Arts/Culture - Peace for the Soul2024-03-28T12:03:23Zhttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/forum/categories/arts-culture/listForCategory?feed=yes&xn_auth=noMy Dreaming Brought Me Home - By Uncle Bob Randalltag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2022-10-16:5143044:Topic:4147572022-10-16T14:35:49.997ZNada Junghttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Nada
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10842951265?profile=RESIZE_1200x"><img alt="10842951265?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10842951265?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710"></img></a></p>
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<p>My name is Bob Randall. I am <em>Anangu</em>, a <em>tjilpi</em> (elder) from the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara Nations. I am one of the listed traditional keepers of Uluru, the great red rock that lies at the very heart of Australia in the central Western Desert region. As an Aboriginal man, I am a member of probably the oldest culture in the…</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10842951265?profile=RESIZE_1200x"><img class="align-center" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10842951265?profile=RESIZE_710x" alt="10842951265?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710"/></a></p>
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<p>My name is Bob Randall. I am <em>Anangu</em>, a <em>tjilpi</em> (elder) from the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara Nations. I am one of the listed traditional keepers of Uluru, the great red rock that lies at the very heart of Australia in the central Western Desert region. As an Aboriginal man, I am a member of probably the oldest culture in the world.</p>
<p>When Caesar was walking the earth, we were living here, living in the moment. When Cleopatra was ruling on her throne, we were living here, living in the moment. For thousands of years, these things you think ancient, we were living here, living in the moment.<sup>1</sup></p>
<p>I’d like to tell you the story of a little boy who was taken away from everything he belonged to at the age of six—away from all that he knew and all that he loved, away from what bound him to this ancient culture and all his ancestors. You see, he was one of the thousands of Aboriginal children later known as the Stolen Generation.</p>
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<p>He was born some seventy-five years ago at a place called Middleton Ponds near Angus Downs Station, 300 kilometres northeast of Uluru. His mothers walked there in the twenties’ drought period, when all the waters and waterholes were drying up at Kata Tjuta and Uluru. They walked on the banks of Lake Amadeus towards Kings Canyon, then followed the canyon, because there was permanent water there, and ended up at a cattle station run by a Scotsman, Bill Liddle. Bill Liddle became this little fella’s biological father. He was a kind man and treated the Aboriginals on his station with respect. The little boy’s mothers looked after the sheep and goats; his fathers looked after the cattle, camels, and horses. It was into that environment this boy was born and lived by the traditional Aboriginal ways.</p>
<p>To understand what it was like to be taken from all to which one belongs, you have to understand the system of connection that has supported my people for over sixty-thousand years. Belonging to all things was and is our way of life. And it was how the little boy was raised, living with his mothers and fathers, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers at Angus Downs station.</p>
<p>A Yankunytjatjara child has many parents, not just two. Every sister of his birth mother is his mother. Every brother of his birth father is also his father. This is one of the lines—called the biological- or blood-line—of my people’s family relationship system. There are, in fact, many more lines of relationship.</p>
<p>Another line of relationship is our kinship, or ‘skin’ system. This system relates people who share a particular language, and governs social behaviour, especially with regards to marriage, but also with other social protocols.</p>
<p>Then we have the ceremonial line. Ceremonial rights determine family relations. For example, let’s say my mother went through her ceremony with six to 20 other girls. Through the ceremony they become sisters; so they then become mothers to me in the same sense my mother is a mother to me.</p>
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<p>As an Aboriginal person, you belong to much more than just your human family. Another relationship line is the totemic connection to country based on the song lines, or stories, from the <em>Tjukurrpa</em> (Dreaming) period. A totem is the link between the spiritual and physical through land. Wherever a child is conceived or born determines the totem of that person. <em>Tjukurrpa</em> is the time of Creation, including the past, present, and future. It is fixed; it cannot be changed from that time of Creation; it was, it is, and it always will be.</p>
<p>These Dreaming trails, the song lines, the story tracks, criss-cross Australia in every direction. The Dreaming creatures moved across country, creating the topography of the landscape we see today. The knowledge of that relationship is passed down through ceremonies and family members to their children. This is what forms the biggest relationship connection system throughout this continent, because it relates every single Aboriginal nation. Even though some 500 – 700 Aboriginal nations once existed,<sup>3</sup> each with their own systems of government, languages, cultural practices, religions and traditions, these Dreaming story lines connected everyone into one family.</p>
<p>My people’s totem is the ancestral being Kuniya, the carpet snake, who created that part of the land on which we reside. She travelled from the east, from the direction of the sunrise right to Uluru. You can just imagine her moving across the country, shaping it with her curves and bends like the rivers across the continent. As an Aboriginal person, you belong to every other living thing on that totemic line, which is 50 to 100 miles or more wide, and many hundreds of miles long. Now some people may be from outside of that line, but they’ve married in, or their family married in, which has connected them into that family.</p>
<p>Through this system, this little boy was related to every plant, every reptile, every bird, every insect, every grain of sand, every rock, every waterway, from the tiniest to the largest organism, even the mountains, and <em>everything</em> that was on his totemic line. They belonged to each other.</p>
<p>There is also the relationship line of Country. We say ‘Countrymen’. This includes what nation one belongs to. This line connects us to another few hundred people as family members. This is what we refer to as the extended family system. And remember, we are related to every other living thing that is in our country as well, not just humans!</p>
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<p><a href="https://kindredmedia.org/2022/10/my-dreaming-brought-me-home-by-uncle-bob-randall/?fbclid=IwAR17PSi5fuwhEBKNri20H3-E7sIlMoxiX56ypFueOiA-faY1Ocfenzpjxbg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The late Uncle Bob Randall</a></p>
<p></p> A Moment Of Happinesstag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2022-07-04:5143044:Topic:3878812022-07-04T22:56:41.426ZMody Ibrahemhttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/mody
<p><span>A moment of happiness,</span><br></br><span>you and I sitting on the verandah,</span><br></br><span>apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.</span><br></br><span>We feel the flowing water of life here,</span><br></br><span>you and I, with the garden's beauty</span><br></br><span>and the birds singing.</span><br></br><span>The stars will be watching us,</span><br></br><span>and we will show them</span><br></br><span>what it is to be a thin crescent moon.</span><br></br><span>You and I unselfed, will be…</span></p>
