WITHIN EVERY WOMAN

On December 21st we flew from Seoul, Korea to Panay Island Philippines in time to pay Lola Adela a surprise visit on Christmas Eve. It was a moment to remember. <3 so much love. We will be in Philippines until January 1st, 2012 to finish documenting the rest of Lola Adela's story.

Hope you enjoy this clip

Tiff

Christmas Surpise from Tiffany Hsiung on Vimeo.

Yup…. WE DID IT !!!!

we not only reached out goal but we surpassed it by $6,525…. When Lucy ( GNP community engagement leader) and Chris told me they were setting our TARGET GOAL to $ 50,000 I was not the most positive pickle in the barrel… I mean honestly thats quite a bit of money to raise over such a short period of time…..

So how did we do it?

Lets just say… The Kickstarter Campaign turned into my full time JOB….. It became an addiction…

Please check out the link : http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lucyzhao/within-every-woman-the-documentary-film

But in all seriousness we couldn’t of done it without the amazing incredible support we got from everyone!!!  Over 600 people…  from around the world came together to help share this project with their network of friends and family….The people we were able to connect with and share with was the most valuable reward we got from this campaign…

Here are a few snap shots of what went down:

Lucy’s brilliant idea of a garage sale went from our personal items to driving across the GTA taking in donations from people who had loads of things in their garage ready to give away to our campaign…so beautiful!

After 3 days of Epic Garage sales we got really creative to get the campaign rolling….

So how can I begin to describe our experience at the famous HOT DOCS FORUM……Well let me take a few steps back… WE GOT into the FORUM out of 300 international projects submitted

Within Every Woman was selected as one of the 27 projects that were invited to pitch their projects!!! I couldn’t believe it… I remember Chris calling me and telling me the news… I was so excited… then quickly nervous… then terrified.

a little bit about the forum:

‘The Forum is regarded as the most effective international documentary market in North America, the Hot Docs Forum (formerly the Toronto Documentary Forum) is a dynamic pitching event that stimulates international co-production financing for projects at various levels of completion.’

Let me first say… prior to the opening night of the HOT DOCS FESTIVAL

we’ve been editing, writing memorizing our 7 minute pitch rehearsing in front of various groups of people for over 2 months straight…Loads of sleepless nights and hair pulling moments had come down to a total of 15 mins of being in the hot seat.

The room filled up fast and their we were… I looked over at Chris and saw beads of sweat trickling off his forehead… I thought to myself ‘ great he’s nervous too… ‘ Thankfully sitting at our corner was Joseph Wong from Toronto Alpha showing his support and Alden Hadwen from Aeroplan… So amazing that they able to be there.

After our pitch I was so relieved…. and so happy that so many people in the audience came up to us afterwards showing us their support and encouragement… We were definitely one of the youngest & least experienced team pitching…  :@ but it was nonetheless an experience that I will never forget and I am so proud that our project was able to be shared to so many people

I won’t lie the first thing I did after the pitch was over was sleep!

On a side note… Chris and I spent the 10 days of the festival looking like the duo smurf crew… we thought it would make it easier for people to find us

In a weird way Nairobi has always been a place that fueled my drive to do whatever it takes to make change…. fully understanding that the power of an individual can make a HUGE difference in this world

This would be my 3rd visit to Nairobi, Kenya… and its always hard to leave ☹

I was sent Down to Nairobi to create 2 more AEROPLAN campaign videos…
The vignettes ironically profiles 2 important women in my life.
My MOTHER and one of the most influential women I have ever met Peninah Nthenya AKA Nish. Founder of Safe Spaces Nairobi

The videos will come out officially in the fall of 2011.

In 2009 I met the girls of Safe Spaces ( young female leaders in the East land slums of Nairobi)
they are incredible. I remembered when I first met them I was asked to do a film workshop and with 5 of the girls ages between 15 to 21…. I was blown away by not only how fast they learnt but how innovative and creative they formed their stories. After 3 weeks they were shoot and editing on their own!

3 years later they have improved drastically and I got a chance to do another film workshop with them based on what they wanted to learn more of.
It was amazing to see how they have continued on their own and how they will thus pass on the skill to other girls in their community.

My time in Nairobi was too short…. But after 2 weeks I am more sure of the work and the project of “Within Every Woman”
It really doesn’t matter where you are in the world…. What your race or age is… we woman all have our own stories…. And its about time we have the space and opportunity to share it.

If you asked me 10 years ago whether I’d ever see myself talking in front of 500 TDSB teachers about the work that I am doing and the potential new curriculum to teach their students….

I’d say  ” Are you kidding me… why would they ever listen to a punk kid like me?”

Thats the truth. I wasn’t the greatest student. Thats why preparing my Keynote presentation for  Toronto’s Annual PA day conference for TDSB teachers was really nerve wrecking… What if one of my old teachers was there? what if I mess up and get called out on it?

Teachers always made me nervous , so I naturally had a bit of fear to talk in front of them for an HOUR….

