Bernie Lucht & Steve Wadhams

FROM BERNIE LUCHT... CO-CHAIR OF THE COFERENCE.

Yesterday began with many people hung over from the banquet we'd had the night before which was in a revolving restaurant 500 meters at the top of the CN tower. The evening light was beautiful and we could see right across lake Ontario to New York State about 60 k away.

I noticed that - perhaps because of the banquet and the great time we had the discussion groups the next morning seemed more collegial and spirited. One of the pieces we heard that sparked a lot of discussion was called "Easy Miracles". The programme maker, who is Canadian, is married to an Indian man and the feature described and documented a journey to a goddess shrine where people pray and make wishes. When we discussed the programme people were very divided. Some loved the story, because it was lively and warm and there was a very emotional and personal ending. Others disliked very much the fact that there was so much narration. It showed me that people here have such different aesthetic values. We didn't resolve anything but people did listen carefully to other points of view and I hope respected them too. After all this is why we are here. To enlarge our perspectives and open our minds to new ideas and other people's points of view.

FROM STEVE WADHAMS. ALSO CO-CHAIR OF THE CONFERENCE!!

I had an interesting experience yesterday. With Edwin Brys, the President of the IFC I went into a studio here at CBC Toronto to discuss things with two of our Polish colleagues.. Both called Anna by the way! We had arranged an ISDN line to their radio station in Katovice in Poland. Edwin spoke about what the IFC does and how it tries to support feature making. Anna then asked me to say what my favourite programme was so far. What a question!! But I could see in her eyes that I had to come up with an answer and NOW! I said that a programme played as part of "The Classics" by Rene Farabet was my favourite so far. It was produced by an American cameraman who had gone to Vietnam to document the war there all those years ago. I liked it a lot because it was so unusual. It told its story entirely without narration, just by the sounds and the juxtaposition of the sounds which were very varied and powerful. I said that for me I felt as if I was being immersed in this war. It took me right there. I could hear it and almost smell it.
No narration needed. But I have nothing against narration! I think a feature maker should use any way that works to get a listener into someone else's world and allow the listener to experience something and to learn something there.

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