<p><span>A moment of happiness,</span><br/><span>you and I sitting on the verandah,</span><br/><span>apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.</span><br/><span>We feel the flowing water of life here,</span><br/><span>you and I, with the garden's beauty</span><br/><span>and the birds singing.</span><br/><span>The stars will be watching us,</span><br/><span>and we will show them</span><br/><span>what it is to be a thin crescent moon.</span><br/><span>You and I unselfed, will be together,</span><br/><span>indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.</span><br/><span>The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar</span><br/><span>as we laugh together, you and I.</span><br/><span>In one form upon this earth,</span><br/><span>and in another form in a timeless sweet land.</span></p>
<h2 class="author">by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi</h2>
<div id="content"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10620849080?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10620849080?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a></div> Photographer visits lost Mongolian tribe, captures stunning photos of their life and culturetag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2022-02-12:5143044:Topic:3829232022-02-12T01:19:04.981ZEva Librehttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Eva
<p>Human civilization has come a long way since the early days of our species. Rising out of caves and undeveloped lands, humans have built cities and homes that the early generations could never have imagined.</p>
<p>The widespread growth of globalization has made it harder for historic cultures to be preserved. This is what makes the Dukha people of Mongolia so fascinating and amazing. The nomadic tribe has lived in the same region for centuries. During that time, they developed a special…</p>
<p>Human civilization has come a long way since the early days of our species. Rising out of caves and undeveloped lands, humans have built cities and homes that the early generations could never have imagined.</p>
<p>The widespread growth of globalization has made it harder for historic cultures to be preserved. This is what makes the Dukha people of Mongolia so fascinating and amazing. The nomadic tribe has lived in the same region for centuries. During that time, they developed a special relationship with the wild animals. In fact, this relationship is so amazing it will leave you in awe.</p>
<p>Fortunately for us, photographer Hamid Sardar-Afkhami recently visited this lost tribe and documented what he saw through a series of stunning photographs.</p>
<p>Through their unique culture, the Dukha people have developed a unique relationship with neighboring reindeer. They use them as means of transportation over the treacherous terrain they call home.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214298?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214298?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="565"/></a></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214869?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214869?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="546"/></a></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214685?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214685?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="561"/></a></p>
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<p>Children are taught how to train a reindeer at an early age.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214883?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092214883?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="560"/></a></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092215692?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092215692?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The reindeer are docile and gentle companions, even to the smallest of Dukha children.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092216071?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092216071?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>This young girl prepares to clean and bathe a reindeer baby.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092216287?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092216287?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The Dukha are also known as the “Tsaatan,” a term that means “reindeer herder.”</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092216887?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092216887?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>These days, there are only roughly 44 Dukha families left. This totals 200-400 people. The reindeer population is diminishing as well.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092217676?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092217676?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The Dukha primarily survive off of the tourist industry. People visit and pay money for performances, crafts, and of course, reindeer rides.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092223472?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092223472?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>They don’t just train reindeer. They also train wolves!</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092223687?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092223687?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The Dukha hunt small woodland animals like rabbits. This earns them about two US dollars.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092224290?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092224290?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The Dukha also train golden eagles to aid in their hunting.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092225071?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092225071?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>Eagle hunting is considered a privilege. Those who are able to do it are well respected by the tribe.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092225096?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092225096?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The Dukha believe they have a spiritual connection with all animals.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092226291?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092226291?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>The connection allows them to feel at home in nature and to maintain their culture despite the growing influence of the outside world.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092227676?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10092227676?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>it’s breathtaking to see the Dukha tribe and their relationship with the natural world. The way they’ve preserved their way of life is just incredible.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.beautyofplanet.com/photographer-visits-lost-mongolian-tribe-captures-stunning-photos-of-their-life-and-culture-3/?fbclid=IwAR2xYFzlvMRdyf2-W61NKtH6S51YC6v844Zoxi2gd7C27XI-0Nv2hWeFEmM" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source:</a></p>
<p></p> Photographer Mihaela Noroc and The Atlas of Beautytag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2022-02-01:5143044:Topic:3824102022-02-01T16:22:11.910ZEva Librehttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Eva
<p>We have already published many photos of Mihaela here on the site. So I also want to share her message to us with all of you.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10063063077?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10063063077?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="610"></img></a></p>
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<p>That’s me and my daughter Natalia. In her first two years of life, before the pandemic, we have travelled together to almost 30 countries so mummy could take photos for The Atlas of…</p>
<p>We have already published many photos of Mihaela here on the site. So I also want to share her message to us with all of you.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10063063077?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/10063063077?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" width="610"/></a></p>
