Local filmmakers offer production on DVD
What makes you happy?
It’s seems like the answer should be easy, but some local filmmakers who delved into the subject soon found out there is no clean and easy response.
Andrew Kooman, one of the executive producers of E is for Everyone, says the film was inspired by an ad in Adbusters magazine that challenged materialistic thinking.
The idea evolved into a film, entitled E is for Everyone: The Mouse and the Elephant, that tells the fictional story of two friends who set out to make a documentary about the different ways people from developed and developing nations seek true happiness.
After showing the film at the Red Deer College Arts Centre in December 2007, it was an official selection of the 2008 Festivus Film Festival in Denver, Colo., and also showed at the 2008 Cackalacky Film Festival in North Carolina.
Now the filmmakers are offering the DVD for sale in the official DVD release party set for Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Second Cup in Southpointe Common.
Kooman said one of the things that stood out to him most during their months of travelling to the United States, England, Kenya, India and Thailand was a visit the crew made to a refugee camp in Kenya, called Kakuma, near Lodwar.
They were warned ahead of time by their guide that children would beg for water because there had been a drought for the past 10 years.
As they travelled through the pothole covered roads people would come up to the truck holding buckets.
Kooman said they had filled the vehicle with water bottles to distribute to people.
“It’s so fleeting the thing that we were giving,” Kooman said.
“We would hand it (the water bottle) to the children and they would just drink a whole bottle of water in front of us and ask for more.
“The incredible need and how we could help them meet a need, but knowing that the need would still be great. And we’re driving on and what will tomorrow be like.”
Kooman said there has been a range of response for the film from cynicism to thankfulness.
“I feel challenged not only to remember people like that but to be involved in things that help them,” he said.
Kooman said the release party will give them a chance to talk to people about the film, which stars Joel Krogman and Stephen Neufeld, and show clips from it.
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