Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Afghan Film Project/ Meet the Fokkens/ Crooked Smile

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:



Oct. 30: I found this article in the Edmonton Journal on Feb.8, 2013.  I was looking for inspiration.  It talks about two Afghan boys who are in a movie about two boys who want to become buzkashi players.  It’s like polo players.  It was inspirational to read about two boys who sell maps and dictionaries, are now in a movie.

http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=78495d55-4728-4578-86e4-5c6dc7c28a3f

A tale with a Hollywood ending

Kabul boys in Oscar-nominated Afghan film to walk red carpet

Kim Gamel, The Associated Press

Published: Friday, February 08

Fawad Mohammadi has spent half his life peddling maps and dictionaries to foreigners on a street in Kabul. Now the 14-year-old Afghan boy is getting ready for the red carpet at the Oscars.
It will also be his first time out of the country and his first time on a plane.
Mohammadi was plucked from the dingy streets of the Afghan capital to be one of the main stars of Buzkashi Boys, a coming-of-age movie filmed entirely in a war zone and nominated in the Best Live Action Short Film category.

The movie is about two young boys who are best friends and dream of becoming professional players of buzkashi, a particularly rough and dangerous game that somewhat resembles polo: Horseback riders wrangle to get a headless goat carcass into a circular goal at one end of the field.
It's also part of an American director's effort to help revive a film industry devastated by decades of civil war and by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that banned entertainment and burned films and theatres during its five years in power.

Philadelphia native Sam French, who's lived in Afghanistan for about five years, said his 28-minute movie was initially a way to train local film industry workers - the first instalment in his non-profit Afghan Film Project.
"We never dreamed of having the film come this far and get an Oscar nomination," French, 36, said from Los Angeles, where he's preparing for the Feb. 24 Oscars and raising money to fly the two young co-stars in for the ceremony.
The two boys playing the main characters - Moham-madi and Jawanmard Paiz - can barely contain their excitement.

"It will be a great honour for me and for Afghanistan to meet the world's most famous actors," said Mohammadi, whose real-life dream is to become a pilot.
The farthest Mohammadi has ever travelled was to the northern Afghan city of Maz-ar-i-Sharif. Mohammadi's father died a few years ago, leaving him with his mother, five brothers and a sister.
He started selling chewing gum when he was about seven and soon expanded his trade to maps and dictionaries.
In the movie Mohammadi plays the blacksmith's son, Rafi, whose father wants him to follow in his footsteps.

Afghan Film Project: The article mentions this, so I went to the website.  It’s inspirational.  They are a non-profit organization that tells Aghan stories and create the Afghanistan’s film industry.  You can email them and donate to them.

This sounds like a really good organization.  However, I don’t have a story that would fit for this company.  Check out the website, it’s good.

It’s like charity, but it’s film-related.


Meet the Fokkens: I found this movie review in the Edmonton Journal on Mar. 22, 2013.  It’s called “Sex workers’ tale bittersweet.”  The movie Meet the Fokkens is a documentary.  It got 4 stars out of 5.  It’s about Louise Fokken and Martine Fokken who are 69 yr old identical twins and work as prostitutes.  Louise’s abusive husband got her into prostitution by beating her up and putting her in the red-light district to make money.  Martine followed out of anger and loyalty.  Martine is still working as one, but Lousie quit because she got arthritis.  When asked if they would ever do it again, they said never.

My opinion: I want to educate and entertain in my writing.  When I write my script, I did want to teach the audience something and make it interesting.  I want to inspire them.  I remember watching a Rookie Blue episode, and I was thinking: “I don’t want to make people cry.  I want to make people feel.”

Nov. 1 Literary editor: I have a lot of clutter, but it’s mainly newspaper clippings.  I usually type them up in my emails /blog, and then I recycle them.  I do keep some articles because they are so good. 

On my Jun. 2, 2012 blog post, I wrote about “Editor’s joke.”  On that post:


I was going through my newspaper articles and I found this from the National Post.  On the Weekend Post edition there is a books section.  Here's a little article from Apr. 30, 2011.
I only typed up a couple of lines.  Here is the entire article:

“Instead the editor, having read 17 things this morning, keeps going, thinking: A run-on sentence in the first line! Oh no, another story with the character waking up hung-over and getting a phone call.  Why must they flash back before anything interesting happens? That isn’t really funny. We don’t publish travel articles. Does no one read the guidelines? This one gets good in the middle, but then the character just sits down and thinks about stuff. Wonderful minor character but the main one is self-pitying. Almost. Good scene. Pretty good. Not quite. Please can’t somebody just dazzle me so I can pick something and stop this?”

I then looked it up on the internet, and it turns out the above paragraph that was published in the National Post is part of a way longer blog post here:


I didn’t read it, because I’m not submitting to literary magazines. I will now recycle the article.

Nov. 4 Crooked Smile: I was watching this music video “Crooked Smile” by J. Cole feat. TLC.  I have heard of the song before and I like it because I like TLC.  I then caught the last half of this video on TV.  It was so good.  I had to watch the whole thing on the internet.  I was impressed.  It’s a short film by Sheldon Candis, what it says in the beginning.  It’s a 5:36 sec video.

There is a really good story to it.  J. Cole plays a father and he is a drug dealer.  A white guy is playing a father and he is a DEA agent.  J. Cole is celebrating his 4 yr old daughter’s birthday by having cake and a little party in the backyard with his wife, and father.

The DEA agent is with his other officers and they bust down the house.  The little girl gets accidentally shot.  I really felt something there.  The music turns into an organ music and we see the girl in heaven.  J. Cole is sitting in the cop car, with tears in his eyes.

The ending says “For Aiyana Stanley-Jones.  And please consider your war on drugs.  A message from J. Cole.”  The comments were that it made them cry.

My opinion: I really like this video.  There is a good story, there was emotion and I felt something when watching it.  Great production.  I was going to put this in the fun email, but I think it belongs in the writing email because of the story.

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