McNamara passes, Morris speaks

I’m a little late on the news, but former US defense secretary Robert McNamara passed away on Monday at the age of 93. He was the primary architect of the US war on Vietnam, and the target of many anti-war demonstrations, and accused of being a war criminal.

Coincidentally, as part of my work at the NFB, I’ve been working on promotion of a new film called Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, directed by Pepita Ferrari and featuring 33 filmmakers talking about their craft. One of those filmmakers is Errol Morris, who made what is one of my all-time favorite docs, The Fog of War, whose main subject and interviewee is Robert S. McNamara himself.

You can view clips of Morris speaking about McNamara here & here.

Errol Morris on the set of Capturing Reality. Copyright 2008, National Film Board of Canada

The rest of the clips on the Capturing Reality site have nothing to do with McNamara, but they do cover the questions and quandries that come with documentary filmmaking. You can watch all four hours of interview clips on the site, as well as the trailer for the film, which features more interviews that aren’t on the site and is well worth the watch (the DVD comes with both the doc and all four hours of clips…). The entire project reminds you why the Herzogs, Obomsawins, Braults and Maysles of the world are phenomenal, and, for me at least, is an introduction to a slew of filmmakers whose work I want to discover.

And in pure self-promotion, I helped pick the 11 clips we’ve put together into a playlist on NFB.ca; they’re my favourites of the bunch and contain some pleasant surprises… You can view them all, my favourite is from the inimitable Werner Herzog…

Two audio pieces: Abdelrazik, Canada and torture

A quick post with two audio pieces about the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, one in French, the other in English.

As I wrote earlier this week, I produced a piece for CKUT’s Le lendemain de la veille about Abdelrazik’s return home to Montreal. It features the voices of some of his supporters, Abdelrazik himself and his step-daughter Wafa Sahnine. And, of course, the music of the Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble who were out to liven up the evening.

The second piece is an interview by Samaa Elibyari and Stefan Christoff at CKUT radio. They spoke with Dr. Sherene Razack about Canada, torture, and the broader context of Abdelrazik’s ordeal.

If you’d like to either download or re-broadcast either piece, you can find them on Radio4All.

Canada, les mines, et le coup d’état au Honduras

Il y a beaucoup de nouvelles qui circulent à propos du coup d’état dimanche dernier au Honduras. Ce matin au Lendemain de la veille nous avons ajouter au discussion de notre propre façon. Ma collègue à l’émission, Sabine Friesinger, a accueilli en studio Antonio Artuso, un colombo-montréalais qui est membre du Comité citoyen contre le coup d’état au Honduras. Il touche sur plusieurs aspects importants, peut-être le plus important étant la complicité des gouvernements canadien et étatsunien dans ce débacle.

À propos du positionement du gouvernment Canadien dans le coup d’état: “Les intérêts pour le Canada au Honduras sont trois grandes mines: Goldcorp, Breakwater et Yamaha.” (vers 6 minutes)

The Dominion now paying for contributions

I’ve had the luck to be involved with some great projects of the years, but by far one of the best – and one that continues to grow by leaps and bounds – is The Dominion newspaper and the adjacent Media Co-op. I’ve been meaning to write more about it for a while now – especially what a co-operative structure can offer as an alternative funding model to simply chasing advertising revenue, but that will need to wait.

In the meantime though, the co-op model is starting to pay off – literally. The Dominion is now paying for up to two articles per monthly issue ($100 each). The call for pitches for the August issue just went out, but you gotta hurry – the deadline to pitch is Saturday, July 4th (if you get an access denied message, just create a free account to log-in).

Keep reading below for full details

I *heart* marching bands

Especially anarchist marching bands.

I’m editing together a piece about Abousfian Abdelrazik’s return to Canada. In the meantime, here’s a short clip from that night and a shout out to the ever-awesome Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble: