Thessaloniki

11th TDF: PRESS CONFERENCE ΤΑΚΙΝG ROOT: ΤΗΕ VISION OF WANGARI MAATHAI – PERSONA NON GRATA – A BLOOMING BUSINESS (3/15/2009)

PRESS CONFERENCE
ΤΑΚΙΝG ROOT: ΤΗΕ VISION OF WANGARI MAATHAI – PERSONA NON GRATA – A BLOOMING BUSINESS

On Sunday, March 15, at noon, the directors Alan Dater and Lisa Merton (Taking Root: The Vision Of Wangari Maathai), Fabio Wuytack (Persona Non Grata) and Ton van Zantvoort (A Blooming Business) gave a press conference.

Taking root: The vision of Wangari Maathai deals with the story of Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and of the Green Belt movement she started. This movement, through its environmental and political actions, contributed to the overthrow of the dictatorship in Kenya that had lasted 24 years. Lisa Merton likened Wangari Maathai to the incarnation of Mother-Earth in order to demonstrate her strong connection to nature and noted: “Women decided to plant trees and clashed with the establishment that was destroying the forest. The documentary shows not only the planting of trees, but also the “planting” of ideas, of democracy and the simultaneous change in dealing with the environment”.

Commenting on the role played by Wangari Maathai in organizing the movement and in the resistance to the dictatorship, Alan Dater stressed: “It’s rare for a film maker to meet such a strong individual with Wangari Maathai’s aura. We wanted to see if there is a shadow behind her myth, but we didn’t find anything wrong. She has the unbelievable ability to feel when it’s the right time to demand a small change, which will later lead to a bigger one”. Speaking about the gradual change in women’s role in Kenya, η L. Merton noted: “African women work 24 hours a day to take care of their family. Wangari Maathai stood up to the dictatorship, the models set up by men in general, escaping the traditional role of the African women who is submissive to her husband. I believe things are changing, but slowly, because the male power structure feels threatened by the increasing power of women”.

In Persona Non Grata Fabio Wuytack travels to the poor neighborhoods of Venezuela in order to show the cultural and social actions taken in the ‘60s by an activist priest who was a rebel. He was later exiled to the ports of Belgium, and he was none other than his father. But as the director explains in the documentary the film is not an homage to his father, who is still living, but a portrait of a personality that has the ability to unite different people for a common cause: “The heroes of the documentary are the people of Venezuela, on whose lives my father has left a vivid mark. Following his footsteps I understood how a person could be a priest, an activist, a rebel and an artist at the same time. Perhaps because he always had a long term goal which he tried to achieve using short term roles”. Commenting on the gap between rich and poor, which we see growing these days, F. Wuytack said: “My father always said that in the end the poor would “free” the rich, but I didn’t understand what he meant. Now, with the economic crisis in America as a stunning example, it has become glaringly obvious that the rich lost touch with reality long ago. So now I understand what he meant”.

In A Blooming Business, Ton van Zantvoort follows the harsh daily life of a young Kenyan girl. She works from early in the morning until late at night in the flower growing business, far from her children, silently facing sexual abuse from her employers, under horrible working conditions. One of the destination countries of these flowers is the director’s own country, Holland. “I was in Kenya for a different project about children with special needs. That’s where I met my leading character, Jane, and her two crippled children, who were getting abused by their neighbors when they were home alone. Jane was the reason I recorded an inexorable reality”, the director said. Commenting on his films being characterized as “poetic documentaries”, Ton van Zantvoort noted: “I work from the heart. When I see something that touches me I think that it will also touch others and so I continue. The way I shape the story I want to tell is my poetry. This particular film deals with many issues that are not visible, such as corruption or sexual abuse and I try to use the camera so that the audience can feel what is happening behind the images”.