1. Did I like India?

2. What was my favorite part of India? and

3. What did I think of India and its people?

I said, “yes, I liked India.” and that “I didn’t have any favorite parts of India yet, seeing as how I hadn’t been many places.” This answer did not translate well, so I just answered the city where I found myself - “Allahabad.” And to the last question, I answered that “I thought Indians were welcoming, warm and open.”

The journalist looked at me blankly.

He didn’t understand my english, so I tried to explain myself in other ways - “You know, open, warm, generous, giving, honest…” and apparently the only word that rang a bell was “honest” so now the headline reads something like…

“UNIVERAL DIGITAL LIBRARY IS A VEHICLE TO DISSEMINATE THE ANCIENT TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF INDIA;
ISABELLE ADMIRES INDIAN’S HONESTY”

Who knew my opinion on mattered so much? Enjoy the pictures…

Shooting at the conference…

The entire conference team, more or less. As you can see, I am one of the tallest. As usual.

Bindi and all, drinking Indian tea, being pictured entirely too much

The journalist in question who got my answer wrong -

(A fist? What?)

and with a heavy grace, it grabs a branch and heaves itself into a tree - growling loudly. My jaw drops. It’s a baboon, in the middle of the city.

Furiously looking out of the window for the next two hours makes me realize monkeys of more than one sort are common here in Delhi. So are cows, which are considered sacred and hold up to 85 gods. Left to their own devices in the city streets, they chew on what is available to eat: trash. Their big dark eyes stare at me as I walk past; I imagine staring into the eyes of divine beings, so I stare back.

“Hello?” (Those gods must be crowded in there.) “Hey, I’m Isabelle, nice to meet you…Hi?”

The cow and I have locked eyes together for what I thought was a special moment, but, fat and unbothered, it waddles over to a pile of street garbage and starts to munch. The irony (sacred cow eating plastic wrappers) doesn’t escape me but I am too polite to ask if the contradiction strikes anyone else – perhaps there is no free lunch even for the gods.

Speaking of Gods, there are more than 330 million gods in the Hindu religion. Holy cow! Literally! I’m starting to learn more about Hinduism and its vast differences from the other two major religions I’ve been exposed to (Christianity, Judaism). Suddenly all those Krishna chanters in the city streets of Ann Arbor, Washington D.C., New York, and countless other cities I’ve been to are put into context. I actually know who Krishna is now (a divine being representing love/a charmer/a playboy/don juan/Casanova) and I know why they worship him (something about how he represents love, the purpose of life). I’ve been offered a book detailing Krishna’s philosophies, so I plan to convert in the near future. My days are numbered, soon I’ll be shaving my curls - they are up for grabs, OBO. No, but in all seriousness, I look forward to reading more about him, and I am glad to have finally enquired more into a group I have always considered a cult. This is what travel is supposed to do - debunk stereotypes and let you get to know a culture intimately.

Heading out of Delhi, I visited some temples representing a few of these gods (including Krishna) in the forgotten town of Khajuraho, India. After an economic downturn, it lay fallow to the world for 1000 years, until a British explorer stumbled upon its 27 extremely “unique” temples. I wish I could have seen the expression on his face. Temples upon temples graced with figurines practicing the kama sutra abound. Positions requiring an unprecedented agility modern man has certainly lost are set in stone, 1000 years strong. The eroticism in the sculptures is acclaimed, yet I doubt that was the effect they were going for 1000 years ago. Full bodied men and women gaze out of stone, symbols of ultimate beauty in both acts of love and daily life. It is said they were meant to remind worshippers to leave their desires outside - so to enter the temple desireless. Only in this way could they be open to truth and enlightenment.

I hear tourists snickering behind me that this is 1000 year old porn. Instead, I find the temples refreshing – why impose our puritanical views to every corner and time period of this world? Rejoice that at least one culture was able to openly incorporate something into their daily act of worship that is normally on the verge of being taboo. There is something so human about these sculptures, an accidental documentation of love, sex, and sensuality. Though some features are exaggerated (the eyes, the breasts), the proportions of the body are correct. Even the slight curve of the stomach, the calves, the biceps are well represented. And that we are still up to the same kind of thing 1000 years ago gives me perspective that we are all just human after all, and 1000 years from now, if we haven’t blown ourselves up, and asteroids have charted their courses out of our way, we will be up to the same, exact… activities.

Love,
Isabelle

The news I was so nervous for finally came, with no little anticipation: OBAMA WON!

My next president will be just another human being, not a messiah, but I am proud to have voted for a human being with such potential to lead with forethought, complexity, honesty, humanity, strength, and kindness. He will invariably have to make compromises to achieve higher goals, but he will also invariably be one of the most intelligent presidents we have ever had, though intelligence does not begin to describe why he will be an amazing president.

I am so proud and excited to be living in America.

If anyone has any reactions they’d like to share with me on the ground (in America or anywhere in the world) please send me your thoughts. I sit here longing to be home to share the excitement.

Much love,
Isabelle

1.    THE DR: The background hum of my work has been the Dominican Republic documentary, something which I am still working on. Obviously, my trip in August upset quite a few assumptions I had made about certain characters I had thought I had previously understood. I’m rebalancing, translating, editing. I set deadlines, but then opportunities come up, such as…

2.    TATTOOS: I have written a book proposal, and designed a mock-up for a photography book I’d like to publish, called A Canvas of Flesh: The Untold Tales Behind Tattoos. It is a first-hand documentary account of the reasons and personal stories people have behind their tattoos – instead of focusing on the art alone. Pretty fascinating stuff. The stories I’ve collected are wild. Stuff like: one 28-year-old Detroit native with metal caps on his teeth bares his forearm to me and reveals some black patches. It looks like a botched tattoo. The he tells me they are footprints of his dead baby twins. I’m submitting to agents right now to see who’s interested. Next up, straight to the publishers.

3.    INDIA/QATAR: The last, but definitely not the least, is that I’m on my way to India and Qatar. I’m doing a promotional documentary for the Universal Digital Library, a project and organization based out of Carnegie Mellon University. They are flying me out to India for their annual conference on the issues and breakthroughs of digitizing books, and then I’m going to Qatar to film the documentary at the Heritage Library. I’ve got pages more to explain, so I’ll keep it short and vague today and expound on the upcoming blog posts.

Please send me your address if you’d like a personal postcard!

I’ll have pictures posted as I go along, and I’ll always provide links to my blog. If you have any comments/questions, you can either post them on the blog or email me. I love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate.

Finally: IF ANYONE HAS ANY SORT OF CONNECTION OR KNOWS A BOOK AGENT OR PUBLISHER PLEASE PASS ME THE INFORMATION!!!

All my love
Isabelle

It was early in May and I was trying to finish editing the documentary I started last summer about people living from a landfill in the Dominican Republic. Some of you may know more about this project than others. I realized I needed more footage, the kind which I had just *not* been able to get the year before because of a lack of connections, and a lack of trust from the community. The year that had elapsed since I went had opened more doors, however, and I decided to go back and see what I could get.

I have been keeping up with events in the area by calling a few contacts and asking for any updates or news they had. My best source does not own a telephone, and I have to call the colmado (small neighborhood store) across the street from his house. They shout his name across the street until he comes for the phone. Apparently the government filled in the dump with dirt to abate the smoke, and they bought some new trash trucks. “They are bright green and orange,” Jose said. So some of the smoke is gone, but not much else has changed. “Are you sure?” I asked, aware of all the plans the government had told me were going into action this year. It didn’t sound right. But I wanted to document how this had effected the lives of the people.

