On Location in East Africa Changed Me

How do we grow as creative humans?







As storytellers?

As producers, directors?

As change agents in our world?

One way I grow is to direct and produce shoots on location in remote places. This stretches my mind, world view, comfort zone. And challenges my negative predictions and preconceived perceptions and concepts.

I think it's fair to say we all at times, not matter our role and work context, we are taken out of our comfort zones and venture into new lands. Curious... do you grow on such adventures?

I feel fortunate in my role as a non-fiction filmmaker to have the opportunity to enter into places and meet people I would have never otherwise meet, listen to, share ideas and cultures.

This summer my company, Grazioso Pictures, Inc., was commissioned by Oxfam America to create a series of videos for their forthcoming climate change campaign. I am grateful for this opportunity and privilege to have now traveled to four regions of the world to make this film series.

Our mission is create a series of segments from scratch, and all principal moving footage has been now been shot, all by us. My DPs Milton Kam and Lukasz Pruchnik and I traveled and shot in four countries, starting in the USA's Louisiana gulf coast, then down to El Salvador, Vietnam, and Ethiopia.

I was moved personally and professionally by all experiences. However East Africa's Ethiopia stuck me deepest. Ethiopia was such a different place than I expected on so many levels. The only images I knew of Ethiopia growing up was of those PSAs on television. Ethiopia's history, landscape, lake region, political system, variety of tribes and languages, cultures, foods...I didn't get enough in my 7 days there. For example I learned the oldest upright human specimen was dug up in Ethiopia, the Italian tried to invade and conquer Ethiopia twice and the coffee bean came from this land and is a growing industry in the fertile highlands.

We spent most of our time in the southern most region with a Borana tribal community, which was fascinating. They are a simple peace-focused culture with an incredible bond between them. A very smart, hard-working, entrepreneurial, democratic, oral and sustaining culture that has survived in an arid climate for hundreds of years.

One thing that struck me was the consistent eye contact between myself and people passing by. Most everyone looked directly in our eyes and either nodded their heads, waved and acknowledged my presence in some way. Unlike my experience in Boston where people you seen or walked by dozens of times avert eye contact and give a cold look if you say hello. Different worlds. And I, and we, as Americans have a lot to learn from these African cultures. In many ways we have everything. Yet in other ways we lack humanity as we drive our cars, talk on our iPhones, google, check off our to do list, etc.

Back to my story. We drove 2 days (each way) from Addis Ababa (Ethiopia's capital, center of the "Dipliomatic Africa" as the seat of the African Union) to southern border to a town called Moyale, which borders Kenya.

To learn more about Ethiopia visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia

The current drought is really hitting this region and the people VERY hard. Normal rainy season of 2-3 months was only 5 days. Ancient wells are drying up. Surface water is scarce. Ponds are being used by more people and livestock, and are getting more and more contaminated. For example women walk an average of 6 hours to retrieve water, and carry 5 to 8 gallons on their backs all the way home. It's rough for these beautiful people that have lived on this land for many many generations. Our segment will amplify the voices and showcase the empowering work Oxfam America supports, the series will be featured on OxfamAmerica.org when completed later this Fall.

We are currently in post-production editing these segments. See a few still shots from our shoot above and below . Thanks for reading. More updates coming.