Rural Electrification - Where do we need it?

Twenty two years ago, in 1989, I became tasked with the responsibility of being Director of Photography on the film "Tinpis Run", Papua New Guinea's first road movie.

"Papa" Leo Konga always checking me out...

The making of a road movie, in Papua New Guinea very quickly, confronted me with an immense logistical problem, of lighting such a movie in which the film actors would be moving through hundreds of kilometers of Papua New Guinean roads, and where they would live and interact together with rural people in Papua New Guinea, much of which had no electricity.

In Madang - Sugar Village.

Making a small budget movie made me rule out the use of electrical generators, for a myriad of reasons, including sound recording considerations and the fact that I wanted the technical crew to move very fast through the hundreds of kilometers where we had to travel with a permanent cast and crew of 30 people over 9 weeks of filming.


I wanted the "Tinpis Run" cast and crew to work together with our villagers, not become "technical invaders".


How could I make this happen? How could I help the Director I was serving, Pengau Nengo, to place his actors together with the extras of thousands, in markets and other public places and still never bother him with my lighting troubles?


I turned to the sun as the main source of my lighting and used other portable energy sources of electricity to light the "Tinpis Run".


This post is about one idea that I missed in the time I was designing the lighting for the film together with my mentor: Gilberto Azevedo, a cinematographer from Brazil. 


It was when I presented my logistical problems to Gilberto that he said: "You've got the sun. Use it".


It is about providing lighting in dark homes in rural PNG using the sun in creative ways and there are many solutions that aspiring inventors can come up with.


It was with great pleasure to come across this new lighting invention that is featured in this post.


Across America, there are many great inventors solving the problems of energy for lighting and production. 


But living in a world dominated by the human dependence on fossil fuel energy, these inventors are largely not recognised in America itself, but as they share their generosity with the world  through the internet, affordable and free energy becomes available to the poor. In this case, the idea became popular in Brazil and now also in the Philippines.


Please spread the idea and let our people have lighting for their homes that they can afford.



In the region, this technology is already spreading in Manila as this YouTube video shows.


Another Version:



In this blog post, I touched on filmmakiing just to extend the use of the lighting idea for filming in dark houses. Sunlight is really beautiful for filmmaking - the best light in fact, when harnessed properly in various arrangements. Try building your own studios in the rural villages using this kind of lighting. You'll see the difference immediately.


Water bottle lights came to my attention when it was shared on a mailing list by Dr. Roderick Ewins who is a material culture researcher, mainly focused on Fijian material culture. He posted that:

"This is an interesting concept that would work well in Pacific villages - as the second URL shows, it is already in use, apparently fairly widely, in the Philippines."


There are also many designs using reflected sunlight, already in use in modern architecture. Below is an example of such innovations in using natural lighting inside offices and homes.




Installation demonstration of a solar tube:





The above technology works like a periscope so if you can't afford this technology and the special materials they use, you can build it yourself, maybe using cheap mirrors, that you can position inside plastic tubes or down pipes.

Tick Tock Ticking

Old writings from my hard drives, I was trying to imagine a scene for a film. There was a clock in the corner ticking away the timing of a robbery operation taking place down in Waigani. But as it happens the story was being told by the clock and would end not with the heist itself but with the clock becoming the observer, witness and the actual narrator of the story... because it keeps drawing people back to the scene of the crime while counting down to a day of reckoning and finally becoming the stress factor that brings about the conclusion...

Tick Tock Ticking:

It may sound very funny
but one day you'll be running
and you will turn to see
that once you were a story
this Tik Tok really ticks

You try to be convincing
when stood before the judges
articulate your version
your lawyers have a flair
but time will make you stop

The rules are always bent
and justice serves the rich
money frees corruption
the law is bought and sold
and poorest do the time

Our house is in a mess
rains fall through the thatch
the cats have grown too fat
so rats are hard to catch
we try to last the season

So overcome with fear
we fail to see and reason
so hopeful for reward
we stand for this injustice
our minds can hear the silence

They cruise our nation calmly
in steaming hot Waigani
their cars have air condition
and windows bullet proofed
they fear no ammunition

If you have so much power
why then must countless suffer?
we don't want all your money
you've promised that to others
Why don't you spare the lies?

