Documentary Update: Boston Latino Film Festival Screening

Boston Latino Film Festival Screening, originally uploaded by donshades.

Good news - our Film has been selected for screening by another festival. This time it's State Side at the Boston International Latino Film Festival. The nice people over at BSide have put our trailer up on their website. We'll have an official film site up by the end of the week.

29minutes @ Speakers Corner

I was strolling through Hyde Park on sunday afternoon and came across this rabble... I love polemics at the best of times; but this is just great! Some amazing performances. I shall return with a better camera and an angle at some point.

Doing it Yourself - My first Documentary

We are screening it on Thursday 6th December, the day I get back from Berlin.

Here's a teaser clip. It's rough around the edges, and suffers from lack of experience, zero budget and not enough time - but I'm fucking proud of it.

I'm off to Berlin for a while for some fear and loathing. In the meantime I'll leave you with the clip, the blurb is below.


Rio Blanco: The Mine and the Farmer (preview) from donshades on Vimeo.


On the 21st of April 2004 5000 farmers from Huancabamba province, Northern Peru, marched to protest against a proposed mine in their area. Farmers feared possible contamination of their fresh water sources and were angry they had not been consulted over the project. Although meetings had been prearranged for the 21st of April to start a process of dialogue, representatives from the Peruvian government and the mining company failed on two occasions to arrive at the specified times (the mining company is Monterrico Metals, based in London). On the 22nd of April the farmers arrived at the mining site and were again told to wait for the representatives from the Government and the mine. While waiting and without forewarning, a group of police started firing tear gas at the protestors. In the ensuing chaos a protestor, Reemberto Herrera Racho died; according to the police he fell down a hill; according to eyewitnesses he was hit in the head by a tear gas bomb.

Rio Blanco, The Man and The Mine is an investigation into these two days. It draws from footage shot at the time, interviews with protestors on the march and press coverage of the event to build up a picture of what happened and how it was portrayed afterwards in the national and international media. The documentary highlights the top-down way in which many multinational companies operate in the developing world and the conflicts that arise from the lack of dialogue between company and community.

Onward Towards The End

I'm loving the ideas suggested by Gridrunner. Nearly there with the documentary, just a few more long lights to go....

More Screens at the Weekend

Well, it's the weekend and yet again I'm waiting, looking at "Rendering..." bars. This is the story of my life. I love it and I hate it. It's all about the results at the end, but right now I'm about to explode with frustration. This documentary has been "nearly done" since January. ok, deep breath... here goes....

A New MacBook Pro

Today I am opening my macbook Pro. It is my birthday present to myself and will let me utalise the power of the intel chipset to get down and finish my documentary, record the audio and finish the post production.

It has a camera for video conferences and takes photos like this (above)