The PBS Newshour Art Beat reports that students of Haiti’s only film school, Ciné Institute, have kept filming after the earthquake, shooting and editing despite their own personal circumstances.

Ciné Institute Students Effort from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

Learn more

• Ciné Institute
• Ciné Institute online videos at Vimeo
• Conversation: Students from Haiti’s Only Film School Keep Their Cameras Rolling from PBS Newshour, Art Beat
• Haiti’s Film Students Find a New Mission by Salon

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1. Short film for the day

In the late ’80s, Czechoslovakia became a democratic state, and in 1993 peacefully separated into two countries – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. With democracy came capitalism and advertising, and with capitalism and advertising came The Hypermarket. Hypermarkets are the world’s superstores, selling shoes and spinach, pipe wrenches and pumpkins, all you would need to buy under one roof. Compared to the scarcity of goods in the pre-capitalist Czechoslovakia, this abundance was a big change.

Just like people in other countries had become critical of rampant consumerism and advertising eroding their culture, many Czechs felt the same way.

Two filmmakers created a fake advertising campaign, including radio, tv, sales flyers, posters and a web site, to promote the new hypermarket named Czech Dream – Cesky Sen. They announced a location and an opening day; built a huge fake storefront in a field, made of a tarp and scaffolding; and 3,000 people showed up. They filmed the whole thing, from inception, ad design, recording the theme song, filming the commercials, to the day 3,000 people standing in front of them found out they had been lied to.

The film is well made, but like many odd art events, the real art happened in the field that morning with those 3,000 people. The film just documents creating that art.

Controversy about the film and the ad campaign stretched all the way to the Czech Parliament and Prime Minister. Government arts funding had been used to make the film (and the fake ad campaigns), which outraged a lot of people. Supporters of the film argued this was no different than the government’s expenses for the huge “join the European Union” ad campaign. Both were advertising an ideology, it was better to also show a contrary view. (Joining the European Union, because of easier trade with other EU nations, was thought by many Czechs to be a huge unwanted step towards materialism and consumerism.)

Like Adbusters, The Yes Men, and some Michael Moore films, the artists set up circumstances that most clearly show the point they want to make. The set up is what usually gets people really riled up, because people feel manipulated, and the films no longer retain an illusion of neutrality. (Documentaries are rarely neutral. How up front a film is about its bias varies.) They’re big, social, political practical jokes.

Lessons of the film: 1. Advertising is bad. 2. Buying things won’t make you happy. 3. Standing outside in a field on a sunny day is much better than going to a mall.

Buy something about anti-consumerism:
Czech Dream (US DVD release date December 4, 2007)
Words by Adbusters and founder Kalle Lasn
Work by Michael Moore

Richard DeDomenici is an artist, seems to have a lot of fun traveling and making shows for BBC. I’m jealous!

Richard DeMomenici’s Power of Art (a BBC promotion supporting Simon Schama’s show).

Visit his sites:
Richard DeDomenici’s Art site and
Non-art site

Related posts:

1. Simon Schama’s Power of Art
2. Thank you Richard Florida for giving The Bohemians so much power. Now please tell us – when will we ever benefit from it?

Each scene rolls on quietly with poetic light and ambient sounds, with the few words spoken coming from the Iraqi people themselves. Each of the three parts of the film focus on one person, and simply shows what they see and hear, as their voices sparsely speak about their lives. The first person is a Sunni boy living in Baghdad, the second is a Shiite militia-man, and the third is a Kurdish boy in Northern Iraq. There is no judgement to what’s captured. There is little plot, only getting to know each of these people and their worlds.

It’s surprising that anyone could get such personal and intimate access to these people, especially as a western director. Yet director James Longley is able to show each person’s hopes and fears up close. He lived in Iraq for two years to make the film. He went alone and filmed alone.

The children we follow at the beginning and end are wise, moving and heartbreaking. The eight year old boy says “When I grow up I want to live abroad, I dream about living somewhere beautiful.”

Between the governments of the world and anti-government factions, we often forget the majority of people outside these small groups are regular people trying to live their lives. The actions of these governments and factions take their tolls. In the United States, we are often shown the view from on high, but never down close with everyday people, who are trying to go on working and living among the danger and wreckage.

You can’t walk in someone else’s shoes or see through their eyes. But films like Iraq in Fragments take you a step closer to it.

More on the film – Cinematical

Get Iraq in Fragments

Related posts:

1. The Czech Dream, the Hoax Superstore of the Czech Republic