Workshop Documentary making in Windhoek, Namibia

This was great to do...

Project Overview

The workshop “My image Namibia” aims at training TV documentary makers in Namibia. The production method of documentary making both in national television and the TV department of the College of the Arts is traditional BBC styled. This results in extended crews and production teams resulting in massive production budgets.

Modern digital technology, small camera’s and editing equipment make it possible to work in very small teams (or alone) to produce intimate and intense TV documentary programmes for small budgets. Sometimes even being 10% of traditional budgets.

Maarten Rens, the workshop facilitator, is a Dutch filmmaker with an expertise in this specific production style. What he will leave behind after the envisioned workshop is a new approach in documentary making, and 4 sets of equipment (small high quality digital camera’s + sound) that will make it possible to continue what has been piloted through the workshop.

The objective of this workshop is threefold

• Building capacity with the staff and students of the College of the Arts and staff of NBC Television in documentary filmmaking, through one-man/woman crews
• Come to the production of a 10 to 12 part pilot series of documentaries, all on one specific theme
• Explore and initiate a permanent partnership between the College of the Arts and the NBC Television for production and airing of similar documentary productions.

Koninginnendag - Queensday

Queensday, 30 of April in Holland means, everything is possible.
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Yavaş Yavaş

Women's empowerment in the village, story of men and women in Turkey.

The Dutch filmmaker Maarten Rens is interested in the effect of women's emancipation on the position of both men and women. In this film he exposes in particular the role and attitude of men, and highlights the behaviour and emotions of husbands in a Turkish village. 

The film has been recorded in collaboration with the Turkish female film-maker

Özlem Sariyildiz, at the initiative of Jos Huber (policy advisor for the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs & Employment).  

In Turkey the position of women is changing fast.  Images of young, free women in cities as Istanbul and Ankara are seen everywhere. Unfortunately these images are only part of reality. The AK-party with their Muslim signature reigns in a country where the strong secular tradition of Ataturk is much stronger in the cities than it is rooted in the villages. Intense ideological struggle with the headscarf made the Turkish state shake to its foundations. The AKP is committed to achieving membership of the EU. Under that influence the juridical position of women, being equal to men, has been strengthened considerably.  But what happens meanwhile in the traditional villages in the countryside? Are they aware of the judicial changes in personal relationships between husband and wife? What is the role of Islam and traditions in their lives?

The documentary Yavaş Yavaş (Slowly, slowly) shows an emancipation project in a traditional village in the mountains near Bursa, where women started a collective to build and run a restaurant. Women and men in this small community tell their story about the first difficult and laborious steps. The women show disbelief about the resistance of the men. For the women it was of crucial importance to have a place of their own as they were not allowed to participate in the local cooperative for men. The importance of having their own place to meet and to work together is a red line.  The documentary aims to  register the uneasiness following the changes in the relation between men and women and the final recognition of the women’s success. In the end the community was able to find a new balance of power between men and women without losing their important and essential traditions.

What does emancipation in a Turkish village look like from within? We’ll see a group of headscarved women running a restaurant, to finance ‘good works’ for the community with their earnings, in line with their religious conviction.

No public plea or arguing for economic independence for women, but just a project that unmistakable leads to the emancipation of women within Islam.

A moving, passionate and humorous story told from the point of view of both women and men.

29 min Turkish spoken, Dutch or English subtitled. 2009