Development Cooperation Handbook/The Vrinda project Documentary

⇒ playlist of introductions to the documentary

=The Vrinda project Documentary = The video resources  linked to the  Development Cooperation Handbook have also been edited to produce an 8-episode documentary meant for television and  for video on demand platforms like Vimeo and Reelhouse.

The dialogic structure of the documentary enables an easier understanding of global cooperation issues. The story jumps (with flash-forwards and flash-backs) from the "front-stage scenes", that cover development projects, to "back-stage scenes", that disclose the purpose of the Vrinda project and the challenges faced by the executing team.

By putting the team inside the story, the documentary does without the pretentiousness of being "objective". Since the team members belong to different cultural contexts, their dialogue enables the articulation of different cultural viewpoints. This makes the documentary a media product that moves beyond the usual political boundaries, so that it can represent all the different countries that are partners in the global effort to achieve the MDGs.

The stories narrated in the episodes had been first uploaded on Youtube and used by the development actors for communicating with the stakeholders of their projects. The feedback from the viewers of these video stories has been vital for the final editing work of the documentary.

Finally the documentary structure has been woven along three different editorial treads:
 * The main editorial line has been moving along the 8 MDGs. In each episodes there are 3-5 complete stories of projects working towards the achievement of a specific Millennium Goal. Film-Camera.png ⇒  The stories related  to the specific  MDGs


 * The second narration thread follows the debate amongst experts on the methodology and effectiveness of international cooperation actions. In each episode the testimonials discuss one of the development issues. Film-Camera.png  ⇒  The development Cooperation Issues. This in order to create a dynamic interaction between the specific projects, that are implemented "at the grass-roots level", and the general debate, taking place among international institutions and the global media.


 * The third editorial line  proceeds along ⇒  the story of our project as it unfolds and as team faces the challenges of bringing on the mainstream media the unglamorous topic of international cooperation and dialogue.

If you do not have a credit card for buying the products you can see the episodes via the Playlists of Youtube

⇒ playlist on YouTube - Episodes 1-4

⇒ playlist on YouTube - Episodes 5-8

However in these playlists you will not have the final edited version and some subtitles of non-English interviews will be missing.

Theme






The MDGs are a political step towards the Global Agenda for Development; an Agenda with a much wider scope; an Agenda that is the "vocation" of our times; a non-hierarchical action network where different peoples and institutions integrate their efforts in the service of knowledge, in the reduction of conflicts and in care for this World in which we live together.

The Episodes
⇒   The Vimeo On Demand platform where the documentary is distributed

If you do not have a credit card for buying the products you can see the episodes via the Playlists of Youtube

⇒ playlist on YouTube - Episodes 1-4

⇒ playlist on YouTube - Episodes 5-8

However in these playlists you will not have the final edited version and some subtitles of non-English interviews will be missing.

© Kautilya Society for Intercultural Dialogue photography by Gauri Grazia De Santis and Franco Ceccarelli

1 - MDG 1 - Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2 - MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education

3 - MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

4 - MDG 4 Reduce child mortality

5 - MDG 5: Improve maternal health

6 - MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

7 - MDG 7 - Ensure environmental sustainability

8 - MDG 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Credits
Executive producer: Fausto Aarya De Santis

Music: Robert Kres, Estas Tonne

Producer: Vrinda Dar

Photography: Gauri De Santis, Franco Ceccarelli, Ayhan Ghanim, Alejandro Ardila

Editor: Shachindra Bhisht

producer: Vrinda Dar

Director: Stefano De Santis

© 2014  [mailto:info@kautilyasociety.com Kautilya Society]

Locations








Why the television? Wasn't Internet the best distributor of the project media?
The interactivity of Internet enables a personalized way of moving through the video resources and the viewer can chose her/his own itinerary through the video playlists and decide what to see first. On the other side the interactivity of Internet, left  to itself without a unifying thread, let the viewer to be as alone as a client in a supermarket, who has to choose between the different items, but is not in a process of "dialogue" with the producers, nor in a process of community with the other "clients". Rather then a "clearing house" we wanted a "village feast", where one can  find a sense of unity of purpose and a shared identity. So before and after the interactivity we felt the need to create a unitary "story" of the whole event. That story has been threaded in a narration and had been articulated in the "episodes of the documentary". But it could also take the form of a "book" or a "film". In any case something that has a thread that leads the story and gives unity to the various experiences. Including the experience of exploiting the interactivity and the ubiquity of the Internet.

The other reason why television was conceived as a strategic media in spite of its being already, in many senses, an "old medium", is that bringing the product on to the TV screens was the challenge  of exposing to the general public what our group of author wanted to communicate. It is like bringing to the public theater of an innovative  cultural and political message,  that was initially framed in alternative circles, but that would have made not much an impact if confined only within a closed group of alternative thinkers unable - or unwilling - to give testimony of themselves to the wider community.

After we assembled a draft version   ⇒  Episodes edited for a television distribution we created on  a    Google+ community  specifically dedicated to distribution, and we started building the partnerships for distribution and broadcast of the edited episodes. Which we continued to edit as the story of the documentary moved on in overcoming the distribution challenges. And because the feedback from distributors gave us, along with the feedback of the users of this Wikibook, new ideas for improving the editions or for customize them for specific target audiences.

/The Vrinda project Documentary