Independent Lens . Inside Indies . Inside Filmmaking

What inspires indie filmmakers to persevere? Go inside the making of independent film. Come back for new articles, interviews, journals and more.

Volume 4

THE MAKING OF…

Micha Peled

CHINA BLUE

"I wanted to put a human face on this issue of modern slavery….”

— Micha Peled

CHINA BLUE takes viewers inside a blue jeans factory in southern China, where teenage workers struggle to survive harsh working conditions. Providing perspectives from both the top and bottom levels of the factory’s hierarchy, the film looks at complex issues of globalization from the human level.

In order to unveil the truth behind government propaganda, filmmaker Micha Peled shot the film clandestinely, without the permission of Chinese authorities. Peled and his crew talk about the risks both they, and the people in their film, took to get the story out about life in Chinese factories.

“The people we contacted must keep their activities completely underground, through a loose and clandestine network around the country. If caught, they face either a prison term or a labor re-education camp, where the authorities send people without access to trial or any due process of law. Reaching our contact required a complicated cloak-and-dagger operation. We could not use hotel or pay phones and had to replace our mobile phone number frequently….”

SET TOUR and FILMMAKER Q&A

Close up of Tutuki, a fuchsia Muppet with a bindi, sari and multicolored bracelets talking to the camera in front of a colorful set with trees, flags, a pond and children in traditional Bangladeshi clothing

Linda Goldstein Knowlton

Linda Hawkins Costigan

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET

Exploring the dramas, challenges and complexities behind producing international versions of the beloved television program, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET follows productions in Bangladesh, Kosovo and South Africa, which localize the iconic American show with indigenous songs, puppets and curricula. In Bangladesh, for example, Sesame Workshop collaborated with local producers and experts to create Sisimpur, a Bangladeshi Sesame Street, complete with familiar gathering places like the banyan tree, tea and sweet shops. Fascinated by the idea of Muppets as a catalyst for social change, filmmakers Linda Goldstein Knowlton and Linda Hawkins Costigan set out to document how international producers of Sesame Street are tackling issues ranging from AIDS to ethnic conflict abroad.

“We were able to see, in all of the countries that we profiled, great obstacles that would have easily deterred the show from going on air. In Kosovo, where the war ended between the Serbs and Albanians five years ago, there is still uneasiness and fear. We witnessed and filmed Kosovar Serbs and Albanians sitting across from each other to discuss the making of Rruga Sesam and Ulitcza Sesam—despite the animosity they still felt for each other. These people were inspired to make something better for their children.”

Tour the set of Sisimpur >>

Read the filmmaker Q&A >>

FILMMAKER Q&A

A man in a white doctor's coat places his hand against the cheek of a child who is lying on a table as a woman wearing a blue dress and a white headscarf looks on.

Sedika Mojadidi

MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN

“Making a documentary is such a solitary experience. I was challenged every day with keeping my commitment to finish the film, even when I had no idea how I was going to do that.”
—Sedika Mojadidi

In MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN, filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi follows her father, Dr. Qudrat Mojadidi, an Afghan-born OB/GYN living in the U.S., as he returns home to face the chaotic reality of a crippled health care system with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

Sedika Mojadidi reflects on the challenges, heartbreaks and rewards of turning a camera on her father in Afghanistan as he worked to save lives in near hopeless conditions.

“When we arrived, we expected to film the American staff working with Afghan doctors at the hospital. My father was going to be the central character bridging the Afghan and American worlds. But Health and Human Services asked us not to film certain distasteful areas of the hospital, like the bathrooms and patient delivery rooms. They told us that the American hospital staff was off limits for interviews and filming. They clearly did not want us to show what a mess the hospital was…. There was no sterilization, no infection control, little pain management; the hospital lacked the most basic supplies. I was shocked by what I saw.”

Inside Filmmaking:
Volume 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7


	indie icon: Mira Nair “I am attracted to ideas that will provoke people and make them look at the world a little differently—stories that come from my part of the world. I do have a private agenda, I suppose, to resist the cultural imperialism of Hollywood by putting people like ourselves on screen…. We must tell our own stories, because nobody else is going to do it for us.”

Reaching our contact required a complicated cloak-and-dagger operation. We could not use hotel or pay phones and had to replace our mobile phone number frequently...
—Micha Peled, CHINA BLUE

You can be talking to a Muppet operator and if he or she has a Muppet on his or her hand or arm, you do not look at them, you only look at the Muppet. They are powerful and galvanizing. We have experienced it first hand and have seen it countless times while filming
— Linda Goldstein Knowlton and Linda Hawkins Costigan, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET

They clearly did not want us to show what a mess the hospital was…. There was no sterilization, no infection control, little pain management; the hospital lacked the most basic supplies.
—Sedika Mojadidi, MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN