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| This is the End... |
| 06.27.04 (1:00 pm) [edit] |
Well, our exclusive 512 Collective Africa expedition has come to an end. For those of you who are new to this page, click here for an overview of what it's all about. You can also read a chronological version that details all of our adventures from start to finish.
The focus of our work during the trip was the two documentary films that we are producing. While the full- length projects will not be fully edited until December, you can check out 7- minute 'conceptual previews' at the following links:
My film Feast or Famine is an exploration of capitalism and how it relates to our planet's hunger crisis; it can be found here.
Justice's piece, which looks at the relationship between religion and revolutionary movements, is called Song of Savior and is featured here.
Comments are appreciated.
Highlights of our trip:
During our 6 months of traveling through Southern Africa, we had more amazing experiences than you could fit in a dozen blogs of this size. However, I'll just go over a few of the highlights (click the links to go to that post).
We started off the trip with a little African safari in one of SA's national parks, managing to see elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, and plenty more. The fancy resorts would contrast sharply with the, say, the 1960s- era bus that we would find ourselves sleeping in later on down the road...
Then was a short trip to Lesotho, where we were able to grab some amazing footage for my project. We also managed to post what appears to be the first blog update to ever come out of the tiny country. When we got back to Joburg, things really started heating up: we were on TV, on the radio, and we started working with a prominent local actor to create a short film on South Africa's AIDS crisis.
In April we got a little break for our work in Joburg, and we wasted no time in hitting the road. First it was off to Mozambique, a beautiful coastal country but also one of the three poorest in the world.
As we moved up the coast of the Indian Ocean, we broke inland to cross into Zimbabwe. In case you aren't very aware of the situation in Zimbabwe, it is in the midst of a political and economic disaster: the tyrannical dictatorship is accused of rigging elections and enforcing their rule through torture and killing, and inflation of the Zim dollar is the highest in the world. Foreign journalists are banned, but the World Food Programme (who I collaborated with to make my project) was willing to 'pretend' that we worked for them - so long as we smuggled our own camera across the border. This allowed us to film at one of their distribution centers, which ultimately became the last footage of any of Zimbabwe's emergency food distributions - the Zim government expelled the WFP just days after we left, leaving the lives of 5 million people in jeopardy. The 512 Collective Hip- Hop division also became the first American crew to perform in the country in quite some time.
South Africa's third elections since the overthrow of the racist Apartheid regime took place a week later. As these figured prominently into Justice's film, he traveled to Cape Town to document them while I took our backup camera out into Soweto (South Africa's most famous ghetto). These elections also marked 10 years of democracy in the country, which resulted in massive celebrations across the nation.
The following weeks saw riots on campus, South Africa's successful bid to host the 2010 World Cup, and a quick trip out to to the coastal city of Durban. Next on our increasingly- crowded list was a recording session in Cape Town, where we laid down a handful of tracks for the upcoming 512 musical release The Josi Tapes, a project that Justice has spearheaded. You can check out a few of the mastered tracks that we have posted online. And amidst all that excitement, I managed to squeeze a little political commentary onto the site as well.
Our last expedition out of South Africa began in early June, taking us first through the tiny monarchy of Swaziland, then into Mozambique, and finally back to Zimbabwe. It was an amazing journey, and I won't even try to get into the details here.
That trip really concluded our work, and we flew out of the country a few days later. As this blog is therefore 'finished', updates will be far and in between. I would recommend hitting the 'bot this bot' link to your left, however, as what I do post at this point will primarily consist of completed versions of our work and screening dates for the full- length documentaries, and you will not want to miss any of it ('bot this blog' means you will be e-mailed when the page is updated).
Well, what can I say... It's been great, and I want to thank everyone for joining us. The experiences we've had these past months were incredible, and it has been my great pleasure to share them with you. Until we meet again...
peace.out
D. Luke Fitch
512 Collective Executive Ambassador
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posted by: misskendy (reply)
post date: 06.27.04 (9:40 pm)
Thank you so much for taking us all on this journey with you! I am looking forward to seeing the guys when they come to Cleaveland in August. Best of luck as you finish your projects!!
posted by: ScarlettGKPi (reply)
post date: 06.29.04 (1:15 pm)
So, fill me in here. What exactly is 512? I am interested in this.
posted by: dlfitch (reply)
post date: 06.29.04 (3:48 pm)
Reply to: ScarlettGKPi
Haha, very good question. If you go to our website, www.512collective.org, our mission statement will give you a good idea of what we're about.
In short, we're an International Artists' Collective that recognizes the ability of art to encourage social change.
posted by: SAmuel (reply)
post date: 08.30.04 (6:21 am)
nice to come here again....how are you? www.tandiyanto.com
posted by: dlfitch (reply)
post date: 09.06.04 (3:02 pm)
Well, as you can see things have been kinda slow around here... This summer Justice and I have been doing shit on all opposite sides of the country and a lot of the spots in between, but we're now settling down in Brooklyn to get these films finished for y'all. Give it a month or so before we have anything big to show you, but it is coming...
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