The Films

WALKING WITH LIFE -
The Birth of a Human Rights Movement in Africa

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35 mns Color DVD 2009.

Shot in Senegal, this film follows the work of Tostan (the word means "breakthrough" in the Wolof language)- a non-profit organization that brings human rights education to rural and urban people in Senegal, Guinea and many other African countries.

Learn more about the film and about human rights education

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HUMAN RIGHTS CITIES: PATHS TO PEACE

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6mns. Color. DVD 2010

A natural outcome of the movement to teach human rights around the world has been the development of Human Rights Cities in several countries - an initiative of Shulamith Koenig, Founder and Director of the People's Decade for Human Rights Learning (www.pdhre.org) . This film documents the process in the town of Thies, Senegal, and in Washington, D.C. - the first American city to make this commitment.

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THE SWAHILI BEAT

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27:45mns. Color. 2007. DVD

This film is an upbeat look at the remarkable history of the Swahili people of the East African coast. Packed with the music and dance of its indigenous peoples, the film takes viewers along the coast from the fabled island of Lamu to Zanzibar, Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam, tracing the development of the Swahili culture through the intermarriage of Arab settlers arriving from Oman in the 8th century with local Africans. The emergence of the Swahili as prosperous merchant brokers in the Indian Ocean basin and in the growing slave trade made them a lucrative target for successive waves of settlers, invaders and colonizers, including the Persians, Portuguese, Germans and British. The Swahili have withstood all these invasions and maintained their culture until today. Can they survive in the face of globalization, the Internet and tourism?

This film is distributed by Documentary Educational Resources: www.der.org

See http://der.org/films/swahili-beat.html for pricing and purchase

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KENNY MANN TALKS ABOUT HER AFRICAN DOCUMENTARIES

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SURRENDER

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16mm 14:03 mns. Black/white. 2000.

A woman has decided to move from one "state of being" to another. She spends the last day of her current "incarnation" on a beach, observing the people around her. Their activities become a poetic metaphor for the human condition and the transience of life.

The film was shot on Sagg Main Beach in Sagaponack, Long Island, with Megan Chaskey as the lead. A trained Buddhist, she adds to the project a profound spiritual dimension.

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POWER PLAY

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16mm, 5:35mns. Black/white. 1973. DVD

This short was made in Hamburg, Germany, in 1973. It features Dragan Todorovic, a Czechoslovakian puppeteer who tells a story of the oppressed and the oppressor simply through the magical movements of his hands. Music for this short film was specially composed by Volker Kunze.


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BUY SURRENDER AND AND POWERPLAY TOGETHER ON ONE DVD!

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SUNDIATA-THE LEGACY OF THE GRIOT

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6mns. Color. Live musicians, filmed drawings. 1997.

This film retells the legend of Sundiata, the famous thirteenth century King of Mali. Live African musicians and a traditional griot perform the piece as oral history to accompany the narrative and the magnificent, colorful paintings. The film is intended for supplementary use in schools, grades 5-8, but is also entertaining and informative for any audience. Written by Kenny Mann; narrated by Afemo Omilami; produced by Jeanne Jacoby; directed by Joel Gilmore;griot and Kora musician - Morikeba Kouyate; drummer - Oginga Love; paintings by Vern Edwards. Harcourt/Brace/Jovanovitch.

NOT FOR SALE

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INDIA - AND OTHER THOUGHTS

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56mns. Color. DVD

In 2004, I traveled around southern India alone for two months. I never intended to make a film, but simply took still shots with a tiny old Canon digital camera, and recorded a travel journal on mini-casette tapes. Half way through the trip, I discovered that my camera could make 15-second movies. Aha! When I got home, I thought I would arrange a (boring) slide show for my friends. Four months later, I had put together this film-book-thing on Windows Movie Maker - a really primitive program not intended for complex sound mixing or nice dissolves! But I had fun - so here it is!

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EARTHWATCH SAMBURU RESEARCH INITIATIVE

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13 mns. Color. 2006. DVD

The Samburu Conservation Research Initiative (CRI) is a remarkable program for wildlife preservation in northern Kenya. With four well-established scientific projects based in northern Kenya's arid Samburu country, Earthwatch realized that their efforts to conserve wildlife would be meaningless without the involvement of the local Samburu people. This short film illustrates some of the main problems effecting the Samburu and impacting local wildlife, and looks at ways in which Earthwatch trains Samburu people to actively participate in wildlife conservation, to the benefit of themselves, their lands, the wildlife nad ultimately the Kenya economy.

I made this film free of charge, as my donation to Earthwatch and to Kenya. In a rather butchered edited version, it is used on Earthwatch's site to attract volunteers to this program. It was also apparently responsible for raising large sums of money to keep Earthwatch Kenya funded for the next few years.

I shot most of the footage, and used footage by my brother, Oscar Mann, We had one week in which to make the film from start to finish. We edited it together - our first joint project! May there be many more.

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