New Website!

The working website for "Life on Death Beach" (The title of the film has been changed for now) is up!








Please visit the site, keeping in mind there will be more clips, audio, photos, and a messageboard soon...

http://www.jeffarak.com/LODB/Home.html

Out of time

I allowed myself about ten minutes to sit down and reflect on the last nine months today.

I filmed it.















In a way that only someone that thinks about movies all day could feel, I was almost brought to tears looking at the ocean and thinking about all it has come to represent to me. It felt like I was drowning and flying and exploding all at the same time. And I could hear Aaron Copland´s Rodeo playing underneath the crash of the waves.

Ive been telling everyone that I shall return within a year with the final product of the last nine months. Its so easy to say but I know from experience that this is the tip of the iceberg and there remains much more work to do than has already been done.

Nonetheless, I cant help but say, "haHA" thinking about the afternoon after I almost drowned here three years ago when I first considered this project. I´m feeling a lot of emotions today but I think the main one would be the emotion that most closely resembles the image of a ship after a storm--both floating on and nearly demolished by the ocean. The documentary is of course the ocean, and our relationship is one that I reccomend.

I´ve had some interesting interactions with authority figures lately that has led me to value my experiences with the lifeguards in new and interesting ways that are essentially colored by my experiences at Piña Palmera.

I visited the Public Ministry in Puerto Angel which is a state office out of which they investigate homicides. There was not one person in the office that had been working there more than two years. I got the impression that this situation was not the exception but rather a very common thing in government offices. The lack of continuity, I think, is one of the factors that breeds distrust of government officials. Also they are almost never members of the community. It took me three days and a trip to Puerto Escondito to get authorization for the official in Puerto Angel to read me the dates of every death by drowning (which they classify as a homicide) over the last ten years in Zipolite. It was interesting, but what I really wanted was to compare drownings now with drownings BEFORE the lifeguards started saving people. My idea was that the stark difference would be the best argument for getting the lifeguards salaries.

Well since the office has only been around for ten years, I had to go to Pochutla, the nearest big city to get information earlier than 1999. I visited the public ministry yesterday and talked with the longest serving employee, Max, who started working there in 1998. He agreed to help me unearth some information when his monthly shift is up, on the 15th, but he is apparently camera shy so his boss will do the interview.

I also went to the municipal office of civil protection to try and get an interview with the people who would be in charge of employing the lifeguards of Zipolite if they were officially employed. That was the most interesting part of the day. They essentially told me that if the lifeguards hadn´t fallen out of the good graces of the President of Pochutla for a number of reasons, they would have paid positions. They told me some stories which I later talked about with the lifeguards and as cliché as it sounds, it really seems like it is a big misunderstanding. I´ve been working on this movie for the lifeguards under the impression that the authorities DIDN´T KNOW how important the lifeguards work has been and how many people they have saved. If the real problem is that they two sides are both too stubborn or proud to open up a dialouge and talk about a solution that would make everyone involved happy, I find myself in a difficult situation. Is the film my mission? Or is getting the lifeguards salaries? Do I play mediator or leave the film in their hands and say "good luck"?

At piña, we learn that overprotection can be more damaging to a child with a disability as the disablity itself. Maybe the time has come to admit that the problem that the lifeguards have is not something I can fix. Maybe I need to admit that they are grown men with control over their own lives. Maybe its even more important for their development as a team if they complete this particular quest on their own. Ill meet again with Aguila today and hopefully the president of Pochutla before I leave on the 20th. I still don´t know what I´ll say though...

One of the most common disabilities in the coastal region of Oaxaca is sordera, of deafness. It may be THE most common disability since polio has been reduced drastically in frequency. Because of the poor education system in Oaxaca, teachers may not even have an education degree much less a degree in special education- which means two things: one, that children with disabilities receive extra-subpar educations, if any; and two, teachers can not communicate with deaf students.
Moises, a language therapist here at Piña told me that a normal life for deaf children is - less than expected. It´s assumed that kids will never be able to read and write- our writing being based so essentially on sound. So it remains his work to capacitate deaf children to the point that they can lead normal social lives in their families and communities. If they have any hearing, they can wear auxiliares, or customized hearing aids. If their hearing is too low, however, they have to find work where it won´t be necessary to hear. Like almost everyone in Oaxaca, for deaf children, work is more important than education in the long run.

As a pilot project designed by a chinese volunteer, Anali, we started working on a practical, locally-oriented sign language instruction video for children, families and teachers to gain a basic understanding of important sign language vocabulary.
We shot all day last thursday, with two actors and one translator- all three deaf. Spanish didn´t help and neither did English, although I found myself speaking it once in a moment of desperation. All in all it was a very cool experience and I am looking forward to completing our pilot 100 signs.

