“Gypsies of the Sulu Sea” is online

Short documentary “Gypsies of the Sulu Sea” is now online in the Danish version:

SE FILMEN (forringet opløsning)

Today we finished in Studio 2 at Aarhus Film Workshop, we’re finally done editing the English translated version of the film. We’re working on entering the film to relevant film festivals – primarily in Denmark, but also abroad.

We’re currently negotiating with Koda (Danish representative for music rights for composers) about foreign broadcast, and hope to bring down the costs per second we use music from their catalogue.

Editing proces, premiere and awards

As we returned to Denmark we immediately started working again. The editing proces was intense and we spent several hours in the studio. During this period, we had the company of two good friends, in an adjacent studio who edited their own film from Nicaragua. So whenever we needed opinions or just to see something different, we had some good talks.

After many long days and nights, many clips, translations and reflections succeeded it: the short film “Gypsies of the Sulu Sea” was a reality.

The premiere took place in November at Copenhagen Film Institute. The film was shown with 8 other short documentaries from developing countries around the world. ”Gypsies of the Sulu Sea” won a 3rd place.

The film has furthermore been shown at “Øst for Paradis”, “Aarhus Film Festival” and “Aarhus Filmværksted”. I’ve held lectures on schools, University of Southern Denmark and the Danish School of Journalism.

Assisting Dentists Without Borders

Before returning to Denmark, we took a flight to Cebu City to visit some old friends, Flemming and Elisabet Hansen, a wonderful caring couple who’ve devoted their life to helping those in need.

The days we stayed in Cebu, Dentists Without Borders visited the area. They come several times a year in various places around the world, to do free dental care for the poor and homeless – especially the children whose teeth can be saved, to some extend.

We spent a whole day helping the dentists and comforting the brave children who often got 2-5 teeth pulled at a time. The condition of their teeth was horrific, so many of the children walked around with rotten teeth – right down to the cheek bone. It seems completely incomprehensible to imagine what a pain that must cause.

The area we visited to offer free dental care was on a dumpsite where hundreds of people live and work everyday litteraly in the trash.
On a break from the dentist work, we walked away from the big group and climbed on top of the mountain of trash. What a sight!

It’s an impossible task to describe the smell, the sight and the general experience up there

See the photos on this site to get an impression.

Last day of shooting

The days we waited for the rain to stop, we spend all our time visiting tv-repair shops, studios etc. – to try to figure out if all our tapes were ruined and if they were fixable.

In the Philippines, professional filming equipment isn’t around every corner so it took some hard work, determination and a lot of rides in tricykles. But finally we found a man who could declare that all tapes had survived – PERFECT! Finally a little luck…

And finally the day came, where it stopped raining and we could go sailing with the familiy and the interpreter – and do the last filming.

We were all a little nervous going out with the same houseboat, considering the accident and the damage from it. However, things couldn’t be different, the rest of the film was shot at that excact boat so we couldn’t change “location”, so to speak.

We weren’t the only ones to be nervous. The family were convinced that we were all on a bad note with the sea gods, so they brought us to sea to make a ritual before filming and going any further. They were all truely scared that the gods would harm us again.

So, after a ritual – involving some cigaretes, fresh water and rice, we could start shooting.
The day went really well and we got the last interviews – both at day and night time. But this time we chose not to sleep on the boat!

Recovering – mentally and with “new” equipment

So, a week has passed by and the accident starts to be nothing but an (unpleasant) memory.

Only a few days after, we decided to not let this incident have any influence on our project. So we started to look for new equipment. We knew that Puerto Princessa on the island of Palawan probably wouldn’t have professional gear like the things we brought from home, but we were determined to find a good solution for the rest of the film. Since our camera was completely broken we also had to find some kind of reader to be able to see if all our tapes with prior recordings had survived the salt water.

The boat accident was on tv and radio here in the Philippines, something which may have helped us in the search of equipment. At least, after many questions, trips in tricykles and doubts we ended up finding a small company that produce wedding videos that could help us.

Now we rent (to a very high prize) a semi-professional Sony VX2100 and a VERY old-school microport with antenna, that has to be taped to the camera. On this camera we could see that only one tape with recordings was destroyed – great news! But working with a new camera from Asia isn’t without complications – the cam is for minidv not dvcam and they record in NTSC format, not Pal….so….things are complicated but not impossible.