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<p>That’s me and my daughter Natalia. In her first two years of life, before the pandemic, we have travelled together to almost 30 countries so mummy could take photos for The Atlas of Beauty.</p>
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<p>Lately, because of the pandemic, but also because I’ve been to more and more challenging destinations, I had to leave her home. In the last few months I’ve been to countries like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, but nothing felt more challenging than being away from her.</p>
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<p>In the last months I cried more than in my entire life, because of missing her. Now I’m home, next to her, and I simply feel that I can’t travel without her anymore. In the same time I feel that The Atlas of Beauty is the project of my life and I want to work on it for the rest of my life.</p>
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<p>So from now on I plan to travel with her again. It’s gonna be much more expensive, much more challenging, I’ll need to avoid certain destinations, but Natalia, my love, will be next to me.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MihaelaNorocPhoto/?__cft__[0]=AZUKHk2ivikvNSllPpz3TiOJoaDu0AW0UzSeQTNx3063H-8IllEPQ9Tc3vdiS9C4XcnTyOJ7kVBVhVnrXo49JKgI-QEnH0utSJlDSt_Z6aUpPVJM92rSnGGLAwfRSYPiGaiKndXmqhHMpqDa8ec3xfp5sHmLY7rNI0TW0Z7xcKEIEXNkFluiLDne3ARTtBd-9_w&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong><span>The Atlas of Beauty</span></strong></a></p>
<p></p> Global Nonviolent Film Festivaltag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2020-06-19:5143044:Topic:2848302020-06-19T13:35:14.050ZEva Librehttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Eva
<p><strong>June 16, 2020 — Hollywood, California — </strong>Global Nonviolent Film Festival reveals the official poster for its 9th annual edition that takes place from September 24 to October 4.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/6111105288?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/6111105288?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a></p>
<p>Official Poster of the 2020 edition of Global Nonviolent Film Festival.</p>
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<p>The poster is created on a concept by film director …</p>
<p><strong>June 16, 2020 — Hollywood, California — </strong>Global Nonviolent Film Festival reveals the official poster for its 9th annual edition that takes place from September 24 to October 4.</p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/6111105288?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/6111105288?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p>Official Poster of the 2020 edition of Global Nonviolent Film Festival.</p>
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<p>The poster is created on a concept by film director <a href="https://globalfilmstudio.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=be9093724bafad48a9922a7c6&id=3d48b51193&e=fd56c50272" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bruno Pischiutta</a>, and it features actress <a href="https://globalfilmstudio.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=be9093724bafad48a9922a7c6&id=75eb0c35f9&e=fd56c50272" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Greta Goldling</a>. The original artwork, realized in digital collage method, was made by <a href="https://globalfilmstudio.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=be9093724bafad48a9922a7c6&id=e857097631&e=fd56c50272" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daria Trifu</a>.</p>
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<p><strong><em>“The poster advertises the Festival. It is also a freeze-frame that identifies the present year; it will stay there forever and it will be seen for years to come. </em></strong></p>
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<p>Until now, 2020 has been marked by two historical elements: COVID-19 and the social unrest in America. The people who will view the poster twenty years from now will not need to read the date of the event, but they will be able to visually identify 2020 as the year when this Festival’s edition took place. 2020 is also the year that marks the debut in the international film industry of actress Greta Goldling who, in this picture, reminisces a young Angelina Jolie,”said Bruno Pischiutta, who also serves as the Festival’s artistic consultant.</p>
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<p>Daria Trifu, the Festival’s director, further explains that<strong><em>“Global Nonviolent Film Festival showcases only non-violent films since 2012. We were the first to create such an international event and, in 2016, to take it on-line so that the whole world could watch the selected movies. As I listened to Bruno describing his vision for the poster, I wanted to incorporate all the elements in a digital collage where they fuse seemingness through colours, shapes and contrasts.”</em></strong></p>
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<p>In light of the impact that current events have on our world, the film business has to adapt. Some of the most famous film festivals are migrating to virtual platforms, and several premieres by Hollywood Studios are taking place on-line.</p>
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<p>Global Film Studio owns the Global Nonviolent Film Festival and Daria Trifu, who is the Company’s president, had this to add:<em><strong>“We live in a digital world. For our business, it’s never been more universally clear that expanding virtually is the right choice and the best use of resources. Our Company chose this path early, in 2016, when we decided to take our already successful traditional local film festival on-line exclusively. We closed our physical screenings and moved the whole event on-line; it was a bold move that could have gone two ways.</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong><em>It went the right way, and we are very proud of the event’s success.”</em></strong></p>
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<p>In 2021, Global Film Studio is launching GlobalCinema.online, its own OTT streaming platform. GlobalCinema.online will showcase feature films, shorts and documentaries to paid subscribers. Some films will be available on a pay-per-view basis so that the platform will be able to host premieres and limited time releases too. Global Cinema will be a competitor to Netflix, and it aims to bring to the world viewers top quality films in every genre with a special focus on non-violent content. The film catalogue will include some of the best movies presented at the Global Nonviolent Film Festival.</p>
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<p>Global Nonviolent Film Festival accepts submissions via <a href="https://globalfilmstudio.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=be9093724bafad48a9922a7c6&id=cbd7339708&e=fd56c50272" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FilmFreeway</a>. The deadline to submit is August 22. The Festival takes place on-line at <a href="https://globalfilmstudio.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=be9093724bafad48a9922a7c6&id=58fffc2800&e=fd56c50272" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.globalnonviolentfilmfestival.com</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>CONTACT:</strong><br/> Global Nonviolent Film Festival<br/> <a href="mailto:info@nonviolentfilmfestival.com">info@nonviolentfilmfestival.com</a> </p>
<p></p> In Vanuatu, women draw strength from the rhythm of the oceantag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2019-06-13:5143044:Topic:2733362019-06-13T16:14:27.178ZLuna Arjunahttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/LunaGlasa
<p><strong><em>In a remote part of the Pacific, water music is helping women deepen their ties to the ocean and strengthen their social and economic standing</em></strong></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2894849686?profile=original" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2894849686?profile=RESIZE_710x"></img></a> Women from a local water music troupe perform in Gaua, northern Vanuatu, in 2017 / Credit: Aude Emilie-Dorion</p>
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<p>DOLAP, Vanuatu – It’s here, in this village on the…</p>