I am also almost finished editing a 10 minute video for the lifeguards called ¨Salvando Vidas en la Playa de Muertos¨ (guess what that means) that they will bring to Oaxaca with them soon to help in their quest for government paid salaries.

Doing these side projects makes my documentary all the more richer, and not just for the footage that they allow me to collect. I´ve come to heavily value the process of making this film as part of my own education as a filmmaker and as a person. I cannot really describe the feeling that using my resources to give and collect at the same time provokes in me. Just that it is perfect.

It's funny how a few cases of the flu can turn us into a country of hypochondriacs. On the other hand, Mexico can be such a contradictory place sometimes.

These are some quotes from emails I've gotten from two friends in Mexico City:

#1 "siento que es un movimiento manejado por el gobierno" (I think it is something designed by the government)

#2 "I didn't think it would get like this...it's like a ghost town...everything is closed...supermarkets packed and empty of basic food... people are freaking out."

The most prominent feeling I get is from the first camp. "No pasa nada" is like the mantra of this camp. Everyone is either suspicious of the government or so disillusioned after years of corruption and poverty that it's just one of those things that happens that people on top talk about and people on the bottom deal with one way or another.

Tolo, an ex-patient of Piña told me that fear itself can become a disability or a sickness, if we let it consume us. At the time, that seemed pretty amazing, especially since they say that stress can actually weaken our immune system. My landlord´s advice was to just keep working (and sweating- to get rid of toxins) and not to worry about it. "God will kill us if he wants to". That was pretty important too, I think. If the Good Lord wants to do you in, he won't need a viris to do it. He'll just knock you out of a coconut tree or send a scorpion into your bedroom.

Personally I feel fine. We're in the country and near the ocean. Although if this were a movie, the viris would make a sweeping comeback and kill everyone that didn't believe in it. So once in a while I put the mask on just in case the swine flu is watching.

Semana Santa continues here on Death Beach in a haze of Mexican tourists, Sol beer, disgruntled locals, government corruption and endless amounts of sand. I've spent probably about 50 hours at the beach this week with my camera on standby trying to get some action. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right (wrong) time to film a rescue last week. I plan on seeing the week out as some of Mexico celebrates Samana Santa through this Saturday.

I went to my first Mexican wedding as well. One of the long-time employees of Pina Palmera got married and all the staff was invited to the cermony/reception which ended in a late night of volunteer bonding and ice cold Coronitas.

I've been getting closer and closer to what you might call a story. It's a real challenge to get your mind around how to turn reality into a story. I've tried thinking about how I do it orally. If I tell a story about something that happened to me. What I leave out and what I emphasize. It's interesting to actually pay attention to the choices I make. Try it next time you tell a story. I think the key are the strong emotions that I feel during the event or events of the story. The moments that seem longest or most ironic or most metaphorical. I'm coming to realize that it's all a very literary process. The choice of whether on not to actually tell a formulaic story always exists, obviously, however, and I constantly find myself playing with ways to avoid falling into easy, well-worn cinematic devices.

For instance, making a film about characters in an environment is very common. But what about if the characters are used to illustrate an environment. Herzog's recent film (which did NOT win best documentary at the academy awards) Encounters at the End of the World plays with this a bit and I think he pulls it off quite well. Still, Encounters is primarily about Werner Herzog meeting people, which is very different from how it looks like this film will turn out.

Oh, and Avi just went on a short trip to LA where he picked up a Ewa Marine underwater housing for the DVX. Harpoon fishing scene. Check.

InSight

I spent yesterday morning in the nearby city of Pochutla with Miguel Ángel and Mariano, two young blind men that I met at Piña Palmera. Mariano works for the center and was giving Migue a tour of Pochutla and a lesson in urban orienteering. Lots of interesting dialouge and reactions from people in Pochutla made the shoot a very powerful experience in adition to its usefulness in telling these stories. I felt that Making Migue feel more comfortable in Pochutla was a good metaphor for what Mariano tries to do with Migue all the time.

In a similar vein, the more time I spend in Zipolite the more I realize that I am becoming part of the town. From the first day I spent here, from almost dying on death beach, I have felt a connection to the town. Until now though, it has always been internal. Now it is beginning to be externalized as people I don't know introduce themselves to me or I find myself welcome in places that I was not previously welcome. I remember the first time I went for a run on the beach and felt offended when I saw litter on the beach. People can sense that a bit, I think. It's funny how our intentions make us different people.