Guate Cirko

We are excited that the very talented Guate Cirko is collaborating with us in the Voz De Las Calles event at Teatro Abril in Guatemala City on June 16, 2012. Here is a look at their Comparsa event earlier this year.

International Day For Street Children

Imagine yourself for a moment as a kid again. But this time, your parents are gone, you do not know the next time you will eat, you have no roof over your head when you sleep, and you don’t know where to hide from the abuse of strangers, gang members or even the police. You have no home and no family, except for the other band of kids who have nothing and no one just like you. This is a reality for millions of children living on the streets around the world.

Estimating numbers of ‘street children’ is fraught with difficulties. The exact number of street children is impossible to quantify, but the figure almost certainly runs into tens of millions across the world. It is likely that the numbers are increasing.

The International Day for Street Children: Louder Together was launched by the Consortium for Street Children on 12th April 2011.  It is a new campaign to give a louder voice to the millions of street children all around the world so their rights cannot be ignored. Governments need to listen. We want to help make this happen. We must give street children a voice. Together we are louder and have more impact so we are asking everyone to Raise your Voices for Street Children.

In honor of International Street Children Awareness Day, Athentikos is offering 50% off Reparando digital downloads. Reparando tells the story of several Guatemalans working to bring hope to a beautiful country that has been ravaged after years of civil war and violence. Response to this documentary was overwhelming both in Guatemala, the USA and around the world. Athentikos is producing a new documentary titled Becoming Fools. Becoming Fools focuses on the street youth of Guatemala City and the grassroots efforts working to improve their living situations and give them hope.

Download your copy of Reparando.

Proceeds from Reparando sales go directly toward the Becoming Fools project.
Please support Athentikos as we raise awareness and provide hope to change the lives of street children around the world.

It’s a Team Effort

The kids involved in Fergie’s classes are not the only ones learning.

Throughout my time here in Guatemala and throughout production, I have been learning a lot about filming, photography, technology, scheduling shoots, coordinating crew members, organizing transportation, and even a bit little of clowning.

Our Guatemala production team is learning too, as they are authentically responding and volunteering their talents.  We have been blessed with such a great crew of volunteers willing to help us along this process!!

“I feel so happy and privileged to be volunteering with Athentikos. It has been a great experience getting to know the crew and all the people involved in the documentary. I’ve met people from different backgrounds and situations that are passionate and have a heart to see a better Guatemala. I have so much to learn from them, they have inspired me and challenged me to give my best in this project and to stop being indifferent to the need around me.”  – Alex Ortiz

 

The Athentikos team has had a filming shoot just about every week since I arrived here in January.   We have had informal shoots and formal shoots, shoots with the kids and shoots of random scenes around the city.  We have shot a clown show, a memorial service, conducted several interviews, and now every Tuesday and Thursday we are documenting the kids process through learning the art of clowning with Fergie.

With all the cameras around, Mefi has even started dreaming about what it would be like to one day be in a movie.  Mefi asked me once… “Gary have you been in a film before? Because I like a girl and I think she likes me, it will be funny if I take her to the movies to see myself.”

Along the way we have experienced ups and downs.  We struggled through technical issues at first as we worked to learn about the equipment.  But most issues have been resolved.  We know have a procedure we follow to ensure all footage in dumped and filed correctly, memory cards are formatted, batteries are charged and then all equipment is ready to go the night before the next shoot.

“One of the things that happen when you’re working in audio is that you have to be super careful with not getting any outside noise in the recording. Therefore, you have to be silent and try to find places that won’t have a lot of people laughing or talking.  When we recorded Panchorizo’s show, I didn’t know what to expect.  I heard the show was very entertaining, but I had my goal of being there to record audio.  The funny thing starts, when I realize I’m recording audio and that the ZOOM is super sensitive to noise, but I just can’t stop laughing at Panchorizo.  He was so funny and creative; the show was so welcoming that I literally had to cover my mouth and nose so I wouldn’t make noise that would go into the recording. That’s probably been one of the hardest settings I’ve been recording in and still is probably the funniest…” – Hubert Bendfeldt.

With the kids well on their way to become clowns, we are now well on our way to becoming a professional film crews.  And through this process relationships are forming.

“For me the best was when byron came behind me and hugged me. I cant describe how good that felt….” – Josue Porta.

‘Becoming Fools’ together has been such a blast!

 

Clowning Around

We are well underway in the process of ‘Becoming Fools’!

Clowning is a performance art. It’s experiential. It’s theatre. And … it’s cathartic. Clowning can help these kids process their tragic stories and better understand their wounds. Clowning can also empower these kids to begin to communicate their stories non-verbally – in a way that crosses culture and language – so that we the audience can begin to understand their needs and respond. Both the clown and the audience have the opportunity to heal.

Classes are now in full swing every Tuesday and Thursday.  In these training sessions, kids are learning and perfecting a variety of skills included in clowning and in theatrical performance.  After each class the kids are tasked with specific skills and exercises to continue practicing at home.  How fun it has been to watch the kids being creative, being silly, expressing themselves, and improving their skills!!

At times, it may seem that a theatrical performance at such a big scale may be a goal that is unachievable.  But the kids involved in this project are extremely talented.  And these kids are passionate about influencing people around them in a similar way that Italo inspired them.

“My dream is leaving the streets for good and being able to have myself  a small business to have a training shop – workshops with makeup and stuff like that. And help people that are in need like I am need right now,” Byron says.