<p><strong><em>In a remote part of the Pacific, water music is helping women deepen their ties to the ocean and strengthen their social and economic standing</em></strong></p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2894849686?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2894849686?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a>Women from a local water music troupe perform in Gaua, northern Vanuatu, in 2017 / Credit: Aude Emilie-Dorion</p>
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<p>DOLAP, Vanuatu – It’s here, in this village on the west coast of Gaua, a small island in the north of Vanuatu, that water music originated. Water is everywhere around this tiny dot on the map, and for those who have made it their home, water influences almost every aspect of life.<br/> <br/> "The Ëtëtung [or water music] shows the close connection that exists between the Oceanian peoples and the sea," says the eldest woman of the Leweton Women’s Water group, the local water drumming troupe.<br/> <br/> Located within Vanuatu’s Torba province, the Banks Islands include Vanua Lava, Santa Maria (Gaua), Mota, and Mota Lava, as well as numerous islets. Heavily forested and remote, these islands are only accessible twice a week via a small plane from the island of Espititù Santo. For millennia, water in this distant part of the world has united and divided, connecting people as much as it has set them apart.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;">The footage in this video comes from the film "Vanuatu Women's Water Music," produced by Further Arts and Wantok Musik and directed by Tim Cole.</p>
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<p><strong><span class="font-size-3">Women’s voices tell women's stories</span></strong></p>
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<p>Passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter for many centuries, the water drumming has always been a "woman kastom thing," the villagers say.</p>
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<p>Based on peace and respect, this collective expression of vitality shows the complex relationship between the islanders and the sea. At the core of this process is the music of rhythms, feverish and powerful all at once.</p>
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<p>"In our lifetime, a combination of impacts has come to threaten the foundation of our livelihoods here in the Pacific, as well as in other parts of the world," says a water dancer.</p>
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<p>The ritual shows the reciprocal relationship between the land and the people. And while climate change has upset that balance in many ways, seeing nature as sacred has remained not just a view of life, but a way of life as well.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2895272782?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2895272782?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a>There is no stream more closely bound up with the life of a people, more important to Pacific islands nations than the ocean, say the people of Gaua / Credit: Aude Emilie-Dorion</p>
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<p>Moreover, in a predominantly male-oriented society, the water drumming comes as a woman’s way of telling their stories.<br/> <br/> "We have found a path that is effective and balanced to communicate on our realm," says Hilda Rosal Wavales, founder of the Leweton music group.<br/> <br/> In indigenous traditions here, myths and rituals aim to explain the origins of the world and to remind people of their place among the cosmos and of their connection with the past.<br/> <br/> Using this cultural heritage, Wavales has worked to engage women from the Gaua and Merelava islands and generate entrepreneurial opportunities.<br/> <br/> Because the islands’ economies are based on fishing, which is taboo for women, the music group has been a good way to empower women in both the social and economic spheres since they now bring in money from their performances that support community projects, says Wavales.<br/> <br/> The Leweton group is now very popular around Vanuatu and had performed in festivals and events in other parts of the world. Watch them perform at the Rainforest Music Festival in 2011.</p>
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<p><a href="https://earthjournalism.net/stories/in-vanuatu-women-draw-strength-from-rhythm-of-the-ocean?fbclid=IwAR0svaWk0vcgbQLy9prt3crs_I4ta3ngDCzgpLMeQAPBjO665VUX7HI-Fzg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Earth Journalism Network</a>,</p>
<p></p> What Judy Chicago’s Work Reveals about Toxic Masculinitytag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2018-10-07:5143044:Topic:2584142018-10-07T11:02:44.709ZNada Junghttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Nada
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;">by Jonathan D. Katz</span></p>
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<p>It’s a simple opposition, really: the chiding, angry, petulant faces of Senator Lindsey Graham, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Senator Chuck Grassley set against the painting <em>Three Faces of Man</em> from…</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;">by Jonathan D. Katz</span></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311641156?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="540" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311641156?profile=original"/></a></p>
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<p>It’s a simple opposition, really: the chiding, angry, petulant faces of Senator Lindsey Graham, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and Senator Chuck Grassley set against the painting <em>Three Faces of Man</em> from <a class="LinkWithTooltip__PrimaryLink-s1omtxql-0 hHSPpq" href="https://www.artsy.net/artist/judy-chicago" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Judy Chicago’s</a> “PowerPlay” series of 1982–87. When Chicago <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BoRpvyFhKpm/?hl=en&taken-by=judy.chicago">posted</a><a class="LinkWithTooltip__PrimaryLink-s1omtxql-0 hHSPpq" href="https://www.artsy.net/artist/judy-chicago" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a> just such a juxtaposition on Instagram following the recent Senate hearings on Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, it struck an eerily resonant chord, with commenters lauding the artist with superlatives like “visionary,” “psychic,” “intense and profound."</p>
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<p>What was old is new again, and Chicago’s social and political import is now again very much on the ascendance. But Chicago hasn’t changed; it’s just that her forthright dissections of male power now find new, immediate, and obvious real world correlates. What was once allegory is now reportage, and Chicago’s art from decades past has never looked so current.</p>
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<p>Perhaps that’s why, nearly 40 years after her paradigm-shifting <em>Dinner Party</em> (1974–79), <em>Time</em> chose this year to name Judy Chicago as <a href="http://time.com/collection/most-influential-people-2018/5238183/judy-chicago/">one of its 100 most influential people</a> in the world. Paradoxically, the presidency of Donald Trump has opened many people’s eyes to issues that they thought were safely historical, and Chicago has emerged as the once and future prophet of male privilege. As she told me, the reaction on Instagram “demonstrates the important role art has to play, as it literally helps us see what has not been evident to many people.”</p>
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<p>Yet when Chicago’s “PowerPlay” series was first exhibited in 1986, it dropped like a stone. This was a new experience for an artist whose exhibitions up until that time had garnered reams of press attention, often becoming the scene of warring political perspectives replete with long lines of enraptured visitors. In broad strokes, the “PowerPlay” images—paintings, drawings, and reliefs—offered brightly colored images of male bodies caught between aggressive self-assertion, and the abject fear and vulnerability that underlies and propels their manifest entitlement.</p>