You print your propaganda
to tell us of your worth
but think about your powers
how money gives them colour
yet time will bleach you bare

Once in that position
you start to scheme you scum
that chair is not your own
the people put you there
and they can throw you out

Tik Tok Ticking
your fear will fake some rhythm
you'll die without a drama
no twenty one gun salute
you failed to live with us

Martin Maden 1995


Goroka, the 16th of March 1995

The Rainbow Thief - A Film Review

Click to enlarge

The mist clears to a bird of prey circling overhead. The camera tracks the flight of the bird. A dead fish floats on the murky water below and is soon approached by a shadow moving across the water. For a second we associate the shadow with the prowling bird above. But it is a human hand that enters to pluck the dead fish from the water. The fish follows the hand back to a person, down-and-out, but happy with his luck. He now leans back to sit against the dock moorings. This is Dima, who has barely had a minute alone with the fish before he is aproached by a rat who wants a part of the dinner. The two friends share their catch before Dima rises to stretch himself and admire his surroundings. When no one is looking he sneaks around a corner and opens the door to his home - a manhole in the street leading into the underground sewers.

Welcome to the filmmaking of Alejandro Jodorowsky a Chilean filmmaker, playwright and composer.

Click to enlarge

As Dima tries to squeeze himself through the manhole, popping champagne brings us into another world. The world of aristocratic glitter where the champagne is a drink enjoyed by dogs. The humans are fed on bare bones and the caviar is reserved for a pack of well groomed dalmatians. Here in this world of decadence, the alter ego of Dima, haunts the palaces in the form of the reclusive Prince Meleagre, heir to the riches of the eccentric millionaire, Uncle Rudolf. As Uncle Rudolf falls into a coma after an evening of excessive entertainment by the rainbow girls, Dima from his low life in the sewers, sees gold at the end of the rainbow and appeals to his majesty Prince Meleagre to return to the surface and to reclaim his birthright.


"Rainbow Thief" filmed in 1990 on location in Poland and in what appears to be an incredible London studio, brings together two great stars, Peter O'Toole (Prince Meleagre) and Omar Sharif (Dima) who, supported by Christopher Lee who plays Uncle Rudolf, deliver great performances to the film.


The film has been criticised by members of his big cult following as the tamest of all the films that Alejandro Jodorowsky has ever made. Jodorowsky in his campaign against human violence, greed and hypocrisy does make avant-garde films containing violently surreal imagery, mysticism and religious provocation.  


Jodorowsky lives primarily in Mexico. Although he himself is also a playwright and screenplay writer, he did not write the screenplay for "Rainbow Thief". It was written by Berta Dominguez D. 


Berta's husband Alexander Salkind, was the executive producer of the film. Jodorowsky is reported to have been very much curtailed by the production who threatened him with an immediate sacking if he had tried to change the original story in any way. 


But still, he has managed to produce what is probably his most sublime creation ever.


Taking his chance to work with actual "movie stars" Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, Jodorowsky takes the clay and the "severe" restrictions imposed upon him, to bring about another level of his genius. Concentrating on capturing great performances from his cast, playing with his usual elements of mysticism, and putting to great effect, the mastery he admires from the cinema of Federico Fellini, he created a world from the delusions and existential questions of Dima, played by Omar Sharif.


Some may say that the film has wonderful cinematography but no story. One part of that observation is apparent from watching the picture. The Cinematographer is none other than Ronnie Taylor (BSC) the cinematographer that photographed for the epic film "Ghandi".


The second part of that observation is a pity to hear mentioned and written.


Jodorowsky as a director has a lot of respect for his audiences and he allows his audiences to form their own interpretation of his films. He also likes to let an audience have first hand experience of the world in the scenarios that he builds for the cinema. For "Rainbow Thief" one interpretation, of the final story could go as follows.