“That is part of my dream, to become an artist, a great artist like himself.  I like to bring joy to people’s lives, and I like to see people laughing. My purpose is to bring joy and happiness to people, to bring a moment of joy to others, a moment of entertainment, a moment in which they can clear their minds,” Mefi shares.

The kids have been practicing skills like improvisation, vocal coordination and projection, facial expressions and exaggeration, stage directions, dramatization, the art of applying make-up and everything in between.  All the while embracing a stronger understanding of self-confidence.

Throughout the process of preparing for the Becoming Fools Live Event, these kids are given a goal to work towards, something to practice and thus a very tangible way to see their skills and themselves grow.

We have a long road ahead of us, but the kids are enjoying the ride and so are we!!

Renewing The Heart of a Child

One of the greatest blessings of producing documentary film is the opportunity to learn from interviews. It begins as a conversation that in itself is enlightening, but ultimately the wisdom of an interview is revealed at a much more profound level during the editing process. A much clearer picture presents itself when interviews are listened to over and over again in the context of other interviews which make the collective story. Sometimes people say things that seem so simple, yet change my life. Last week I tripped over a statement from an interview that will not let me go.

Fergie is a professional clown in Guatemala City who worked with Italo to develop the idea of a clown school for street children. After Italo’s death last year, Fergie continued this vision with passion and perseverance. We interviewed Fergie in November 2011 as part of our first production trip to Guatemala. He explained how he personally began clowning, and how he hopes to use clowning to help heal street children. I remember being inspired by his noble initiative during the interview and thinking it was a “neat idea”, but I didn’t realize just how profound his vision really is.

… Fast forward …

I have spent the last three months reviewing and evaluating footage and interviews from our November trip. I have read and listened to these stories over and over again. I have read books about street youth and I have listened to lectures about the issue. By no means do I consider myself an expert on the subject, but I do have a greater understanding now than I did 3 months ago. One thing that is unfortunately common in many stories of street youth is abuse. Some family member abused them – often repeatedly. Ironically, these children fled the danger of home to live in the safety of the streets. The memory of this pain often drives them to self medicate and becomes a dangerous cycle of drug abuse.

In a sense, their childhood has been stolen from them. It is this idea which is contrasted by profound wisdom from a clown. Fergie says,

“In the Bible there is a verse that says you must be like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. And children have a forgiving heart. I´ve seen them fighting with a friend, and half hour later they are playing together again. That (forgiveness) is something that we all should have.”

He goes on to say,

“And a clown has to be like a child as well. A clown is really a child – a silly child. In the same way a clown has to learn to forgive.”

Through the art of clowning, these children have the opportunity to learn forgiveness. This simple yet profound thought deepened my understanding of the Becoming Fools story. In the context of this issue, forgiveness is the first step towards rehabilitation. Anger and resentment drive these children into cycles of addiction. And … Anger and resentment keep these children in cycles of addiction. They will never leave the streets unless they can forgive the people who hurt them the most. Forgiveness is one of the most important parts of the healing process … letting go of the hurt that stings, letting go of the anger that overwhelms, and letting go of the obsession that controls … So that they may find the true peace that they have longed for.

Fergie is living out his faith by reaching out to children who have been abused by family and ignored by society. He isn’t simply teaching them to be silly. He isn’t just giving them vocational training. He is consistently investing in their lives and becoming a father figure they never had. He is teaching them to trust again and let go of their pain. He is igniting dreams and passion in their lives and as result renewing the hearts of children that were once stolen.

And THAT is authentically inspiring.

Organize & Evaluate

Film production is as much about organization as it is passion and creativity. Documentaries like Becoming Fools are unique in that the story is not scripted in detail at the beginning. We can set a scope for the story, but we must capture details as they happen and develop the story along the way. There is a constant battle between systematic preparation and the chaos that happens when capturing an uncontrolled story.

Ultimately, we desire to immerse an audience in a journey with these street youth learning to clown. Their story is inspiring. We’ve seen it first hand. But inspiring lives do not in themselves jump into motion pictures in a way that captivates an audience. Events that are spread over time in real life must be edited together into a seamless plot that communicates a coherent message and connects to the heart. It sounds simple in theory, but even simplicity takes time. How do we take hundreds of hours of footage, honorably edit it down to less than two, and inspire viewers to want to know even more? Answer – organization and evaluation. It doesn’t sound very glamorous, but this effort will provide the rails on which this story will travel.

We’ve spent a month and a half reviewing the almost Terabyte of footage captured on our first production trip to Guatemala. That is a lot of information. At first glance it is overwhelming. Thankfully, we have the benefit of technology to help us chip away at the task – review, catalog and evaluate. We’re employing a database system that we developed while working on ‘Reparando’, which helps us keep track of visuals, actions and “who said what”. This method enables us to identify themes that resonate within the footage so we can further outline the story, develop ideas for visuals and prepare an itinerary for our follow-up trips. We can port the whole system including storyboards to our iPhones to reference everything in the field and check it off as we go. It might sound geeky, but trust me … it is a huge advantage in story telling with a small crew … but I’m getting ahead of myself …

To quantify things, We’ve distilled the 25 interviews down to roughly three hours of themed information content. Our Guatemalan team is almost finished transcribing the footage so we can begin the official editing process.

We’re planning two more production trips to Guatemala to capture footage for the story. Stay tuned for more details …