April / 2002

ON CAMERA
Guatemalan Documentary 25 Years in the Making

One of the photos DOP Richard Stringer csc took in 1976 shows Guatemalan farmer Wenceslao Armira (centre) before he became a fugitive guerrilla, The Man We Called Juan Carlos.

Richard A. Stringer csc of Toronto rummaged through his photo albums recently to find some stills he had taken in Guatemala in 1976 when he shot Campo Vivo with David Springbett and Heather MacAndrew of Asterisk Productions. The reason? A new documentary picks up the loose ends after 25 years.

The original show was about a development program which taught a community of Guatemalan farmers how to improve their agricultural skills and in turn teach other farmers. It was shown on CBC’s Man Alive. Since then, the filmmakers followed the main character over 25 years and have recently released The Man We Called Juan Carlos, the story of Wenceslao Armira.

“When I met him, he was a simple farmer,” recalls Stringer, but as the documentary reveals, he later became a guerrilla and an activist for Mayan rights. Education through the development program gave him the skills of a teacher and leader, but also an independence which in turn made him an enemy of the state. He became a revolutionary, living in exile under the code name Juan Carlos. Unfortunately, his daughter and son, whom he left behind in a Gautemalan safe house, were found and murdered by death squads.

“Possible government reaction to our original documentary put the filmmakers on alert,” says Stringer. “It would be dangerous for David and Heather to go back to Guatemala. They could only shoot interviews with Wenceslao, who was hiding in Mexico and other neighboring countries.”

In the later stages of production, Asterisk had difficulty getting interest from broadcasters. One major network wrote that “audiences usually avoid these important subjects like the plague,” and another turned it down saying it was “too much a history lesson.” Finally, the film was finished and went on air late last year with the support of Vision TV and SCN. It has won a Silver Chris Award in the Social Issues category at the 49th annual Columbus Film Festival and has been selected for screening at the Planet in Focus Film Festival in Toronto, the Amnesty International Film Festival in Vancouver, and at Global Visions Festival in Edmonton. It was screened at the Hazel Wolf Film Festival in Leavenworth, Washington, on April 13, and The Knowledge Network has a broadcast date coming up in July.

‘Godfather of Canadian Film’
Award-Winning Filmmaker Don Haig Dies

Richard Stringer csc took time out from his 1976 Guatemalan shoot to play with local farm children. The girl and boy on the right were later murdered by death squads.

Distinguished Canadian filmmaker Don Haig died of cancer in Toronto on March 2 at the age of 68. He was known as the “godfather of Canadian film,” a title he earned through his commitment to mentoring young filmmakers.

A native of Winnipeg, Haig had a long and illustrious career spanning some 45 years and more than 500 films, working at the National Film Board, the CBC and in the private sector. He began his career in cinema in the Winnipeg distribution offices of MGM Canada. In 1956, he joined the CBC as a film editor, where he established himself as a brilliant filmmaker on such series as This Hour Has Seven Days and The Fifth Estate. Founder of the production company Film Arts in 1963, his independent credits include the Academy Award-winner Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, and as independent producer on the Gemini Award-winning NFB co-production, Timothy Findley: Anatomy of a Writer.

Haig joined the NFB in June of 1992 as director of the NFB’s Pacific Centre in Vancouver. The following year, he was named executive producer of the NFB’s English documentary studios in Montreal, and he assumed responsibility for documentary production in Atlantic Canada following the creation of the Documentary East unit in 1996. He left the NFB in 1998, leaving a legacy of over 135 NFB productions, including the acclaimed Canada Remembers series, paying tribute to Canada’s sacrifices during the Second World War.

He received many awards and honours, including the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Air Canada Award, the CBC TV Producers Association Award, the City of Toronto Media Arts Award, the Ontario Film Institute Achievement Award and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.

Kino Flo Bends Light
Beauty Light Designed for Close-Ups

The Kino Flo Kamio ring light

Kino Flo has introduced the True Match beauty light designed for lighting close-up shots of actors and other on-camera talent. Unlike conventional camera lights that mount high above the lens, Hollywood-based Kino Flo says the Kamio ring light tucks in close around the lens axis for a unique glamour light. When lighting faces, the Kamio’s gentle glow softens the edges and flatters the skin tones, while it brings out a starry sparkle in the eyes.

The Kamio system produces a cool, stable, high-output daylight or tungsten balanced beam that can be dimmed and filtered without any interference to the camera lens. Lightweight enough to mount easily on a hand-held camera, the Kamio ring light system takes filter trays, an eyebrow, sunshades and step-down lens adapters (80mm to 110mm).

Kino Flo also has designed a special Kamio remote, dimming 12-volt DC ballast to operate directly off the camera battery, or from a 120VAC or 230VAC power supply. The fixture takes True Match daylight and tungsten Kamio lamps, with a ring diameter of six inches.

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