Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Starving Artist part I
So you always here about the starving artist. The artist who can't seem to get a break. Well that's how I have been feeling lately. I am a trained journalist. I decided to go back to Malawi to work with a company but also to pursue my dreams of writing and reporting internationally. Ha! wasn't that a crazy dream or what. At the moment I am trying to get a documentary film off the ground. It's an important human rights film focused on child sex tourism in Malawi. I have never felt so frustrated in my life. Trying to find money to fund this film is extremely difficult especially in the current economic climate. Grants are less available and as a first time filmmaker, I feel a bit discouraged, wondering, who the hell is gonna trust me to make a documentary film? I know I am intelligent and capable of making a documentary but everyone is competing for these big grants. At the moment I am currently struggling with how to remain motivated and positive. I have heard the words no so many times and it can really be downright depressing. But what makes me keep pursuing the funds for this film is the huge impact that I know this film can make. I know the power of media from experience. In August, I pursued a lead I had on a certain human trafficking case between Malawi and Tanzania. It took me months to make contacts, do proper research and planning. Finally the radio documentary was produced and aired in December. I wrote an article on the same case in the newspaper in January 2009. Well, as I continued to follow the case I thought it was over. the police didn't seem to be doing anything I was saddened by the lack of empathy by Malawian authorities. However, in April the men who had been trafficked in 2006 were released and came home in April 2009. When asked what happened to the boys, the families attributed it to the well-publicized story. This is what keeps me persisting. When I remind myself about the last story I did and the difference it made in people's lives and even my life then I become motivated again. But if anyone has any advice for this starving artist, any words of wisdom or anything I would be grateful. On the issue of child sex tourism increasing in Malawi, I don't want to give up on a film like this. But where do I start?
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2 comments:
Starving artist, huh? Well, be encouraged. There are no limits to what you can accomplish. Believe me, the mind is a powerful thing. Stay positive and keep working hard and you'll get what you're after. If you're still wondering whether you've done the right thing read my new favourite quote:
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the United States
Speech at the Sorbonne
Paris, France
April 23, 1910
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
YOU'RE THE MAN IN THE ARENA
thanks for the inspiration. I hope i can stay as positive as you.
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