Short Documentaries (2009 – 2010) for television broadcast
These will be 7 – 13 minute documentary inserts for appropriate television time slots. The team develops a triangular interaction and collaboration with three role players, a flamboyant soccer supporter, a street philosopher and an eccentric, nonconformist type artist. These films will reveal the strategies in the game of life and depending on the context one, two or all three of these characters will be featured. These films will be screened on location as the relay medium of ideas, hopes and aspirations from one country to the next.
And just as cameras placed all around the stadium mediate international football, the FOOTSAK film is presented through the three viewpoints and preoccupations of the three artists in the team.
We say that in Africa we have no goals, as when the colonists left, they took the goalposts away with them. So an African game of football might have different boundaries: can we play without a binary opposition, just for the pleasure of the experience? Does the African philosophy of ‘Ubuntu’ affect participation in a team sport? What is the relationship between African countries and their former colonizers, in terms of culture, competition and migration?
Short magic reality films or fillers (2010) for Television Broadcast
These 90-second films will be scenarios conceived with on-location partners. They will combine the concepts of the project with the realities of the people encountered and draw from these creative synergies. Elements of ‘magic reality’, fantastical possibility and imaginative potential will enrich these films, the ball providing the link and sometimes morphing into metaphor. These films will be scripted with envisaged outcomes.
Scenario example: Teghin, Ouagadougou. Twenty children perched in a tree’s spreading branches with soccer balls unseen by the camera; some of Ouagas perennial motorcycles are parked around the trunk. At a given signal they are thrown out of the tree and bounce on the red African soil.
Book Publication: The Forward Football Fans (2010)
The book will feature still photographs, photographic essays, sketches and text (French and English) that informs, offers insights and commentary on the moments that collectively distill the journey into its essence. Included will be a CD that compliments the content: location music, sound-scapes, pertinent commentary and video clips.
Full Feature Documentary (2010 – 2011)
A full-length 52-minute documentary will be produced from the footage recorded. It is envisaged that the concept will be thematic to the spirit of the project and informed by the threads that form the tapestry of the experience. What are the on-location commonalities that present themselves? What are the peculiarities of the communities that we encounter? What is the anti-stereotypical image of Africa? How, through the team’s interventions, are new possibilities explored, innovative ideas exposed and alternative thoughts revealed? Ultimately the idea is to condense these responses into a cohesive whole that confronts perceptions that are tempered by questionable perspectives.
Influences? Perhaps Kapuscinski’s sympathetic diagnoses of African issues; the STEPS film project giving alternative, constructive views on HIV; Jean Rouch’s immersive ethnography; Chris Marker’s philosophical musings on place and identity. But the primary influences are the people the team encounter and engage with on the journey. The film is a creative space in which they can reflect on aspirations and activities of their collaborators, look at the artistic synergies around them, and explore the subtle, essential and traditional human qualities of those they encounter.