Dima, lives alone in the sewers with his dog, surrounded by rats and other vermin in an environment where his clothes are never dry. He spends his days confronting himself in conversation about the vices and devices of human survival with his only companion, the dog Kronos.


Kronos the dog is just a puppet and his power of speech is granted through the machinations of his majesty, Prince Meleagre a ventriloquist who speaks through the dog.


Dima had invited Prince Meleagre with his dog and puppet Kronos into his underground home, where they live in luxury in the only dry spot in the sewers. Dima himself becomes the servant of Prince Meleagre and it is to him that he dedicates his life of petty crime. But Prince Meleagre is never satisfied with anything he steals from the world above, often reprimanding him for going out for too long and choosing instead to school Dima on the virtues of the transformation of the human soul. On practical terms, Prince Meleagre constantly reminds Dima of his daily responsibility of checking the water levels in the sewers and to secure their only canoe which might get washed away in a flood.


In his life, as Dima moves between the sewers and the world above, he undergoes the constant transformation between his wet environment and the warm and dry land of the people above. He quickly shrugs off his conscience and the complaints of Prince Meleagre to become himself a prince of thieves in a world in which he has to steal to survive. He becomes a smooth and elegant artist, rubbing shoulders with fellow thieves and the well to do in a world of luxury. Where his powers of seduction cast a constant spell on the lady of his dreams, the newspaper stand lady Ambrosia, from whom he also sometimes steals money and the occasional newspaper.


It is through the newspapers that he steals from Ambrosia that Dima keeps himself inspired, especially with the fortunes and the inheritance of his alter ego, His Majesty, Prince Meleagre.


But when an imminent flood threatens his underground world, Dima and Meleagre have a severe falling out. Uncle Rudolf dies and Meleagre has failed to return to the surface to claim his inheritance. They get into a fight and Dima decides to save himself from the flood and to leave Prince Meleagre behind.


Here's an extract of memorable dialogue between Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif during their first argument:


Meleagre: "My friend, it is here in the depths of the sewers, revelation came to me. Let us forget our quarrels of the past. Let us rejoice. The Meleagre is here to steer you on, so that you in turn may steer the world out of the greatest deluge ever on earth!"


Dima: "I do not want to steer you anywhere". And you... you're going to steer me? Ha... you're scared out of your pants when you piss!" (He starts walking out and turns). "You have no gratitude, see? No gratitude! Who brought you down here, you and your real dog? Who found you shelter? I did. Who brings food everyday? Dima does. Dima! Dima!"


Meleagre: "You understand nothing. Into the abysmal pit must you fall before you see the abysmal blue. For so, my friend has been given, even unto you!" 


A desperate Dima, scrambles between the world above and the sewers trying to keep his make believe world alive. With the dream of gold at the end of the rainbow his one chance to the life of his dreams. He struggles and negotiates but to no avail. At the end he has to flee the sewers. The YouTube video below shows the part where in his dilemma he at first abandons his alter ego. Then in a desperate change of heart, and exposed to great peril, he abandons his escape and tries one more time to save Meleagre.

Click to enlarge

In a struggle between his real life survival instincts and his spiritual alter-ego, Dima tries to save Meleagre, who instead stupidly tries to save Kronos the puppet dog. Finally, Dima has to knock Meleagre out so that he can carry him to safety. But it is to no avail. Dima loses Meleagre who perishes in the flood. Grieving the loss of his friend and the loss of his home, Dima clambers out of the sewers through a new manhole he finds. Safe at last from the flooding below he sits for hours at the entrance of the manhole defeated. Crowds of cleaners and people pass by the lone figure, a worm out of his hole, until policemen come to arrest him and to throw him out of the city gates. Alone on the waterfront, Dima looks out into the harbour and there he finds his companion Kronos, who has also survived the flood. He calls out and shows Kronos the way out. He embraces his dog and they leave the docks together. 


It is only here at the end of the film, when the dog turns out to be a real dog and not just a puppet, that an audience may realise that perhaps, Prince Meleagre was only a figment of the imagination of a desperate soul. That Dima in his loneliness, had created Prince Meleagre so that he could believe that his miserable dwelling in the sewers was worthy enough to be tenanted by a prince. That without his dog, he would be nothing to the world.


