Archive
Meeting Mo Simpson, Filmmaker in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES)
A rare warm sunny day in October brought out a very happy meeting between AHA MEDIA and Mo Simpson, Filmmaker.
We at AHA MEDIA are always very grateful for Mo’s mentorship of our camera skills in the beginning of our journey.
Thanks always Mo! We love you! 🙂
20th Annual DTES Womens Memorial March for Missing and Murdered Women
“Their Spirits Live Within Us”: Annual Women’s Memorial March for Murdered and Missing Women
In January 1991 a woman was murdered on Powell Street. Her name is not spoken today out of respect for the wishes of her family. This woman’s murder in particular was the catalyst that moved women into action. Out of this sense of hopelessness and anger came an annual march on Valentine’s Day to express compassion, community, and caring for all women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Coast Salish Territories.
Decades later, the march continues to honour the lives of missing and murdered women. This event is organized and led by women in the DTES because women, especially Indigenous women, face physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual violence on a daily basis. The heinous and unimaginable violence that have taken the lives of so many has left a deep void in our hearts. We gather each year to mourn and remember our sisters by listening to their family members, by taking over the streets, and through spiritual ceremonies.
Increasing deaths of many vulnerable women from the DTES still leaves family, friends, loved ones, and community members with an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. Every year the list of women going missing also increases. Over 3000 women are known to have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1970s. Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women issued this statement: “Hundreds of cases involving aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention.”
The February 14th Women’s Memorial March is an opportunity to come together to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters, remember the women who are still missing, and to dedicate ourselves to justice. Please join us.
See more here
AHA MEDIA and W2’s Fearless City Mobile Program at Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day Conference in Vancouver on Sat March 6, 2010
International Women’s Day in Vancouver 2010
http://www.iwdvancouver.ca
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Below is a photo of Clyde Wright, Peter Davies and Richard Czaban of AHA MEDIA and W2’s Fearless City Mobile Program ready to do some mobile media event coverage. This photo was taken outside of Vancouver Public Library where the Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day in Vancouver 2010 was about to begin 🙂
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Below is a video of Miriam Palacios of Oxfam Canada welcoming us to Women’s Voices at the Table at International Women’s Day Conference in Vancouver on Saturday March 6, 2010
Oxfam Canada
http://www.oxfam.ca
This video was filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a New Media camera – Panasonic DMC-ZS3. AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
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Below is a video of the Ranging Grannies singing at Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day in Vancouver on March 6, 2010
Ranging Grannies of Vancouver
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/ragigran/
This video was filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a New Media camera – Panasonic DMC-ZS3. AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
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Below is a photo, Lianne Payne speaks about working with projects and organizations with a social and cultural mandate. April Smith is a social media maker and community advocate working as Project Coordinator for W2’s Fearless City Mobile program and AHA MEDIA. Eileen Gillette researches accessibility, the digital divide, and information policy.
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Below is a photo is Richard Czaban, Clyde Wright and Peter Davies of AHA MEDIA and W2’s Fearless City Mobile Program at the Media Table for Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day Conference 2010
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Below is a photo of April Smith, Lianne Payne and Mo Simpson at Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day Conference 2010
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Below is a photo of April Smith, Andrea Reimer – Vancouver City Councillor and her Daughter, Friend at Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day Conference 2010
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Below is a photo of the International Women’s Day conference in Vancouver
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Below is a video of Earle Peach and Solidarity Notes Choir at Women’s Voices at the Table for the International Women’s Day Conference on Saturday March 6 , 2010 in Vancouver
Earle Peach
http://www.EarlePeach.com
Solidarity Notes Choir
http://www.solidaritynotes.ca/
This video was filmed by Richard Czaban of AHA MEDIA on a New Media camera – Fujifilm S200EXR. AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
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Below is a photo of Lauren Gill and April Smith at Women’s Voices at the Table for International Women’s Day Conference 2010
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Below is a photo and video montage with highlights from the International Women’s Day Rally and Conference on Saturday March 6 , 2010 in Vancouver
This photo and video montage was created by Richard Czaban of AHA MEDIA and filmed on a New Media camera – Fujifilm S200EXR. AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
April Smith of AHA MEDIA was very pleased and honored to work with mentor Mo Simpson – award-winning freelance director, cinematographer and editor !
April Smith of AHA MEDIA had the great exclusive opportunity to work as a sound recordist with mentor Mo Simpson on her documentary on Design Nerds http://designnerds.ca at W2 Community Media Art Gallery Space at 175 West Hastings in Vancouver Downtown Eastside
Below is a photo of Mo Simpson holding a Sennheiser Microphone unit
Recently, Sennheiser Sound Team toured W2 Community Media Arts Centre. Below is a closeup of Mo Simpson’s Sennheiser Microphone Unit
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Moira Simpson’s work as an award-winning freelance director, cinematographer and editor spans 30 years and encompasses many National Film Board, independent and television documentaries. Simpson has often combined filmmaking with teaching, giving workshops throughout BC as well as the Western Arctic, Newfoundland and Alberta. She has also taught at the University of British Columbia and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. In 1995 Simpson was honoured for receiving one of the best student evaluations that year at the Institute. She currently gives workshops regularly and has mentored a number of developing filmmakers.
The subjects of Simpson’s documentaries range from Canada’s Political Economy, youth and drug addiction, the creation of a national women’s monument remembering the 14 women murdered in the Montreal Massacre, an international peacebuilding mission on the frontlines of war-ravaged Kosovo, to the complexities of offering aid to Africa.
Last fall Simpson returned from giving a joint NFB-UN Habitat workshop in Nairobi, Kenya with young media activists from Slum TV, Hot Sun and The Ghetto Club, three grassroots video groups in Nairobi’s vast slums that have become models of self-empowerment in a society besieged by political disillusionment. Called the “free media”, their work is being shown online and informally throughout communities, involving the Kenyan people in a debate over the future of their country and giving them nonviolent avenues of expression
Mo was recently DOP and location sound recordist on the National Film Board’s Finding Dawn on the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women across Canada. As filmmaker in residence with Fearless City Mobile and W2, she has been exploring the use of mobile phone video technology, including livestreaming, with residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
This spring Simpson was honoured with the Kodak Image Award of Excellence from Women in Film and Television. Over the next year she will be directing, shooting and editing stories for the National Film Board’s GDP, an interactive webdocumentary that will measure the human side of the Canadian economic crisis. Filmmakers and photo essayists across the country will give a voice to the men and women who through resilience and ingenuity have become “change makers” in their communities.
mosimpson@uniserve.com
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