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<p>But Chicago’s brand of earnest feminism was decidedly out of fashion by the mid-1980s, as a new generation of women—<a class="LinkWithTooltip__PrimaryLink-s1omtxql-0 hHSPpq" href="https://www.artsy.net/artist/cindy-sherman" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cindy Sherman</a>, <a class="LinkWithTooltip__PrimaryLink-s1omtxql-0 hHSPpq" href="https://www.artsy.net/artist/jenny-holzer" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Jenny Holzer</a>, and <a class="LinkWithTooltip__PrimaryLink-s1omtxql-0 hHSPpq" href="https://www.artsy.net/artist/barbara-kruger" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barbara Kruger</a> among them—pursued art about female empowerment with an ironic twist. In their work, feminism refrained from naming men per se as the problem, instead letting the discursive construction of masculinity carry most of the noxious load.</p>
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<p>While Chicago was well aware of masculinity as a discursive construct, she wasn’t about to let men off the hook so easily. What, precisely, she asked, is the difference between the social script that animates male performance and the men who embody that discourse or, alternatively, are cast aside for refusing to do so? “PowerPlay” was, in essence, about the ugly contortions patriarchy demands of men in order to kill off their more female-coded virtues of equality, compassion, understanding, and communality. The hallmark of the series was the angry male face, and viewers apparently found that face’s painful contortions too expressive, too high-decibel for an era grounded in the ironic.</p>
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<p>But the Trump era has so powerfully given the lie to optimistic accounts of male evolution as to make Chicago’s work not only newly visible and relevant, but also actively prescient. What was once old-school has been recast as visionary, and Chicago, now 79, has reemerged as the leader of a newly visible, palpably angry feminist resistance. As she noted in response to my recent queries:</p>
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<p>“Over the course of the five years I spent on ‘PowerPlay,’ I began to look behind the surfaces of male behavior, at the multiple sources of their often gross and destructive actions. What I found was that the prohibitions around openly expressing feelings—particularly of vulnerability as expressed in tears—caused innumerable personality distortions. Add to this the expectations to succeed, to ‘act manly,’ to provide for others through money-making, et cetera—which often led to a level of pressure that is unhealthy. That said, too many men go along with these expectations rather than challenge them, probably because of the rewards they are offered.”</p>
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<p>During the Senate’s highly stage-managed face-off between Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, Chicago recognized a distressingly familiar dynamic. She had seen a <a href="https://www.bustle.com/p/the-whole-country-just-watched-what-happens-when-angry-powerful-men-dont-get-their-way-12076036">post</a> on <em>Bustle</em> magazine’s website that reproduced photographs of the judge and two Republican senators; the artist thought they mirrored her <em>Three Faces of Man</em>. “I had exposed this type of deplorable behavior in my series from the late 1980s,” she said. “At that time, no one seemed able to see what I saw, but now, the entire nation watched it.” That the hearings turned on an account of Kavanaugh’s sexual assault was, for Chicago, also a sadly familiar refrain. As she told me:</p>
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<p>“Sexual assault is one of the most visible manifestations of toxic masculinity which is, of course, a function of patriarchy and how men are socialized. Another positive discussion that is emerging from the hearings and the #MeToo movement is that it is not enough that feminism has allowed women to break out of the confines of the construct of femininity. Men have to be helped to revolt against the dehumanizing aspects of the construct of masculinity; to face that too many of them have become monstrous and that their monstrosity is threatening life on earth. Men have to change and women have to insist that this happen. It is not enough to lose one’s job; men have to wake up and work to regain their humanity which will result in their becoming unable to rape and pillage anyone or anything.”</p>
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<p>Long before the advent of masculinity studies, queer theory, or gender studies, Chicago was committed to exploring and exposing the emotional contortions that patriarchy demanded of men as their coin of membership. Still, her take was—and remains—an activist one, and she has little truck with academic theory that resonates only within the ivory tower. “Given what has been happening in the world, it is the academy that has to stop trying to overlay a privileged and sophisticated concept of gender on a world that is distorted by reactionary gender expectations and behavior,” she told me.</p>
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<p>It’s one thing to theorize the inherently performative aspect of gender, and quite another to register the weight and toll of that performance in one’s own body, or the social body at large. The very public, searing anger of 11 white male senators and one white male witness contesting a woman’s report of sexual assault was discomfiting to many. But its less obvious resonance has been to recast the playful ironies of postmodern feminism as having given far too much credence to the ready achievability of real social change.</p>
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<p>If there’s pleasure in being called prescient after years of lonely wandering in the desert, Chicago doesn’t show it. Instead, her tone—that of the activist she has always been—stresses the long haul.</p>
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<p>“My work has never been about the moment; as an artist I have tried to deal with deep truths,” she told me. “Three decades has not done away with patriarchy. Efforts to emerge from its huge shadow and overthrow it as a system have been going on for centuries and it will take many more centuries to accomplish this task everywhere in the world. My only fear is that the world will not survive long enough to accomplish it. But I choose hope over despair.”</p>
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<p>There is perhaps no better index of our times than the reemergence of the art of Judy Chicago. Her righteous anger—along with her nuanced understanding that gender equality will benefit men, too—underscores and amplifies her unsparing diagnosis: that so many of our current social ills have their roots in outmoded gender constructs. We’ve long known this in the abstract, but the very topical resonance of <em>Three Faces of Man</em> in the days of the Kavanaugh hearing points to this directly, and in newly concrete terms. We find that old-school feminism still has a lot to teach us now.</p>
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<p><strong>Jonathan D. Katz is an art historian who has written widely on sexuality and gender. He directs the Doctoral Program in Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo.</strong></p>
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<p>Cover image: Brett Kavanaugh testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.</p>
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<p></p> A cosmic event that only happens every 35,000 years: July 27, 2018tag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2018-07-27:5143044:Topic:2553332018-07-27T10:08:00.701ZLuna Arjunahttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/LunaGlasa
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311648492?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311648492?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
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<p>Two moons in the sky on July 27! The next time this cosmic event will happen again, will be 36,996 ……Share this information as much as possible with your friends because NO human being alive today will be able to behold this incredible phenomenon a second time.</p>
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<p>On July 27, around midnight, do not forget to raise your head and look into…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311648492?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311648492?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>Two moons in the sky on July 27! The next time this cosmic event will happen again, will be 36,996 ……Share this information as much as possible with your friends because NO human being alive today will be able to behold this incredible phenomenon a second time.</p>
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<p>On July 27, around midnight, do not forget to raise your head and look into the sky: Mars will be the most brilliant star in the sky. This is because it will have an apparent diameter as big as the Full Moon! It will be possible to observe, with the naked eye, a cosmic phenomenon which will allow the inhabitants of the Earth to behold … two moons!</p>
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<p>This is the first time that humanity will be able to observe this exceptional phenomenon. The last planet Mars proximity of such magnitude dates back to exactly 34,978 years, the Neolithic period during which Neanderthal and Homo habilis, the distant ancestors of Homo sapiens, coexisted together. Species to which the human race – or more precisely, mankind – belongs today.</p>
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<p>This unique cosmic phenomenon called “two moons” is related, in part, to the proximity of the planet Mars with the Earth. As you must have seen on TV or read in the press, the planet Mars is now closer to the Earth, it is also possible to observe the orange star at night in the sky by looking towards the South. This phenomenon is quite common and appears about every 15 years.</p>
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<p>But what remains more rare is the conjunction of another phenomenon that has the effect of greatly amplifying the proximity of Mars to our planet.</p>
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<p>Indeed, the elliptical orbit of the giant Jupiter has a complex apochromatic altazimutal velocity for which the cyclo-parabolic projection (adjusted Lambert benchmark) is affected by a singular analemmic anomaly modifying the apside line (Editor’s note: the line joining the apocenter at the orbital periastron) which crosses precisely the orbit of the asterism of the planet Mars. The peculiarity of this recurrent phenomenon (commonly called “circumstellar elliptic conjunction of coercive neuronal elongation” among astrologers) is to allow the planet Mars to be projected into the telluric zone of solar attraction as a projectile ” launched from a sling ” and this, exactly every 34 978 years!</p>
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<p>In other words Mars will be big in the sky !!</p>
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<p>For practical details, Mars’ heliocentric granular apogee will occur on July 27 at a distance of only 32 million light-years with an amplitude of -2.84 at maximum for a magnitude arc of 3.14 seconds. As a result, on this precise date, the planet Mars will appear in the sky as big as the full Moon!</p>
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<p>There will be two moons in the sky on July 27! The next time this cosmic event will happen again, will be 36,996 ……Share this information as much as possible with your friends because NO human being alive today will be able to behold this incredible phenomenon a second time.</p>
<p></p> The making of “Punctured Hope: A Story about Trokosi & The Young Girls’ Slavery in Today’s West Africa”tag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2018-06-17:5143044:Topic:2538052018-06-17T19:15:48.559ZEva Librehttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Eva
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311642508?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311642508?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="550"></img></a></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3"><strong>The making of “Punctured Hope: A Story about Trokosi & The Young Girls’ Slavery in Today’s West Africa”<br></br> a Bruno Pischiutta film…</strong></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-3"><strong>The making of “Punctured Hope: A Story about Trokosi & The Young Girls’ Slavery in Today’s West Africa”<br/> a Bruno Pischiutta film</strong></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.indieactivity.com/making-of-punctured-hope-a-story-about-trokosi-young-girls-slavery-in-todays-west-africa/">Indieactivity Magazine</a> – <strong>Published on April 18, 2018 by Michael Ford</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><br/> PUNCTURED HOPE is a story that takes place nowadays in Ghana, West Africa. It is inspired the by the real-life events of the film’s lead actress, Belinda Siamey. </p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311642756?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311642756?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>According to the TROKOSI customary practice, if someone commits a crime, traditional leaders order that a young virgin girl from that family be sent to the shrine as a form of atonement. The chief priest and his entourage then genitally mutilate and sexually abuse the girl.<br/> <br/>
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Against all odds, the protagonist of the story escapes the shrine. As the film follows her life from the age of innocence to premature adulthood, the viewers get to see a beautiful showcase of the real and very animated African life in a typical village.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311652734?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311652734?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>PUNCTURED HOPE made history in Ghana: it was the first ‘celluloid’ (35 mm) film ever shot there, and it employed a full Ghanaian cast and 98% Ghanaian crew for a total of close to 200 people. The film was shot in a real African village. Bruno Pischiutta is the co-writer, director and editor of the picture. He produced the film together with Daria Trifu.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311652784?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311652784?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Film Director Bruno Pischiutta and Producer Daria Trifu on the set in Ghana</span></p>
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<p>“We were preparing a film in America about the subject of how virginity is lost in our times. A pastor from Ghana wrote to us saying: ‘you don’t know what’s going on here. I wrote a script and I would like to make a movie.’ At the beginning we were very skeptical. Daria and I went to Ghana and we personally visited the shrines at our own risk. We saw a fourteen-year-old girl with three kids, we saw all kinds of terrible things. After the trip and the research, we decided to bring the story to the world.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653065?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653065?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Actress Rasheeda, Co-writer Kingsley Obed (first & second on top) and Producer Daria Trifu (second on bottom row) are meeting the real Chief Priests of the Trokosi shrine they visited in Ghana. Director Bruno Pischiutta took the picture.</span></p>
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<p>The script of the pastor was very good because it was based on the life of this girl, but it was not written in an acceptable style. After we decided to make the movie, I went back to the script, re-wrote some scenes and brought the whole thing to Hollywood standards”, explains Bruno Pischiutta.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653126?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653126?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Actress Belinda Siamey plays herself in the leading role in PUNCTURED HOPE</span></p>
