCENT which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival. As a result of this screening, Amiel participated in the inaugural Accelerator program as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2004.
Amiel’s latest film CICADA is a short which screened in the prestigious Director’s Fortnight program in the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and Amiel is currently financing his first dramatic feature film HAIL and editing his next feature length documentary CATCH MY DISEASE about renowned Australian pop singer Ben Lee.
Amiel has also worked as a freelance journalist for Inside Film and Metro Magazine, exhibited his video installation work internationally and lectured at institutions, conferences and festivals including VCA, Australian Film Television & Radio School, and the University of California Los Angeles. www.amielcourtin-wilson.com
Philippa Campey produced Van Sowerwine’s CLARA (2004) a 7-minute stop motion animated film that won a Special Mention from the Palme d’Or Jury at Cannes 2005, the Gold Hugo for Best Animated Film at Chicago Film Festival 2005, and then screened in competition at Sundance 2006. In 2004 Philippa also produced IRAQ, MY COUNTRY, a 1-hour documentary nominated for an AFI Award in 2005 and which screened at festivals around the world and continues to sell all around the world.
In 2007 Philippa produced WORDS FROM THE CITY a feature documentary about hip hop MCs in Australia co-written & directed by Rhys Graham and Natasha Gadd, which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival and screened at every Australian Festival and many overseas festivals. The film has been successfully distributed by Madman and screened on ABC TV’s JTV. It was nominated for 5 AFI Awards including Best Documentary. That year she also produced THE FIBROS AND THE SILVERTAILS by Paul Oliver – a TV documentary that screened to sold-out sessions at the Sydney Film Festival and was broadcast on ABC and distributed by Film Camp.
Philippa is currently developing DETACHABLE, a short animated series by Van Sowerwine, the writer/director of CLARA; GALORE a debut feature film with writer/director Rhys Graham; THE WARMTH, also by Rhys Graham; and UNDERTOW, by Natasha Gadd, co-director with Rhys Graham on WORDS FROM THE CITY.
As well as producing her own projects, Philippa has produced work for many years for Early Works, written & directed by John Hughes. Most recently they produced THE ARCHIVE PROJECT (2006, feature documentary); and Betty Churcher’s art series HIDDEN TREASURES (2006, 15 x 5mins series); and THE ART OF WAR. Philippa has previously worked with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, producing ARTV, 16 video works by some of Australia’s best contemporary visual artists. In 2005 Philippa was the Short Film and Accelerator Coordinator at the Melbourne International Film Festival, returning to the role of Accelerator Coordinator again in 2006. She has also published articles in IF, Senses of Cinema and Metro industry journals and has been a judge of the Sydney Film Festival Dendy Awards and AFI Awards.
In November 2008 Philippa was awarded the SPAA Independent Documentary Producer of the Year.
Jack cut his first short film CRACKER BAG, written and directed by Glendyn Ivin in 2003. The film won the Palme d’Or, at one of the most prestigious festivals in the world, the Cannes Film Festival. In addition to the wide audiences CRACKER BAG also garnered Jack a nomination for Best Editing at the Australian Film Institute awards.
Adding to Jack’s Cannes success, his next short film NATURE’S WAY directed by Jane Shearer was selected to premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. This film won the Jury Prize for best short film at the 2007 Paris Film Festival, and also won best short film at the New Zealand Film Awards.
In April 2008 Jack’s third consecutive short film JERRYCAN, directed by Julius Avery, was again selected for in-competition screening at Cannes. This marked a trifecta of short films edited by Jack to compete in this esteemed film arena. JERRYCAN went on to win the Cannes short film Jury Prize.
Jack has been editing film for a decade and besides working on short films cuts television commercials working from Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, London and the USA.
BILL MURPHY
Bill Murphy’s editing work encompasses award winning films across many genres. His credits include the Oscar winning animation HARVIE KRUMPET, the Emmy Award winning feature documentary EXILE IN SAREJEVO, the AFI Award winning television documentary WILDNESS, the multi award winning drama STRANDED, and the feature films ROMPER STOMPER starring Russell Crowe, AMY starring Rachel Griffiths, TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US starring Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham-Carter and HALF LIGHT starring Demi Moore.
