Abdallah of Mile-end from Adam Shamash’s film.
I don’t know if you know about Radio Canada’s contest ‘ Digital Diversity/Métissé Serré’? It is a very well organized competition which allows for audience participation. No surprise, for one of the persons in charge is Michel Coulombe who we know as a founder of the ‘ Silence – on Court’ shorts competition. ( Cancelled last year, unfortunately.) If you want to vote in the finale of the contest this week – visit the site for more information. www.rcinet.ca
I asked Michel Coulombe some questions:
– To your knowledge are their already competitions of this sort on the web?
“As far as I know it we are defiantly innovators!
There have been several competitions here and elsewhere, which involved online voting, notably Silence – on Court – of which I was the programmer – but I have found nothing, which resembles what we have set up with this theme on immigration.
– How did you put together the resources to set up this competition?
“The competition was born from a suggestion given to me last winter by Radio Canada International from which I laid the foundations or the base of what became: Matisse Serre/Digital Diversity followed up with Generation DX2. All financing comes from RCI, with the exception of outside business partnerships which were established to hand out the awards.”
– What percentage of the films are documentaries? (Rough estimate)
“More than two thirds of the films submitted are documentaries.”
– Do you have a lot of participation from the outside on evaluations of the films?
“There are good number of viewers from overseas obviously due to the subject matter, but we can only go by comments that people have left, and who chose to be identified.The success of this project has to do not only with our online presence but also by the number of screenings which have been held in the four corners of the country –Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Gatineau, Vancouver, etc – as well as in Cuba, France, United States, Morocco, Colombia, Benin, Mexico, etc.”
I asked my assistant Jeanne Pope to interview one of the participants who is also an intern with me. Here is Jeanne’s report:
Adam Shamash is a Montreal-based filmmaker currently in his final year of studies at Concordia University. (Also friend and undergoing an internship with Magnus.) His current documentary project explores the oneness of human spirituality. He likes traditional wisdom, karate, and ice cream. Visit his website: www.onelightcinema.blogspot.com
What I love about his film is it is so immediate, on the go-go, while Abdallah without a doubt steals the show; drawing us in as he rushes around Mile-End, bantering, telling jokes… I say no more, you just have to view it yourselves and let Adam lure you in to vote for his film with his words.
What inspired you to enter the competition?
“I’ve been wanting to work on something that portrays the uniqueness of the Mile-End neighbourhood for a while, and when I got word of the competition of immigration, I decided that my friend Abdallah, a Djboutian-born Canadian, would be the perfect cultural guide.”
Why Abdallah?
“To me, Abdallah has a fantastic sense of identity- at once, he comes from a traditional country, and carries the mantel of wisdom and stories from his childhood in Djbouti. At the same time, he is totally comfortable and happy with the fact that he is now part of the Canadian So here it is in a nutshell. Digital Diversity is down to the semi finals with only ten films to go. Four from Ontario: Five from Montreal and one from BC.
He’s multicultural tapestry. He gets along great with pretty much everyone, and he has some great insights into life.”
What do you feel about this format?
“I think that the format of the video is great, because you have to be concise in order to tell your story in less than 7 minutes. There are a lot of very creative films in the competition, and the web-based cinema concept is really thrilling- it is relatively inexpensive to submit your work, and to screen it.One complaint that I have been hearing is that the layout of the website is complicated. The other drag with the concept is the voting dilemma: every time that a film progresses to the next round, the vote counter is reset to zero, which means that the filmmaker has to bother all of his contacts again to recast their votes. Overall, however, the experience has been great, and the Digital Diversity team at Radio Canada is really professional.”
