Have just come back from India filming my first ever documentary (by filming, I mean shooting, producing, directing, presenting, editing, everything myself) on suicides, pesticides and fashion. Working title “Deadly White Gold”… same as the article I wrote for Who’s Jack this September.
At its height, up to 26 Indian cotton farmers a day were drinking [...]
Despite the fact that photographs from the first day of the G20 protests in April 2009 show me astride an armoured personnel carrier in black bra and blue boiler suit with another woman straddling me in red stockings and lipstick heels, the Crown Prosecution Service has charged me and 10 others with impersonating police officers. [...]
After years of barking at cameramen and laying shopping lists of demands on tape editors (most of whom I can still only recognise by the backs of their heads), I sat a two-week shoot/edit course at the Frontline Club.
I came out with a certificate that says I know what a camera does and that computers [...]
The height of post-Iranian Election fervour. As thousands of pro-reform demonstrators took to Iran’s streets asking where their votes went, one man went on a solitary journey along Tehran’s avenues pasting and painting hundreds of his own questions.
A1one, the street name for a Tehran-based street artist, erected over 400 pieces on the day the [...]
With adverts like this for Israeli telecommunications company cellcom, you might as well be.
Or am I being overly moralistic about this?
The tag line at the end says “After all, we’re what are we all after? Just a bit of fun.”
Activists in the West Bank village of Bi’lin staged their own mock advert where the rest [...]
Received this video this morning. Not sure about dates, exact locations, times.
A rough translation:
“it is plastic bullet…he has shot three air shots…they give him
info who to shoot…yes..like Palestine…he is shooting to air…oh
bastard, bastard….Mohammad get away (from the window) they are
shooting…(when the soldiers flee) good for you, good for
you…(woman’s voice) bastards, someone help him, bastard…
(people) ya [...]
The other day I spoke with a former colleague based in Tehran. Someone with a knack for getting stupid foreign journalists out of Iran’s more logistical minefields. She’s had to switch phones regularly to avoid having his mobile connection blocked. It’s the first time I’ve spoken to her since election day.
“It’s going to be difficult [...]
As the rest of the world is discovering, Iran is a rather modern place. With nearly 70% of the population aged under 35, it would be. Men’s hairstyles may have a tad too much hair gel on the go and women may have a liking for bug-eyed sunglasses, but those are regional crimes of fashion [...]
Dissidents. That’s what you want to call them. People who actively challenge an established doctrine, policy, or institution.
Iran is a country where there is no clear black or white, good or evil. Like the chadors, hejabs and jilbabs worn by women, you see one thing, but beneath the veil can be the unexpected.
On the [...]