In an incredible duet of a performance by these two actors who first acted together in "Lawrence of Arabia", where Omar Sharif was discovered, Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif play out a poor man's struggle to maintain a sense of perspective and his method of holding on to human faith during dire circumstances.
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"The Rainbow Thief" Production Details


Burrill Productions

Directed by	Alejandro Jodorowsky
Written by	Berta Domínguez D.
Starring	Peter O'Toole Omar Sharif Christopher Lee
Music by	Jean Musy
Cinematography	Ronnie Taylor
Editing by	Mauro Bonanni
Distributed by	Rink Anstalt
Release date(s)	France: January 19, 1994
Running time	87 minutes
Country	England
Language	English

Production details sourced from Wikipedia.


Disclaimer: The images used in the Review are actual screen shots from the film. A watermark from Artistic Melanesia is added simply to trace any abuse of copyright on the internet that may result from this article back to the writer of the article.

What happened after Mozambique?

In 1978, the late Jean Rouch himself a famous figure in French cinema, and a group of Parisian filmmakers created the Mozambique film workshop which created the first ever indigenous third world filmmakers and film authors.

Today, indigenous and third world filmmakers are still struggling to have their own voice and world view heard on the international forum.


There are still too many people and organisations who believe that the third world people need to be represented by first world filmmakers. But are we really incapable of speaking for ourselves? Are we incapable of representing ourselves and offering our own particular perspective on the way the earth functions? Shouldn't we create, run and control our own film forums that truly empower ourselves as the third world people?

Séverin Blanchet creator of several film workshops in the
third world. 

It is fine to collaborate together with filmmakers from the industrialised countries but we also need third world filmmakers and a third world film industry to be self regulating and to be self driven. 

Vincent Blanchét taught and inspired third world

filmmakers. Member of the original Mozambique

Workshop

What did Jean Rouch stand for? What was the dream that the late Blanchet brothers gave to the third world filmmakers? How did these two men inspire the rise of indigenous filmmaking in Papua New Guinea. How did Papua New Guinean filmmakers pick up and run with that dream?


Most third world film festivals are appendages of the larger first world industries funded by Paris or Brussels. Many international film festivals created in the name of third world people are not run or funded by third world people and many of them are Eurocentric. 


Upon what forum can third world film makers and artists really stand on to carry on a reflection about their own cultural existence and the socio-political and economic challenges that they face and struggle with? 


Today our struggle goes on. As a simple evidence of that, most of the film forums are in the Western Countries and very few festivals are run at the level of our rural communities.

Customary welcome rituals, a normal part of Ânûû-rû âboro Film Festival

That's why today I see that the best third world film festival is the Ânûû-rû âboro film festival in New Caledonia. It is the best third world film festival in the world for me, because it reaches out to the communities. It is not run by a hotel but by the whole Melanesian community of the Province Nord (Northern Province of Kanaky). 


The film screenings take place in the villages, where international filmmakers are hosted by the villagers. So members of rural communities are able to have discussions with the filmmakers about a myriad of local and international issues. This is a festival that recognises what film needs to be in the lives of third world people.


The model of Ânûû-rû âboro is a great way for third world people to organise and go forward with their film festivals. Papua New Guinea as a friend and neighbour of the Kanaky people could very easily adopt the Kanaky way of organising film festivals for Papua New Guinea's own film scene and culture. 


Below is a song by Bob Dylan called Mozambique - from his own dreams inspired by Mozambique. That kind of artistry is great. Because it's a third dimension and not from someone merely using the third world for their own career like many people purporting to support the third world do.


That's my point here. It's not about blocking first world filmmakers from working in the third world, but its about proper recognition of third world aspirations as well.


Outside of fiction and drama filmmaking, first world filmmakers who are involved in Documentary film do not have to shut out the voices of third world filmmakers just so that they themselves can have a socio-political voice regarding the state of the third world. They should be facing the common issues from their own humanity, standing on their own personal politics and they should define that for themselves properly before they start publishing their own observations. That way they can provide the earth with authentic art and not the mere noise making about third world issues which only affect them as consumers.


