We are going to Hot Docs...

Earlier this week I received great news via email, " Congratulations! You are a finalist for the International Documentary Challenge!" Team Profluence has made it to the finals again with our latest film Bend & Bow. Our film "Bend & Bow" will have its world premiere at HotDocs Canadian International Film Festival on Saturday, April 26th at 9:30 p.m. It will screen with the 13 other International Documentary Challenge finalists, and the Grand Prize winner will be announced at Midnight. All six members of Profluence Productions will be in Toronto, so if you are in the area come by and show your support. Here is the list of the 14 finalists for this years competition:

1. All The Eights, 88
Team: Sholi
City/Country: Sydney, Australia
Genre: Biography/Character Study

2. Ars Magna
Team Juicebox
City/Country: Seattle, WA, USA
Genre: Biography/Character Study

3. The Art of Balance
Team: Surge Media
City/Country: New York, NY, USA
Genre: Sports

4. Beholder
Team: Boss and Coder 34
City/Country: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Genre: First Person

5. Bend & Bow
Team: Profluence Productions
City/Country: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Genre: Experimental

6. Click Whoosh
Team: Reel Grrrls
City/Country: Seattle, WA, USA
Genre: Historical

7. Ghost Bike
Team: Go!
City/Country: Toronto, ON, Canada
Genre: Art

8. I=me2
Team: Year of the Rooster
City/Country: Sherman Oaks, CA, USA
Genre: Experimental

9. Ice Fishing
Team: Rotating Planet
City/Country: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Genre: Sports

10. Jetty
Team: Fly On The Wall
City/Country: Portland, OR, USA
Genre: Social Issue/Political

11. Meet The Freegans
Team: Shields Films
City/Country: Portland, OR, USA
Genre: Social Issue/Political

12. Pennywise: The Changing Face of Change
Team: Lucky Shot
City/Country: Silver Spring, MD, USA
Genre: Social Issue/Political

13. Red Light Blues
Team: Abrahami-Netz Productions
City/Country: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Genre: Social Issue/Political

14. Stick and Pound
Team: It Donned On Me
City/Country: Foster City, CA, USA
Genre: Art

The Documentary Channel

Last week I was informed that my film Shadows of Guilt was selected to air on the Documentary Channel later this year. It will be aired in a Doc Block along with nine other short documentaries produced by my classmates from the New School's Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies.

International Documentary Challenge

Team Profluence reunited this year to take part in the International Documentary Challenge. http://www.docchallenge.org/ If you are not familiar with the competition, teams get five days to create a short documentary. This year 122 teams from 16 countries participated. We received our assigned genre and topic Thursday March 6th at 8am and sent our completed film in Monday March 11th at 5pm. I am fortunate to be in an amazing crew and we all really enjoy getting together every year and collaborating. It is an intense production period resulting in sleep deprivation and consumption of mass amounts of coffee, but it is worth it.

The first round of judging finishes at the end of March when the twelve finalists are announced. All of the finalists are screened at Hot Docs in Toronto, Canada, where the second round of judging takes place. Last year our film Blind Faith: A Film About Seeing, made it to the top twelve and won the award for best soundtrack. Agnes Varnum, documentary film's most well known blogger http://agnesvarnum.com/, had this to say about last years competition, "the short docs that resulted from this challenge were lovely to watch and a nice glimpse at future feature makers."

Press Coverage

My hometown newspaper, the Atlantic City Press, recently interviewed me about my career as a filmmaker and my experiences in Brazil. Read the full text of the article here:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/113/story/92600.html

Photos

Here is a link to our collective photo album from Brazil. There are still more photos to be uploaded, but we are all on seperate vacations at the moment so I will update the album when I am back in New York.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danabartle/sets/72157603667988761/

The end of the road

We left Olinda Monday and headed back to Salvador. Strangely enough, we managed to stop for lunch at the exact same gas station that we had stopped at on the way north the first time. That time there were 9 of us and we all had shots of whiskey. Of course they remembered a combi full of gringos so they reminded us that we had been there before.

Our original plan was to film a local music group in Laranjareis, the small town we stopped at on teh way, but there were complications and we were not allowed to film them. So since we had nothing to film for the next few days we headed to the beach at Imbassaei. It was magnificent. There were only four other people on the beach whne we got there and it was a beautiful place. I saw monkeys for the first time, a whole family of them, jumping between the mango trees. We stayed at a great pousada and had fantastic pizza at one of the few restaurants in the town. The next day we stayed at the beach all day and headed back to Salvador in the afternoon. We had no plan for filming so we went back to the same vanue that we saw Cortejo Afro and watched another Samba Reggae group, Muzenza. It was great. Stephanie and I danced until we were drenched in sweat. We all stayed out to late and drank too much cachaca, which led to hilarious antics back at the apartment.

