Film-making
#VoicesofSAMA
Participatory Video (PV) is generally seen, as Shirley White puts it, as ‘a powerful force for people to see themselves in relation to the community’, in order ‘to empower people to shape their own destiny’.
The starting point for much of the contemporary surge in PV activity is frequently traced to a community filmmaking project set up by the National Film Board of Canada in the mid-1960s to support the inhabitants of the Newfoundland Island of Fogo in their efforts to avoid resettlement by the Canadian government. Filmmakers worked with the island’s inhabitants to make films about their lives, the aim of which was, firstly, to raise awareness across the island of the shared nature of the inhabitants’ plight.
Fogo Process
Here film become an extension of the way Benedict Anderson describes print media functioning in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The circulation of film images of, and by, the inhabitants of Fogo helped them to see themselves as a part of a larger ‘imagined community’ with a collective purpose. Central to what become known as the ‘Fogo Process’ was critical self-reflection and collective discussion by the islanders of the images produced.
Through the production, and more importantly their collective consumption of the films, participants claimed, Stephen Crocker suggests, that they gained in ‘confidence and self-worth’, developing, in particular, a ‘better self-image’ that valued their local knowledge. In turn, the ‘Fogo Process’ allowed this community, with its new collective sense of identity, to project itself externally in order to advocate (successfully) for change with the government . The inhabitants remained and, indeed, many of those involved in the project still live on the island today.
The Fogo Process was exported widely and is frequently cited as the inspiration for many present-day projects.
We will document and promote the films created by the adolescents of Project SAMA on:
The experiences and risks around adolescent emotional well-being.
The potential for school to affect emotional well-being.
Solutions to safeguard adolescent’s well-being.