In 2000 Bill edited an innovative, two hour film, EL NIÑO which accompanied the John Adams oratorio “El Niño”, directed by Peter Sellars, which premiered at the Théâtre du Chatelet, Paris in December of that year.
Other significant works include Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s award winning documentary films CHASING BUDDHA and ISLANDS, Lawrence Johnston’s NIGHT, Scott Millwood’s recently completed WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BRENDA HEAN? and the MIFF Grand Prix winner DOUGLAS MAWSON: THE SURVIVOR by David Parer. He has just completed editing Adam Elliot’s feature animation MARY AND MAX.
In 2003 Bill was accredited as a member of the Australian Screen Editors, in recognition of his screen editing and his outstanding contribution to Australian screen culture.
RICHARD LOWENSTEIN
Richard Lowenstein has written, directed and produced five feature films including the acclaimed STRIKEBOUND and the seminal Australian feature film DOGS IN SPACE starring Michael Hutchence and Saskia Post.
Richard also wrote and directed SAY A LITTLE PRAYER (1992) and GHOST STORY (1995), and wrote, directed and edited HE DIED WITH A FELAFEL IN HIS HAND which won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature, the Best Actor In A Feature Film, and Best Supporting Actress In A Feature Film at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival 2001.
He is also the director and editor of numerous award-winning commercials and music videos for the likes of U2, INXS, Pete Townshend, Hunters & Collectors and Crowded House and is a producer of both JOHN SAFRAN’S MUSIC JAMBOREE and JOHN SAFRAN VERSUS GOD – a satirical eight-part half-hour series about religion, for SBS Television.
Richard is a founding partner in the renowned Melbourne-based production company, GHOST and an active partner alongside Domenico Procacci, Sue Murray, Bryce Menzies & Rolf de Heer in the feature film production company Fandango Australia Pty Ltd.
Richard is currently preparing his feature film project NEIL, NEIL, ORANGE PEEL and is developing numerous other projects with GHOST.
Germain McMicking is a Melbourne born cinematographer and photographer. His credits include numerous award winning music videos, high-end television commercials and feature documentary and television projects. Germain also works in stills, shooting fashion editorial, portraiture and other artwork.
Germain has established a number of long standing working relationships, most notably as a co-director with Ben Saunders in a creative partnership known as Nice Trees. Nice Trees has produced a large body of work of the past eight years including the Aria award winning video for Eskimo Joe’s “Wake Up” in 2001, a Best Music Video award from the St Kilda Film festival in 2004 for Augie March’s “Little Wonder”, and a Golden Guitar award in 2006 for Paul Kelly’s “Song of The Old Rake”.
BASTARDY is Germain’s fourth collaboration with filmmaker Amiel Courtin-Wilson. Previous collaborations include ADOLESCENT (2003), ON THE OTHER OCEAN (2006), and CICADA (2008). Germain is also attached to two of Amiel’s dramatic feature projects in development.
Germain also recently completed work on another feature documentary project LIONEL (2008) directed by Eddie Martin. This film intertwines archival footage with beautiful observational footage of the world champion boxer today.
Other credits include the two AFI award-winning SBS television programs JOHN SAFRAN’S MUSIC JAMBOREE and JOHN SAFRAN VERSUS GOD. Another documentary contribution is a three-hour interview recorded with Quentin Tarantino for Mark Hartley’s feature documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD.
Born in Hong Kong, Steve Benwell is a Sydney-based artist and musician who most recently composed the original score for Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s latest short CICADA which had its international premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors’ Fortnight program. His sound has emerged from a variety of influences: minimalist electro-drone, avant garde jazz and folk/blues psychedelia. Steve is currently collaborating with Sydney sound artist Nathan Pyewacket.
He has also widely exhibited his paintings throughout Australia and was a finalist in the 2008 Metro 5 Art Award, Australia’s wealthiest prize for painters under 35 years of age.
consideration by our judges.
