Physical Health Sierra Leone Project #19120

Survivors: a portrait of the Ebola crisis

by Mirabel Pictures / WeOwnTV

Project Report | Apr 4, 2017
WeOwnTV awarded 2017 NEH Media Projects Grant

By Banker White | Executive Director

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to reach out and thank you all for your support of Survivors. You may have seen our wonderful news last week when we anounced that WeOwnTV has been awarded a Media Projects Production Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This means that we have completed the budget for the film and will be closing this fundraising page. We will be focussing our efforts on raising funds for the annual WeOwnTV Filmmaker Fellowship which provides cash grants and professional mentorship to West African filmmakers. If you would like to keep in touch with the progress of the Survivors film or support this new Fellowship program we have established a new GlobalGiving page HERE.

It is an incredible honor to be among the many talented filmmakers to have been supported by the NEH over the years. We want to acknowledge how incredibly special this award feels right now as public funding for the arts and independent media is under threat. We are proud to be able to work with our friends at the NEH, ITVS and POV to bring this story and unique perspective to an American audience.

On behalf of all of us at WeOwnTV, thank you for your support of Survivors and our work in Sierra Leone. We truly could not have done it without your help. Survivors is a result of more than a decade of collaborative work between American and Sierra Leonean filmmakers and we can't wait to share it with the world. Looking forward to reaching out with more exciting news in the near future.

Thank you,

Anna & Banker

Links:

WeOwnTV Filmmaker Fellowship GlobalGiving Page

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Jan 26, 2017
Progress through collaboration

By Banker White | Director / Producer

Freetown, Sierra Leone

We are happy to share that we have made some great progress in the editing of our film, Survivors. The very fiber of the project is an experiment in international, creative collaboration. The film explores this both in content and process. In the film, we see the international agencies struggle to mount a culturally sensitive public health campaign and form positive work environments with local Sierra Leonean workers during the Ebola outbreak. As for our own contribution, with this project and the public health messaging campaign we spearheaded, we could not be more proud of our collaboration.

This winter we had the fortune of collaborating in person with our Sierra Leonean co-Director, Arthur Pratt, for six weeks in the U.S. We were able to work together for an extended time on the writing and editing of the film. This was a critical part of the process and we are so grateful we shared this experience.

Arthur has returned to the Freetown Media Center in Sierra Leone and he and the team there are filming pick up shots and beautiful images of the city of Freetown. In the U.S., we have started a new collaboration with our consulting editor, emmy-nominated, Don Bernier. We are thrilled to have him on our team and his experience has already proven to be very valuable in the creation of this film.

Our team hopes that this film will serve as a window into a culture many have never experienced first hand, and that in this foreign space, viewers find familiarity in what it means to be human.

Thank you for your interest in Survivors. We hope that you will continue your support by making a donation and by sharing our GlobalGiving campaign with your network.

With gratitude,

Banker White and the team at WeOwnTV

Directors, Arthur and Banker in New York City

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Oct 30, 2016
Our Sierra Leonean Collaborators in Kenya and the U.S.

By Banker White | Director / Producer

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