Lecturer films Vanuatu slum-based play troupe for Arab TV channel
University of Canterbury film lecturer Bill de Friez spent the second semester break filming in Vanuatu on assignment for Al-Jazeera International.
Mr de Friez (School of Fine Arts), through his film and television company Raconteur, was commissioned by the broadcaster to produce a one-off documentary for a current affairs channel that is part of a new suite of six English-language channels Al-Jazeera are launching on its satellite service.
While flitting to an island nation on your break sounds idyllic, it was not the picture-postcard side of life that the crew was filming.
“We were looking at a theatre group that grew out of the squatter camps on the edge of Port Vila in Vanuatu. The whole white sands, waving palm, Sheraton veneer conceals some pretty desperate places,” Mr de Friez said.
“These two squatter camps on the outskirts of the city are ignored by the municipal agencies — they don’t even print maps of them, there’s no water there, no sewage, there’s nothing, It’s just land that people have built shacks on and have to rent.”
Most visitors would be unaware of the existence of the camps, Mr de Friez said.
“You drive from Port Vila Airport as a tourist and as you get taken into town to your hotel you drive through what looks like a small industrial estate and just 100m back from the road on either side of that industrial estate are slums that are worse than Soweto.”
It was in the Blacksands and Tagabe squatter settlements that the Wan Smolbag Theatre was formed in 1989 by two English teachers. The group took its name from the one small bag in which the actors carried their minimal props and costumes as the group travelled to even the most remote villages with plays that helped spread messages on important social, health and environmental issues to the communities.
The travelling theatre troupe, which began with plays and drama workshops, later made a short film and then a radio play, all of which were big hits with communities.
Its success has led to AusAID, the Australian government's overseas aid programme, a long-term supporter of Wan Smolbag, to fund the group to transform their radio play into a soap series for the Pacific Islands.
Mr de Friez said the production was impressive to watch.
“It is a fast turnaround multi-camera shoot, shot by people, like many in Vanuatu, with no education beyond primary school and they are working in a complex medium.”
Raconteur is also shooting another documentary for another of Al-Jazeera International’s new channels, this time closer to home. The documentary, to be filmed in Christchurch, will focus on a young girl growing up Muslim in what is “essentially an Anglophilic, Christian, conservative city”.
 |
| Cameraman and UC Fine Arts graduate Dan Nikolaison filming on assignment for Al-Jazzera in Vanuatu's Tagabe River squatter camp. Photo courtesy of Raconteur. |