TED'S DIGITAL JUNGLE #34 - CONGO: A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

1.2  Producer’s Statement By Ted Folke:

In 2007, I received an offer from the United Nations Mission to the Democratic Republic in the Congo (MONUC) to become Chief of their Video Unit. I immediately accepted, and found a very talented international staff of 10, equipped with the latest Sony HD cameras and several state-of-art editing suites. The job was a dream come true, and I found the Congo a fascinating and very complex subject.

Over the next 5 years, we produced over 200 weekly video magazines with a Congolese cast shown on all major domestic television networks, with  Congolese television journalist Horeb Bulambo as our main attraction.  It seems only natural now that we should be working together again with members of the MONUC Video Unit team, with Horeb as the director of CONGO: A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

One of the buzzwords in developmental planning circles in the past decade has been capacity building; this means passing on technological skills to developing countries so they can become self-reliant and independent.  In the world of communications media, as noted previously, the cost of using analog film, audio and television technology has been a major stumbling block.  Now, thanks to digital technology, this stumbling block has disappeared – a development I witnessed first hand in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where I saw the phenomenon of Radio Okapi, which is easily the most successful example of developmental communications capacity building in the world.

The result of a joint effort by the United Nations and the Swiss foundation Fondation Hirondelle, Radio Okapi was created in 2002 to provide a reliable source of national information in a country devastated by war. Today,  with a staff of C. 200 reporting from around the DRC, Radio Okapi reaches over 50% of the population, and is the most popular and trusted radio station in the country; personally, I would have liked to emulate the Okapi capacity building model in digital video production, but this activity lay outside our mission mandate, and probably would have been blocked by our partners in the Congolese government, who already had periodic conflicts with Radio Okapi reporting on sensitive issues. Freedom of expression comes at a price in the DRC; three different Radio Okapi journalists have been murdered under very suspicious circumstances.

During my five years as Chief of the Video Unit, I was blessed with a superb team, and the star performers are my current partners – Director Horeb Bulambo, Cinematographer Albert Liesegang,  Cinematographer/Editor Alan Brain and Editor/Graphic Designer Meriton Ahmeti. Together, we made a decision to look for good stories and to produce them in our own cinema verite style; we  hated standard UN “ Voice of God” narration, and wanted to let our subjects tell their own stories whenever possible.

While we come from different backgrounds, the five of us share a dedication to the art and craft of cinema, and we are forever seeking to push the creative envelope to find new horizons to explore. Unfortunately, with its obsession with the printed word, the UN has never been able to understand visual media, with sadly predictable results.

Indeed, since 1976, I have had something of a love-hate relationship with the organization, and have left several times after creative disputes, vowing to never return. In 2000, for example, fed up with what I considered a cover up of massive Indonesian human rights violations in Timor Leste, I left UNTAET to make my own independent documentary feature about East Timor. The result, produced on a shoestring budget, EAST TIMOR: BETRAYAL AND RESURRECTION, was technically rough, but it won the prestigious UN Correspondents’ Association’s Ricardo Ortega Award for Excellence in Electronic Journalism in 2004. This film also was extremely popular with the East Timorese, who are now producing a Portuguese version for distribution to the Lusaphonic countries of the world. ( For this film, please see: https://youtu.be/j_s46-5R4OE )

In Congo, my dream has been to pick up where that documentary left off, and to produce a feature documentary showing both the existential challenges confronting UN Peacekeepers in the field, and the hopes and dreams of the people of the host nation from their perspective. CONGO:A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? is the realization of that dream.

Our  Sample Demo on Human Rights, which is  Part 4 in CONGO: THE AFRICAN SPRING  offers a good illustration of our cinematic style and approach. While we are telling the story of the late Fernando Castanon on one level, we have several narrative threads unfolding simultaneously to give a feeling of the unending wave of human rights violations that required investigation – with most of these cases  never being brought to a satisfactory conclusion. ( For the link to our Human Rights Sample Demo, please click here: https://vimeo.com/154673345    (password: Dzigavertov )

Our talented Director Horeb Bulambo, now on location in Congo, will deliver a  personal and poetic introduction  to each chapter from Congo. Our editor Meriton Ahmeti is a highly skilled graphic designer with a full arsenal of fonts and animated techniques, as well as a talented composer. Along with using original Congolese music, Meriton will be creating a score for CONGO: A MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

We are looking forward to producing a feature documentary that will be aesthetically bold, dynamic and as emotionally gripping and powerful as  Congo itself.  We were there four years longer than Josef Conrad, so we have a creative obligation to provide a contemporary update on his century-old vision.

For The Samba Project, LLC demo reel, please click on this link:

https://vimeo.com/140320502  (no password needed!)