During many other articles regarding film and emancipation, I shall carry on with a critical analysis about North/South relationships and how the third world voice is constantly silenced or denied through various constructs.


In a follow up post, I will deal with the fine differences between People's Forum Filmmaking (The Spirit of Mozambique) and Visual Anthropology.


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Note: There are too many terrible covers of "Mozambique" online. Here is an original performance by Bob Dylan and his own band, not in good quality but an original. Please click here if the embed below doesn't work. It usually takes a while for this video to load.

I like to spend sometime in Mozambique
The sunny sky is aqua blue
And all the couples dancing cheek to cheek
It's very nice to stay a week or two
And maybe fall in love just me and you.


There's a lot of pretty girls in Mozambique
And plenty time for good romance
And everybody likes to stop and speak
To give the special one you seek a chance
Or maybe say hello with just a glance.


Lying next to her by the ocean
Reaching out and touching her hand
Whispering your secret emotion
Magic in a magical land.


And when it's time for leaving Mozambique
To say goodbye to sand and sea
You turn around to take a final peek
And you see why it's so unique to be
Among the lovely people living free
Upon the beach of sunny Mozambique..

Emancipation

Working as a filmmaker towards human emancipation

There are many forms of oppression experienced by people in all walks of life, both in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere too.

Concerning oppression and my own journey of training as a filmmaker, I became conditioned to be aware of issues around me and to point my camera towards some of those issues that could manifest themselves before the camera. But I was also taught not to allow my particular camera perspective to become overly obsessed with details of an oppression or to try to brow beat an audience by fabricating scenes of oppression simply because I was inspired or driven by one example or by the total effect of the various forms of oppression in my neighborhood or on the earth in general. 

In other words, I became trained not to carry the multitude of frustrations of the society in which I lived into the midst of social circles where I was about to place myself as a filmmaker and then from there to project the multiplication of these - perhaps my own original issues, back towards the audiences. Carrying my issues and questions into a new social environment was considered in my particular film area of discipline as "loading the scene with my own imported issues". This was seen as an imposition upon film characters by those who brought me up as a filmmaker.

On the set of Tinpis Run, Waliya Village, Mount Hagen 1990, 

So we became formed and trained to look at crucial details of the human condition by looking and living with people for a bit until issues revealed themselves.

When the actual filming would begin - there are many ways to make this part collaborative as well so that the film characters are well aware of the nature of the film and at the end are also helping with its construction - it was assumed that by various means and processes, you knew the film and most of its parts already and you were now striving to get those particular scenes or their equivalent filmed and put away.

You could start a filming process with some previous knowledge about a particular social situation or without much previous awareness, but regardless of your starting point, you would proceed to construct the film together with your film subjects over a period of time that was convenient for everyone.

One would know that the community being filmed had taken some ownership of the film and its tools (including the filmmaker) when they would begin to think of things on their normal agenda and would begin to inform the filmmakers of these situations, like they would start to propose other possibilities and directions for the film. In other words your film subjects have become filmmakers too and the filmmaker naturally, also begins to have a sense of belonging to the place where they are filming. Each filmmaker has to feel whatever is right for oneself in terms of how deep they can immerse themselves into the social situations which are the subject of films.

The filmmaker is still director and producer, and you are still choosing what scenes to accept into the final film but the energy of the filmed community would at that point already flow with the filmmaker so one just went with that spirit. Scene by scene, one went uncovering pieces of a puzzle and through the building of film scenes finally a truthful representation of the reality of a human existence. These would later become apparent on the picture screen through the particular ways and choices of people's own story telling and by the demonstration of their own force of existence and will to survive.

The fabrication of facts inspired by my own political view of the way the earth was supposed to function was banned in the earlier part of my formation as a filmmaker.

Film scenes were meant to become empirical experiences for an audience, some of whom had never been at the places where I was filming. The evidence of such human condition, was to be brought to an audience by the mere honesty of an interaction and the fair and direct collaboration between filmmaker and film subject.