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<p>Punctured Hope is a feature film that is inspired by a true story of slavery. The leading actress in the movie, Belinda Siamey, is actually in real life the person who inspired the movie.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653166?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653166?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>“When we did the casting, the director noticed this young girl in the middle of the crowd and he asked to meet her. When we met her, we found out that she was the one who inspired the entire movie so, he decided that she should play herself in the film.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653306?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653306?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>It is a story about Trokosi, which means ‘wives of the Gods’. It is the biggest form of slavery against women that exists today in the world. It involves genital mutilation, sex abuse and it’s something that is going on, as we speak, in West Africa”, says Daria Trifu.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653418?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653418?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Director Bruno Pischiutta on the set.</span></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653984?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311653984?profile=RESIZE_480x480"/></a><br/> “To make the film in Ghana, we had to be there for two months. We shot the film in 28 days. Until the close of the final day of shooting and shipment of the 35 mm negative rolls to Canada, we kept the subject of the film secret. Very few people knew what the film was really about because it could have put our crew and us in danger. <br/>
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When the film was completed, we did a press conference and revealed everything. The news was picked-up by Reuters and the government of Ghana published what we said at the press conference on their website. Then, they sent the police to the shrines and they closed 29 of them, but the phenomenon is so big that it will take generations to resolve”, remembers Pischiutta.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654158?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654158?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>The influence that the fetishist priests have on the whole community comes from the general believe of the population in black magic. Pischiutta explains, “Our Canadian sound-man lost his photo camera one night. Some of the crew members thought that somebody stole it and they felt very offended. They wanted to bring the matter to the shrine, in front of the black magic Chief because that is how it is done there. People who go to university also do it. My Ghanaian assistant director and I were talking about black magic. He said: ‘there are some things about America that I don’t understand and I don’t believe. And there are some things about Africa that you don’t understand and you don’t believe.’ That is just a different point of view.”</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654264?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654264?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>The film also shows a beautiful side of this part of the continent. “We wanted to show the beauty of the village and the sophistication of the people. It’s not all negative. The image is beautiful Africa, beautiful people, and beautiful places with some problems and problems are everywhere,” continues Bruno.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654462?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654462?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">The village where PUNCTURED HOPE was filmed in Ghana.</span></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654446?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654446?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Daria Trifu with Fio, one of the 600 children living in the village where the film was shot.</span></p>
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<p>“From the experience of living there for a couple of months, with the crew and the villagers, we saw so much happiness in the children, their smiles and their eyes. It was incredible,” adds Daria.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654860?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311654860?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>“And another thing: every adult is in charge of parenting the children of the village. So if a child does something bad, any adult will tell them not to do that. The sense of community is big. These children have nothing but I’ve never seen so much smiling. They’re incredibly intelligent and they have a huge desire to learn,” concludes Bruno.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311655019?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311655019?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Bruno Pischiutta directing a scene of PUNCTURED HOPE in the rain forest.</span></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311655634?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311655634?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311655870?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311655870?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311656052?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311656052?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Co-Writer Pastor Kingsley Sam Obed and Daria Trifu</span></p>
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<p>The filmmakers want to point out that their company makes non-violent films that are usually based on social issues of our time. Although the subject of this film is so difficult, there are no graphic scenes, and no coarse language. The film is for children too, more sophisticated adults, for students, everyone really. And it is important because it is not only about the leading character who is victim of Trokosi, it’s also about the village. The life in the village is the second leading character.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311656092?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311656092?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>At the end of the film, the chief of the village explains that the government of Ghana cannot do anything about the practice even though it has been outlawed. “The government can decide something but then the local villages have their own laws. In the village the law is made by the ‘king’ of the village and a committee of four or five people. And they say: ‘who are you to say that something that has worked for our grandfathers and great-grandfathers for hundreds of years is not good?’. The fear that the fetish priests instill in the people is the moral agent against criminality. If the people think that they can rob, rape, kill and that the Gods will not punish them, then there can be a very different scenario. That is what the traditionalist people say. The debate is open. That is what we tried to show in the film, and then the viewers will make their own mind,” says Bruno Pischiutta.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311656259?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311656259?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Actresses Belinda Siamey and Frost Asiedu addressing the viewers in the last scene of the movie.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;">There is one more innovative element that the director used in the ending of the film. For the first time in a motion picture, the two lead actresses, in the end scene of the movie, turn their eye-line to the camera and, for close to four minutes, they address directly the viewers telling them of the real suffering and the plight of the women living under the practice of Trokosi. They call the viewers to action. This is the moment in which the film becomes television. This is a closing that Pischiutta envisioned for the film in order to create a personal contact between the characters of the movie and the world viewers, for a maximum effect in bringing the story and the reality of the situation to their attention.<br/> <br/>