The next day we got up very early to film the largest cultural festival in Salvador,Lavagem do Bonfim.This festival takes place the second Thursday of January every year. This ritual has been occurring in Salvador since 1754. All meet at one church, Church of Conceição da Praia and march to the Church of Bonfim 10 kilometers away where the ritual washing is to occur. In front of the Church of Conceição da Praia there are Baianas dressed in all white with multicolored sacred beads, carrying long white vases on their heads filled with perfumed water and white flowers.

There are also horse-drawn carriages, musicians, as well as government officials, including the mayor of Salvador. The Carnaval group Filhos de Gandhy (Sons of Gandhi), who traditionally lead the procession, march right behind the Baianas all the way to the Church of Bonfim. Whereas the procession group and bystanders congregate outside the church, tens of thousands of others are scattered around among booths of food and drinks, and trio elétricos featuring such musical favorites as Olodum, Ara Ketu, Gera Samba. The Baianas starts pouring the perfumed water from the vases onto people's hands and heads, for blessing, and on the steps of the closed church; the flowers are dumped at the steps all well.

We filmed until about 11am and then I left for Morro de Sao Paolo, an island that is two hours away by boat from Salvador. There are no cars here and beautiful beaches. I have just been passing teh time swimming and hiking. It is outstanding. Tomorrow I am headed back to Salvador for two more days of filming then on to Rio for vacation.

It has been a fantastic trip. We have met and interciewed some amazing people. Our last day of shooting is January 23rd when we head back to the favela to meet Sidney and film teh kids samba group. We have been updating our photos regularly so mort of them are on my flickr page here


This is my last post. After this I am on vacation. Thanks for keeping up with our travels. One thing I know for sure I will be back in Brazil before the year is finished. I love it here.

Beijos,
Dana

Olinda or bust...

We left Salvador a few days ago and headed north in a combi with our final destination being Olinda a beach town outside of Recife. The first day was a short drive to Laranjareis where we hoped to catch their largest cultural festival. About an hour outside of thw town we stopped for gas and interestingly enough gas stations here also serve alcohol so we all had a shot. The ladies workign there could not stop laughing at a bus full of gringos rolling up and having shots. We are all in such good spirits already this just made everyone laugh for the rest of the drive./

when we got to the town we drove thru teh deserted streeets to discoverhat we missed the festival by three days. so we checked into a pousada, the only one the town had and headed out for some food. We only found one restaurant and it was closing so they offered us beer to go for dinner. Then the owner offered to make us all mistos, grilled ham and cheese, and we settled into a table chatting with the three other customers that were there about music, our trip and life. Then we crashed for the night and started out bright and early for Olinda.

The drive took longer tahn we excepted so by teh time we got here we skipped teh show we were going to see in Recife and went to dinner. We sat in a garden havig dinner and one of teh crew was almost knocked out by a mango that a bat was snatching from a tree above. Only in Brazil. Then we went back to our Pousada and grabbed the camera to film a Choro performace that was happening in the street just out front of our place. Fran and Ian joined the group and there were people everywhere up and down teh block. Then a few of us stayed out and went up the street to an outdoor club to see a group that played contemporary Brazil music. The DJ was spinning Reggae and funk when we got in there and it was the fist time I had really heard music that was not Brazilian since we got here. Then the band came on and they were great. They played a mix of traditional and contemporary music and even played the theme from James Bond. We stayed up way to late but it was worth it.

The next day we went to meet Beth de Oxum, she runs a cultual center out of her home and is one of teh most well known players of Coco music. We interviewed her and came back that night for an impromptu performace in her house. It was really great. After that we headed nirth to the beach to go swimming. Teh water is like bath water here. I swam straight out into the ocean further tahn I shuold have just trying to find cooler water. Then we got back in teh combi and haded to the oldest church in Brazil about 40km north for an outdoor performace of Maracatu in the square. It was a small group but it was, as Ty says, very rootsy. The whole neghborhood was there signing along and dancing. The we came back to crash still tired from partying too much our first day. Now we are heading back to beach for more swimming and then we are going back to Beth's house so the band can have a clinic with her to learn Coco music. Tonight there are numerous festivals in the street that we will be filming so it should be another great and late night...