The status for now is; we’re waiting!! We only need one more day of shooting and we’ll have the material we need. But first we had to wait for their houseboat to be repaired (and since we’re going sailing on it again, we were not eager to go before that was done properly), then we planned the day for shooting and the youngest of the family, little Elmond got sick, probably from the night when the boat sank. Today we got up at the crack of dawn, again expecting to be filming – only to discover that it was impossible due to heavy rain.

So, here we are, so close to be finish – yet so far from it.

In the meantime we’ve (talked to insurance companies) and paricipated in a badjao wedding. The family we portait spend most of their time on water, but many badjaos now live in stilthouses on land. Our interpreter invited us to join the ceremony and party.

The experience was very… special. There were people everywhere on those fragile rotten pieces of wood that surround the stilthouses. It turned out that we were part of the interpreter’s gift to the couple. The “foreigners” were a surprise for them, and the toastmaster kept talking about the historical event of “foreigners” to join a badjao wedding.

 

 

Many of the original traditions of the badjaos have drowned in bad karaoke singing and decorations with anything from Hary Potter to roses or muslim icons. But a few traditions had survived – for instance the original muslim dance for the wedding couple while the guests approach them and place money between their hands. Overall – a different and memorable event!

 

….And for now….it’s still raining, so we keep waiting for the last shooting…..

The adventure that turned into a nightmare

So … the first day of filming: the family was happy, we were happy…all good.

At midnight we are all sleeping on the banka (houseboat). In only a few seconds the banka sinks!

Christina lies in such way that she comes out on the side of the boat, and feels safe enough to give all effort into trying to save the equipment. My head is in the end where the boat takes in water and due to the very fast “break” that happens in some of the construction, I fall backwards into and under the water, caught under the boat. I’m still in my sleeping bag so it’s hard to swim, but I manage to kick it off and dive away from the boat and to the surface.

Everything is chaos: everybody is screaming, the boat is cracking and everything is completely black. The father moved the boat when we were sleeping so I had no idea how far from land we were.  I kept looking for the little Elmond who still couldn’t swim. Luckily, this great little boy was hanging on the side of a bamboo stick from the boat, smiling as his mother and I grabbed him.

Luckily, the interpreter was worried about our safety because of the expensive equipment and she told her brother in law who’s a baywatch, to anchor his boat near us, in case anything should happen. So, we only had to swim a short distance with equipment over our head until the coastguard pulled us out of the water and into their boat.

The big boat is the baywatch…the little damaged boat in the back is the houseboat we slept in, after they brought it back to the surface.

We spent the night on a desert island, wet, cold and quite chocked. We didn’t sleep that night, we had to separate all equipment on a scarf and try to save anything possible (which wasn’t much).

In the morning, at 5 when the high tide was ready for the coast guard to sail again, they brought us back to land. We didn’t go back to our hotel at first. We walked around in a small village to buy food, and equipment to repair the boat for the coast guard to bring back to the family.

As we returned to our pension everything was wet. We arrived bare footed and wearing baywatch uniforms, holding dripping wet bags. At that time we were exhausted but still couldn’t sleep. The fear about the state of the equipment was overwhelming….we opened all bags and put everything to dry…. A Canon SLR with big lenses, a Sony PD170 (our only camera for the film), 2 cell phones and all kinds of chargers etc. was broken. At that time we still had no idea if our tapes with all prior interviews and shootings were ruined

It’s strange to descripe the emotions around this incident. At first we were just extremely relieved that everybody was safe. We got only a few bruises and cuts, and lots of mosquito bites from the night on the island. – But everybody survived!

After that – the dispair, the chock and thoughts about how to finish the film and how to move on seemed a little too much.

First day of shooting the amazing life of sea gypsies

The plan for shooting the documentary was (after a couple of days of pre-interviews) to go on a two day trip with the interpreter and the Kasihilan. We hoped to be able to shoot at least the master interview and most of the cover pictures for the film. We were aware that this was an ambitious plan. – Filming, using tripod, microphones etc. isn’t completely compatible to life on a small banka (houseboat).

The interpreter, Mercy (an educated badjao who now lives on land) picked us up at 5 in the morning. As we arrived by the stilthouses we met the family and they were obviously very exited about the trip and the filming.

From the break of dawn we started filming…and practically didn’t stop before we went to sleep. The day with the family was in so many was amazing and unforgettable. They are truly an authentic indigenous nomadic people. They’re uneducated for generations, they spend all their time at sea and seem incredibly untouched by the modern world’s materialism.

