For those who know of Brook, and have seen AMFS, you will know what he did. Left his extremely well paying job to go backpacking for 360 days around the world, and documented the trip, the places he met, the people he saw...well you are all backpackers, you know what it's like. Also the only place to buy the dvd, is on the website -
A MAP FOR SATURDAY
After getting back home, his next project was 'The Interview' where he did an interview with different people, and these were recorded, and put up on his site. Different type of people were interviewed and if you googled 'Brook the interview', you will probably find the website and get more information.
His latest project, A Day In Africa is different from AMFS, a documentary, but not what you expect. A while ago I added Brook on Facebook, and we talk quite a bit, about travelling, and his doc's. After asking quite a few questions about ADIA, he ended up sending me the screener, the dvd box design is nice, it gives a little summary on the back of each person he follows, and summary of the actual doc. He was also kind enough to give me this for free, he just asked that I keep spreading the word about his stuff. He was also curious to my opinion about this project also, knowing full well I'm not a critic, or in the public eye or anything. I'm just a guy in the middle of nowhere, who is curious about so many things.
SO! A Day In Africa follows the lives of 6 different people in 6 different countries, I think I read somewhere that with this project sort of in mind, he went around Africa, and he would meet people, and he would then ask the person if he could follow them around for the day. The documentary feels short, but afterwards it feels like their should be more, or maybe you are left wanting more. As I said to Brook, it is hard to describe what it is like...it is looking at Africa, or these 6 countries, where charity hasn't been helped out, it is following people who haven't had help from the Western world, or the Eastern. They are people who are born, and have had to learn, they are regular people doing what they can, to get on with life. They aren't people that get visited by Bono or Bob Geldof and receiving all the money for schools and the lark. I think you should definately try and get to see this film, it will open your eyes, or so I hope, and I don't mean a "donate money" open your eyes, I mean a "let's go to Africa and help out" open your eyes. I think I'm doing my random rambling while trying to recommend this. I want to tell the stories of the people that are in it, the pregnant woman with the husband who does sweet f' all, or the guy in Kenya who has had to build the shop he works at, because it got completely ransacked, or the farmer who went to Canada and learned techniques and brought them back and is now earnin more money, and has a load of children from his 3 wives, or the woman nomad who got dragged into a life she now knows she doesn't want, who ends up making the same stuff everyday, because it gets eaten every day...it is AMAZING how much you can learn about someone in one day, just by following them.
I am not Brook, obviously, I'm just a guy that likes his two documentaries and is helping spread the word. Now as I go drink my cup of tea and my banana hot chocolate, I will watch the rest of Charley Boorman's Race to Dakar, which I will then burn to disc, and then start downloading Charley Boorman's By Any Means, where he goes from the UK to Australia...by any means, also on his twitter he announced that he will be starting by any means 2 this year, going from Sydney, up the Pacific rim to Russia, I think.
anyhow...
happy birthday me,
xiao,
teh lemming