                             

TED'S DIGITAL JUNGLE # 28: CONGO MISSION END REPORT : CHAPTER 1

Name: THEODORE FOLKE

Title of position:  CHIEF, VIDEO UNIT, MONUSCO

Date of End of Assignment Report: 23 JULY , 2012

PART I: A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY OF 56 MONTHS AS CHIEF OF MONUC/MONUSCO VIDEO UNIT:

Since MONUC/MONUSCO Video Unit operated under direct supervision of Director P.I.D, and was totally dependent upon Director P.I.D.’s interpretation of the Mandate, I shall divide my tenure into 7 parts, each one representing a different Director/O.I.C. P.I.D. By any standards, however, 7 different directors over the course of 56 months is a very high management turnover. As shall be seen, this instability of senior management made continuity of mandate interpretation and communications strategy more than difficult.

25 November, 2007-August, 2008 I began my assignment in Kinshasa as Chief of the MONUC Video Unit. My first supervisor was Mario Zamorano, Director, Division of Public Information, and Willam Lacy Swing was SRSG.  I found a Video Unit consisting of a P-3 Video Producer, 4 Internal f/s 4 Editors, two national staff cameramen, a sound engineer and a head writer. At first glance, this was an impressive line up, though the lack of balance between editors and cameraman was an obvious problem. The only international cameraman in the unit was  Carlo Ontal, a  P-3 Video Producer who had been acting as OIC . Mario immediately redeployed Carlo to Goma to set up a production office in the East on my arrival.  This was a very talented group, and I would like to extend my appreciation to my predecessors Yasmina Bouziane and Isabelle Abric for having assembled this team, which has remained intact until this year. In this respect, the Video Unit was a unique entity within the Division of Public Information, which was notorious for internal strife. Over the next 4 ½ years, I was periodically reminded that this notoriety was well deserved, and one of my main accomplishments was keeping the Video Unit insulated from  the various attempts to break us up and drag us into the fray. I am very proud to say that there was 100% solidarity within the Video Unit throughout my 4½ years. Cohesion of this kind with a minimum of friction made work a pleasure, and enabled us to focus on quality.

Equipment was impressive: I found an office equipped with the latest Final Cut Pro software, HD Sony cameras, and a Systems contract which enabled us to order compatible replacements without going through the time-consuming ordeal of Procurement. This Systems contract enabled us to have working equipment at all times in a country with no repair services.

 Our primary task was a weekly news program called LA SEMAINE EN BREF. MONUC paid Congolese TV stations around the country some $300,000 per annum to broadcast the c. 5  minute program for 30 minutes per week. Initially, broadcast was Analog, so sound and picture quality was poor, and there were no feedback mechanisms. Personally, I found LA SEMAINE EN BREF archaic in form, with a patronizing voice of God narration over images of VIP sound bites – traditionally safe UN fare  designed to flatter bosses and avoid  controversy. OK for World War II newsreel, but hardly 21^st Century. However,  I had just arrived, and Mario liked it, so it remained unchanged. 

Perhaps the major event during this period was the abrupt departure of Mr. Swing in early 2008, just before the signing of the historic Goma Peace Accords. The timing was peculiar, since Mr, Swing had been SRSG for 5 years, and the Goma Peace Accords were to be the climax of his life’s work as a diplomat in central Africa. It was no secret that the Congolese, including President Kabila, himself, adored Mr. Swing; they were startled when Mr. Swing left before his successor, Alan Doss, arrived , and there was no  handover ceremony. Mr. Doss’ first edict to us was a Soviet-style ban on all images of his predecessor. Mr. Doss also clearly had no use for Mario, and refused to meet with him until Mario’s departure, which made it impossible to create a PID strategy for the new mandate of 2008.

 Ironically, as a lame duck for 6 months, Mario did give us more latitude, and we used this interlude to make what I think were two of our best efforts – MONUC HUMAN RIGHTS, a 22 minute  documentary  in English on the work of the Human Rights Division, which was broadcast worldwide  by DPI for International Human Rights day in December. 2008.This documentary dealt with one of the key dilemmas of the MONUC Mission :how to protect Human Rights in a country where there were few.

 To counteract the periodic disinformation campaigns against the mission, and their often absurd allegations, we created a Comic Q&A show called LE PROFESSEUR REPOND! ,  featuring  a  zany Congolese professor created by the Congolese mime Mira Mihkenza, who was well known for his music video COCO SOUING, an affectionate send-up of Mr. Swing produced by Mr. Mihkenza himself.

One of my first goals had been to create a YouTube channel for MONUC, to help off set  some  of the negative portrayals of MONUC in that medium by groups like Staf Brenda Bili. The result

was www.YouTube.com/MONUCVIDEO, and www.Facebook.com/MONUCVIDEO, which exist to  this day, with most of our programs from 2008-2012., including LE PROFESSEUR REPOND!

During my first year, my main priority was getting to know the team, and to create a positive

working environment through established daily routines, clear directives and goals, as well as an open communications flow so everyone knew what was expected, and that I welcomed

feedback.  It has been my experience that good creative talent needs to be treated with respect.