<strong>Selected scenes from PUNCTURED HOPE and interview with Director Bruno Pischiutta on the set of the film in Africa:</strong></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-uZGJmZtMiE?ecver=2&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>“The US $5.8M budget is a respectable one for an independent production but, raising the financing wasn’t easy. In the beginning, we tried to raise it from institutional investors, but time was running out and we knew that we had to do something faster and on our own. We could not risk that the word went out in the local community before us being able to make the film, because this would have obstacle the entire production. So, with the help of two private investors and our own participation, we financed the film and rushed to production”, remembers Daria Trifu.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311659758?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="550" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311659758?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Bruno Pischiutta and Daria Trifu at the premiere of PUNCTURED HOPE at the Montreal World Film Festival.</span></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311659748?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="521" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311659748?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>“Our strategy, from the get-go, was to bring the story to light and spread awareness about the modern-day women slavery under the practice of Trokosi, as well as the outrageous number of young virgin girls who are victims of genital mutilation around the world”, says Trifu. <br/> <br/>
To achieve this, the director and producer knew that they had to bring the film to the attention of Hollywood and the main stream media. Until now, PUNCTURED HOPE was an Official Selection at the Montreal World Film Festival and it was screened in theaters in Los Angeles (limited release) where it was qualified for Nomination Consideration at the Academy Awards. For directing the film, Bruno Pischiutta was proposed for nomination by The Political Film Society (Hollywood) alongside Clint Eastwood, James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino; the categories for which the film was proposed for were “Best Film Exposé” and “Best Film on Human Rights”.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311660378?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="521" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311660378?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p>After picking-up the story in Ghana at the completion of the film, Reuters went on to follow the filmmakers to Los Angeles and interview them during the film’s cinema premiere on Sunset Boulevard. They went thus far to send a camera crew to Ghana where they also interviewed one of the film’s actresses and they produced a news segment for Africa Journal TV.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311660566?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="521" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311660566?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024"/></a></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Reuters news segment, for Africa Journal TV, filmed in Ghana:</strong></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="475" height="356" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fUddWTWw9yI?ecver=2&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The film will be released commercially by Global Film Studio (<a href="http://www.globalfilmstudio.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.globalfilmstudio.com</a>), although a date is not set yet. “We hope that influential people in America and beyond can push on the international organisations to pressure local governments to end this slavery. We want to let the world know the terrifying numbers at which this phenomenon occurs. Right now we are talking about 25,000 slaves in the shrines and 130 million women genitally mutilated in the world”, concludes Pischiutta.<br/></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>“I have dedicated this film in memory of my mother, Lina Maria Gardi-Pischiutta”. <br/> – Bruno Pischiutta</strong></p>
<p></p> Worlds Legendary Blues Legend B.B. King has diedtag:peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com,2015-05-24:5143044:Topic:2312292015-05-24T17:23:20.310ZNada Junghttps://peaceformeandtheworld.ning.com/profile/Nada
<p>"Blues legend B.B. King, who took his music from rural juke joints to the mainstream and inspired a generation of guitarists from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, has died in Las Vegas. He was 89.</p>
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<p>King, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, had said in May he was in hospice care at his home after being hospitalized in April with dehydration related to diabetes.</p>
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<p>"The blues has lost its king, and America has lost a legend," President Barack…</p>
<p>"Blues legend B.B. King, who took his music from rural juke joints to the mainstream and inspired a generation of guitarists from Eric Clapton to Stevie Ray Vaughan, has died in Las Vegas. He was 89.</p>
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<p>King, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, had said in May he was in hospice care at his home after being hospitalized in April with dehydration related to diabetes.</p>
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<p>"The blues has lost its king, and America has lost a legend," President Barack Obama said in a statement, recalling how he sang "Sweet Home Chicago" with King at a White House blues concert three years ago. "B.B. may be gone, but that thrill will be with us forever. And there’s going to be one killer blues session in heaven tonight."</p>
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<p>King's death was confirmed late on Thursday on a Facebook page linked to the website of his daughter Claudette.</p>
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<p>Born on a Mississippi plantation to sharecropper parents, he outlived his post-World War Two blues peers - Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Lightnin' Hopkins and John Lee Hooker - to see the rough music born in the cotton fields of the segregated South reach a new audience.</p>
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<p>"Being a blues singer is like being black twice," King wrote in his autobiography, "Blues All Around Me," of the lack of respect the music got compared with rock and jazz.</p>
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<p>"While the civil rights movement was fighting for the respect of black people, I felt I was fighting for the respect of the blues."</p>
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<p>King will forever be associated with his trademark black Gibson guitars, all of which he christened "Lucille" in recollection of a woman who two men fought over in 1949 in an Arkansas dance hall where he was playing.</p>
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<p>The men knocked over a kerosene lamp, setting fire to the building. King risked his life to retrieve his $30 guitar.</p>
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<p>In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time ranked King at No. 3, behind only Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman.</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311646587?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2311646587?profile=original" width="644"/></a><span style="color: #333333;" class="font-size-1">U.S. blues legend B.B. King performs onstage during the 45th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux July 2, 2011.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #333333;" class="font-size-1">Reuters/Valentin Flauraud</span></p>
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<p>BB King - Live At Montreux 1993</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-1">By</span> <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=bill.trott&"><u><font color="#0000FF">Bill Trott</font></u></a></p>
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