10 January 2011

Biopolitical: Biopiracy and the Convention on Biological Diversity

Biopolitical: Biopiracy and the Convention on Biological Diversity: "Marcelino Fuentes"

Calling all London supporters

Our film is now finished and we are looking to meet with London-based advisory groups, NGOs and think-tanks working on biodiversity-related issues.

If you live in London and would like to screen our film, please get in touch for more info.

8 January 2011

Documentary-making 3.0

Independent filmmakers rely increasingly on a variety of web tools to make and promote their documentaries. With The Pelargonium Project, we also tried crowd-funding.

Websites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter are funding platforms where artists, journalists, organisations etc post a presentation of their project (this includes a text usually, pictures, sometimes a trailer), and invite their friends to donate. Sometimes, project founders get the totality of their budget covered. With our Indiegogo page, in a month we managed to cover about 15% of our expenses, which is about 4% of our total budget.

Another example is The Last Prince of the Kalash, a documentary about a game of hokey played by a Pakistani group, the Kalash, whose survival is being threatened by the recent floods. This unique sport has never been filmed or photographed. The filming crew is currently getting ready for this shoot, and actively looking for funds online. You can donate here.



Film Finished!

Carte Blanche is set to air a 10-minute version of Pelargonium Project: Trading Traditional Knowledge in South Africa at the end of next week. Meanwhile in London we will be finishing off the online edit of our 29-minute version tomorrow. The sound mix has been signed off tonight and we only need to do a bit of color correction.

We are looking forward to showing the film to all those who have contributed and get their feedback, and also share it with as many people as possible.

If you work for/with an organisation or a festival interested in film and biodiversity-related issues, do not hesitate to contact us at pelargoniumproject [a] gmail.com

This project is also educational and we would be very interested in including our film in discussions and debates about the trade of traditional knowledge and genetic resources and/or the implementation of new regulations aimed at protecting biodiversity.

Soon we will be posting more information on where you can view the film.