It was supposed to be the responsibility of a filmmaker to be respectful of an audience. A responsible filmmaker was not to seek to cheaply invoke the spirit of public rage or outrage through the skills we had acquired. We had to be respectful of our audiences and to allow them to form their own judgement as much as possible from the evidence that we were able to outline before them on a cinema screen.

What does any of that have to do with Emancipation?

"Whatever you do, do not think about Elephants". This is a saying from contemporary wisdom which teaches that if you do not want an "elephant in the room", then you would have to contrive to avoid the invocation of the spirit of the elephant.

For filmmakers, this is an important consideration when we are working towards human emancipation. The dangers of the filmmaker that lie in tampering with the chains that encumber human freedom is that while it may be correct to "create awareness" for a certain sector of society about the absence of freedom in their own lives, it would also be unfair to those same people if we had no answers or alternatives to offer them in return for disabusing them of their naïveté about their own lack of freedom.

The first problematic thing in dealing with human emancipation is in the cultural definition of freedom itself and the identification of the chains of oppression from the perspective of the speaker.

Once that barrier has been crossed and it has been established that an injustice exists in the lives of fellow humans, there lies in wait the still more problematic of issues - that of framing the matter and identifying the ideal processes towards a solution.

Again the solution has to be defined and a differentiation has to be made between solutions from an observer of injustice and the solutions from the victims of oppression themselves. To that effect there are again no easy answers and possibly a lot of new disappointments and perhaps even new injuries that may be unwittingly created by rushed solutions to perhaps quite complex and deep rooted causes of issues.

Surprisingly for some, there are also solutions to some oppressive situations which are offered by oppressors who may themselves want to be free from a cycle of oppression or violence. The filmmaker looks for them too because these are also possible solutions that help to repair the social fabric of broken lives and may help affected people to become able to live side by side again.

Left to right - Trisha, Francis and Hitch

 Again a filmmaker not trained in conflict resolution is advised not to set in motion processes beyond their own capacity to oversee. It is safer and less hurtful to film characters if the filmmaker might seek instead to inspire common respect amongst the people we film and maybe also seek to create some amount of respect for the craft that we practice.

So if domestic violence be the issue and we have come into a place to film and to deal with this issue which we the filmmakers do not support, it is important to remember now especially, that as filmmakers we may have to be in the company of some humans, usually men that we may actually have no respect for, due to the way they hurt other people. That we also have to frame these men in our pictures as we would frame any other human beings and that we would offer them the same forum as those that they oppress.

But where should we frame them and offer them forum and where should we deny them the forum to glorify their own oppression of other humans? And while we seek to be political in our effort to end a certain kind of oppression how articulate are we when we are in the situation so that in fact we do not end up shortening the horizons of those that we seek to set free?

Uncle Tuaimi and Hitch

Therein lies the dilemma for those who aspire to be "responsible" filmmakers. This is by no means an excuse for filmmakers to take no action or to be allowed into neglecting the use of their own craft and skills against oppression. But there are tried and tested methods of action which other filmmakers have followed and which can allow us to participate in seeking to serve human emancipation through various disciplines within our own profession.

Allowing the elephant to run amok

Sensationalism, through the use of imagery or other fictions and fabrications that create a cringing or maybe a shocking feeling in the audience about other societies, may not actually solve a human condition which a filmmaker may be aiming to improve. Sensationalism is also disrespectful to the society that is filmed for such purpose because it regards the people filmed simply as objects or figures for an ulterior illustration.

In film, the elephant is already waiting for us in our cameras. If we allow the elephant to behave in there as it pleases, or to run amok due to our own lack of application, then somehow we risk becoming tools of oppression and not for the emancipation of the human spirit. Further, if such elephant is then allowed to dominate the way we think and approach our collaboration with our film subjects then we may not be acting for human freedom.

Emancipation itself may mean the restoration of human dignity, which in itself, is not a promise of total human freedom.

Note: This article does not purport to cover outright human perversion, slavery or war.