For the sake of the premiere of the film, everything won’t be revealed. But, – I can say that thru the entire day I was completely amazed of what the badjaos can dao under water and what and how they eat. Christina and I had told the interpreter that we wanted to live, sleep and eat like the badjaos – we didn’t want any special treatment. This meant that we ended up eating squids (with ink….everywhere!!), living sea urchins and a bunch of other sand-eating soft animals that we’ve never seen before….The taste?….well….they had a small fire on the banka where they cooked rice…and that turned out to be to our luck.

It’s so incredible to see how the children of this family is so capable…of anything. They swim, dive, fix the boat and play in the sand when they go to land. The family live together on such limited space, yet no one argues or seem bothered in any way. They truly live the simple life on sea!

At night time the oldest boy, Boysan, sang a song about the life of badjaos while Vanessa was dancing and smiling the whole time and the youngest, Elmond, fell a sleep on the hard bare bamboo – just as he always does.

As we went to bed we were speechless. The impressions were almost too much, we knew that this day would be one to remember for the rest of our lives. The filming had gone really well, and we felt confident that the schedule would work out. Only one more day of filming and…finish.

Finding the badjao family

After about 60 hours of constant travelling from Aarhus via London, Hong Kong and Manilla we finally arrived to Palawan despite typhoon warning for the flight departure.

The day of arrival was all about sleeping, adjusting and recovering. (Yet, we still suffer from jetlag, last night we hardly slept…hope to see the end of it soon).

In regards to the film project things are simply moving forward in a speed, hard to follow.
Already on the second day in Puerto Princessa, we actually had plans to take yet another day of recovery at the beach and from there on start planning how to do our research about the badjaos (sea gypsies).

A local advised us to go to the tourist office. We were some what sceptical – but soon we found ourselves in a huge slum stilt-house area entangled in a complicated system of “captains” for each area. With a bag packed with bikini and sun screen, ready for the beach. we walked around, talking to the the chief “captain” of the badjaos. He took us straight to school teacher called Nasuraya.

And so it all began…

Nasuray and her sister Mercy heard about the film project and immediately had a family in mind. They say it’s hard to find people where we can be safe with all the camera equipment, but this family should be kind and trustworthy.

So we met them yesterday and they all seemed kind. But their houseboat was tied to a pole due to bad weather, so we had no access to see it and consider wether it was usefull for the film.
Last night we had to take the decision – whether to continue with this family or to move on to another badjao-area, maybe in Cebu.

Despite many doubts – and without having seen the boat, we took a chance and told the family that the project would go on….what turned out to be a crucial decision!

This morning at 7 am, Mercy (our interpreter) picked us up and we went straight to the stilthouse and the family. They are five children and parents – all waiting and smiling when we arrived.
As we saw the boat, we immediately knew that this was a good decision. It’s an old wooden bamboo boat, quite small in regards to the fact that the family live their for weeks and have managed to sail all the way from Manilla to Palawan. The mother let us know that the boat had been passed on for four generations, so she was brought up on this very boat.

As we went sailing we had a chance to do some interviews and pre-shooting to test different filters, angles and teqhnices for the real shooting. The family followed our every move very excited, especially the youngest boy was fascinated by the “dead cat” (microphone).

We were completely happy and surprised to find out that they had homemade goggles for diving – carved out of wood, and swimming fins made out of hard plastic or any material they might find on their way.

We anchored a couple of times and the father and children of the family immediately jumped into the water to swim and dive for sea urchins. As they returned with a huge bucket of urchins the mother started to cut them in half and they all returned to eat the urchins alive. After a while they offered us a taste, and with a huge smile and some doubts we had a taste of a living sea urchin fresh from the sea.

The badjaos speak a rare combination of Tagalog (filippino), provincial dialect from Palawan and Mindanao and with a unique badjao accent. Our interpreter is extremely important in this process!!

Tomorrow it’s all about planning, doing the story board, finding the right angle to the story and so on. The following two days we go sailing with the family to Honday Bay – this is where the interviews and shooting will take place…we hope for good weather and lack of typhoons.

Gear and great assistance…

Departure is getting closer and it’s about time to gather all equipment and do the final research.
Thanks to a good friend, we’re assisted by one of Denmarks talented docu producers – Henrik Egede-Lassen (producer of “Wild World” DR, projects for National Geographic etc – www.zoomedia.dk).
He’s extremely talented and sincerely kind to assist – in regards to ideas, advice and equipment. Just great!