So the presentation went smoothly… no tomato’s thrown at me… it was so well received that I was invited to speak at 4 other schools in front of the their students…

Its pretty amazing to know that the work that we’ve been doing will actually have an impact on what the younger generation will learn about.
Its actually incredible and makes the back aching footage logging all so worth it. Thank you TDSB for having me share our work and the grandmothers stories.

Who would have ever known…..14 years later

I love how I am wearing a beret as if I was ready to join a movement and take down the school with a french bread stick in hand !

To all you future documentarians out there…. when your producer says…. “YOU DON’T HAVE TO FILM EVERYTHING”
Instead of giving them the finger behind their back and whisper under your breath ” You don’t know what documentary really is…”
BITE YOUR TOUNGE…

Or join me as I watch 250 hours of footage.

This is a process that I can’t avoid doing… I just got to take a deep breath and go in.

So we moved out of our office and set up Chris’s former bedroom as our ultra comfy screening den other wise known as ‘ Tiffany no excuses not to view the footage’

* special thxs to Raya and her mom’s great taste in furniture

Japan was overwhelming to say the least.

Sofia Coppola’s film ‘Lost in Translation” played in my head a few times as I walked the street by myself trying to find somewhere to eat on my own..

It gets lonely sometimes when your in a new place, when language is a barrier… and when questions are swimming in your head 24/7…. everyone needs and outlet right?

I have a camera with me at all times whether its my Canon xf 300 thats about 11lbs or my Canon 5d mark 2 I seek comfort in capturing images and framing a moment…. To me its kinda like having a coin collection…(does that make sense)

I am leaving Tokyo, Japan with more questions then I came here with… I think thats a good thing, either way I know this isn’t going to be my last visit.

Sayonara Japan!

It was the day that we were all waiting for…  the night before there was a memorial ceremony held on behalf of all the past survivors that attended the tribunal 10 years ago..65 survivors from across Asia flew to Japan to testify.

During this memorial they also recognized many supporters, activist that have also passed away in the 10 years… It was a strange feeling sitting in the chapel as one by one people were going up front saying a few words about the people that have passed away.

It was depressing to say the least as though all the survivors have passed away already… I kept thinking is this the end? the end of the movement? the end of the fight? There is still so much to do I thought…..

Then I looked around the room and I can see the faces of activist and supporters that haven been committed to this issue since day 1…. I can’t imagine how difficult it is  to watch friends and colleagues pass away before reaching a resolution that they all set forth together… But maybe its not just about getting a resolution at the end of the day?

On the day of the symposium over 300 people gathered at the Tokyo University auditorium for the 10 year anniversary of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal.

The entire event took place from 10am to 6:30pm and was filled with academics to members of the judicial system and three survivors from Korea, Philippines, and China.

I want to confess I always feel uncomfortable  watching survivors  under a hot beaming light on a stage speaking in front of hundreds of strangers.

Especially while having a condom waved in front of their face . I wanted to cry as I held the camera steady on the tripod, watching 84 year old grandma Wei timidly reminiscing that horrific time in her life.

I couldn’t bare watching her son jump to the ground banging his head on the wooden stage begging for forgiveness and apologizing for being born as he is a product of one of the rapes she was forced to endure.

The audience stared silently with their hands over their mouth. 10 minutes later they were off the stage and lola Narcisa went on stage to recount her past.

Watching all this unfold on stage reconfirmed the importance of capturing the grandmothers lives away from the stage and away from the testimonies. Because its vital for people to see the individuals behind the horrific stories and for the survivors to have the space to identify themselves beyond a victim.

I dropped in at ASE a english teaching after school program for Japanese students.

I was hoping to get another perspective on the issue of WW2 and reconciliation through the eyes of the younger generation in Japan.

Through my conversations with some of the students I got a sense of what they were taught in class and what they weren’t taught in class…what they were interested in learning, and how much the educational system reflects their culture…

When the topic of military sexual slavery came up… an awkward silence was in the room. I later on learnt that the topic of sex is quite taboo altogether . I nervously explained what it meant to be a sexual slave and tried my best to give them some background information about the issue…

Before I left the school I offered to show the teaser we made last year about the Comfort Women. The students were egar to watch it as they crowed the little computer monitor.

One of the reponse from a male Japanese student after watching the video, ” Watching this makes me want to learn more… I want to know why this happened…. why Japanese soldiers would do such a thing…. And why we aren’t taught about this in school.”

On my subway ride home I tried to put myself in the students shoes. I tried to see how it must of  felt like to have a complete stranger come into your school and tell you something shocking that your countries government did that you never knew about y during the WW2 that is still currently effecting the  survivors today. I imagine it isn’t easy and frankly almost disbelieving coming out of a foreigner’s mouth.

The great thing tonight was actually hearing the thoughts of these young Japanese students and getting a sense of their interest in learning more about the truth in history, which is so encouraging to know as I continue on this journey documenting fragments of history through personal stories.