We plan to do some under water filming. Photography and filming under water is in many ways ambitious and takes a great deal of planning and equipment. We’re currently considering what will be the right gear in regards to this part of the shooting. – We’re caught between light travelling with compact camera or to bring yet another proff. camera (PD150 with a very heavy Amphibico house, kindly lent by Henrik)…. it all comes down to great images without too much hazzle travelling. Still haven’t decided what to do in that area, but since we allready bring a PD170 for the general filming, I believe we’ll see if we can find some light gear in Manila or Zamboanga.

Departure to Manila is July the 3rd with return to Copenhagen August 13.

Deadline for the short docu is September 15.

Entering the fase of production…

So, we just finished a film workshop this weekend. The courses were managed by the Danish ministry of foreign affairs and the school of journalism. We got to meet the other producers (Danida are having 10 movies made from developing countries around the world) – and it was extremely interesting sharing stories, scripts, ideas and thoughts. We can await great short docu films from Bangladesh, Niger, Somalia, Uzbekistahn, Nicaragua and so many more countries.

Everything is launched now – and we enter the fase of production. I predict the following months with shooting at the Sulu Sea and editing in Denmark will be extremely busy – yet amazing.

The 10 short docu films will premiere in Copenhagen (The Danish Film Institute) on October 31 and Aarhus (Øst for Paradis cinema) on November 7.

Docu: Research and safety

So… Some days have passed, and the celebration days for receiving the funds are over.
Reality starts to kick in, and the first workshop with the ministry of foreign affairs and Danish TV is only a few weeks away. – We need to start doing some serious research on this film project.

We are aware, that we’ve chosen a very ambitious, complex and some what risky project, a fact that stresses the amount of research that needs to be done.
Our film script is currently about the badjaos (sea gypsies) in the waters around Palawan island. The last couple of days we’ve been in contact with NGO’s and locals who are excited about the project – but who’ve also expressed that they hope we “dare” to go to the western part of Mindanao instead. The badjaos from Mindanao and the islands of the Sulu Sea are the real original tribe people, and they hope that it is their culture and life circumstances we will portrait.

For those who’ve traveled the Philippines, it’s no secret that Mindanao has a bad rumor in regards to terrorism and kidnappings, but in general Mindanao has been safe for the last five years or so. Unfortunately there are exceptions – and these are in particular the islands and waters of the Sulu Sea, which for periods are considered among the most dangerous areas worldwide, due to pirates.
We have absolutely no intention of taking any unnecessary risks, but we are also very aware that many of the safety warnings aren’t updated for years or they are issued by a government who needs to give strict warnings, to be sure to avoid problems in case tourists experience any danger.

The islands of the Sulu Sea are very interesting for us, but with the limited information we have, we’re still not convinced about the safety of this area. So, Zamboanga – a city at the western coast of Mindanao mainland might be the area we’ll shoot.

The following days will be all about filming permissions, extended visas, research on safety and workshops with the production leaders.

Filmproduction ahead

Today – one hour ago – I was informed by the Danish ministry of foreign affairs, that a friend and I have received the funds to produce a short documentary film in the Philippines.

We have been working towards this for several years, so the redemption is enourmous. This is truely the opportunity I have been waiting for, – to produce my own uniqe documentary about the human conditions in the Philippines. This unites my two absolute main interests – advocating poverty issues and working with visual elements.

Knowing that the jury, existing of acknowledged journalists and film directors, believe in this project and the message we want to deliver, is somewhat intimidating and yet amazing. – It gives our project a completely new perspective.

The short film will be called “Gypsies of the Sulu Sea”. – We are going to the ocean surrounding the island of Palawan to portrait one of the world’s last nomadic tribes, the seagypsies. They are born by the water, and live in and on the water their entire life.
They are pushed into a life threatening dilemma:
Their lifestile leaves them malnourished and with disseases such as AIDS, malaria and TB. – The government pushes the tribes to move to land, to start living a “proper” life.
But the water is all they know – their entire cultural history is linked to the life on sea. However – if they choose to keep living the nomadic life, they also face the fear of increasing threats from pirates at sea.

The perspectives are endless, and the dilemma seems overwhelming.

The next couple of months will be more busy than ever. Finishing my degree, working volunteer for the Philippines in Mind NGO, doing film workshops, preparing the entire production and travelling to the Philippines.

I have the energy of the sun…