Upon my arrival, I indeed noticed how much better the smoke was. My arms and face didn’t go black anymore when I walked through the dump. But the essential problem of the dump hasn’t been addressed: there is a lot of trash, it’s not going away, and they need a place to put it. The trashflow is not being tackled on the front end: for example, reducing packaging materials, or, say, consumer recycling in homes. Oh yeah, and the buzos are as disempowered, poor, dirty, uneducated as ever. They have NO opportunities. There has been a lot of money thrown at the situation and very, very little has been done that can be accounted for. The money the sindico (mayor) has supposedly allotted for the project (75 million pesos) has produced green-and-orange trucks and one-time-dirt-fill. That’s about it. It’s a fascinating case study of politics, and also incredibly frustrating.

The situation stinks. The trash is putrid. Kids dirty with slime and black ash from head to toe still work in the dump. If the buzos find any food worth eating, they stuff their mouths straight from the ground. Poverty abounds, multiplying with every child born, misery in every nook and cranny. At a political level, the situation is also rotten. It has become a political battleground of wills, possible (definite) corruption, with the buzos lost somewhere in the middle. In fact, almost no one think about the buzos. They are nonexistent. Undocumented, illiterate, unskilled, they have no political power. They are ghosts in a system of grand corruption. Hey, guess what? I made a documentary about ghosts.

But I really enjoyed my stay there - I got to reconnect with all the different characters I had interviewed last year (Santos, Ignacio, Bedona, Diego, Ramon, Chivito, Pablo Esteben, etc…) and I also interviewed a host of more official characters such as the mayor himself (Jose Sued), the subsecretary of the environment (Ernesto Rayna), two doctors who have done health studies on the population surrounding the dump (Arsenio Estevez, Juan Rosario), two journalists (Maximo Laureano, Miguel Ponce) and more.

I feel like I really have a complete set of tools to finish the documentary now, a lot more information, and a better grasp on the situation. I also have some exceedingly juicy footage of the dump.. I got right into the trash along with them.

It’s a scandal, what’s happening. I don’t have a lot of power to change any of it, but I hope I can make some waves. Now comes the editing.

Oh and a big shout out to Ernesto, who was my translator. I can speak Spanish well, but when it comes to communicating complex ideas (”What do you think of the cycle of poverty that is perpetuated by the illiteracy and lack of political will from the state?”) I need a lot of help. He really enabled the trip and made all the interviews come alive.

More soon. Photos will be up shortly.
Besos,

Isabelle

1. *** Finishing the DR “100 Fires: Living from a Landfill” documentary ***

2. Starting Drew De Four’s “music on the road” documentary

3. Finishing the screenplay for the movie “Confession”, featuring argentine tango.

4. Researching for the “Plastics” documentary. I’m collecting material for this, and hope to write up a treatment by the end of the summer/fall so I can get funding secured by next summer.

Other than those 4 main projects, I have a few smaller ones that need polishing… Polynesian Dancers short, Will Copeland short, Vietnam> the 4th poem, Iraq Veterans short.

Time - the most precious commodity. I often have wished I could create time, as if it was some kind of substance that could be made, pulled, stretched… elastic as it is even in its regularity (some hours pass in minutes, some minutes stretch on as hours), I wish I could mold it. As it is, I live intensely and productively. I could wish for nothing more.

Abrazos

Isabelle

A redux version of my film “Mexico: Chasing the American Dream” is being shown at the New Filmmakers Latino Anthology Screening tomorrow night (wednesday May 7) at 6pm, at 32 Second Avenue @ 2nd Street (at a theater called Anthology Film Archives). See below.

I’d love to see all your faces and reconnect… and I’m still hunting for a one night stay on a couch

Much love,
Isabelle

Update: have scored a place to stay. Thanks for the offers!

NEWFILMMAKERS is America’s National Screening Series.
NEWFILMMAKERS NY screens Weekly at Anthology Film Archives, one of the leading theaters in New York City, located at 32 Second Avenue @ 2nd Street.

Admission for the entire evening in New York and in Los Angeles is still only $5.

MAY 7TH
NewFilmmakers & NewLatino Filmmakers
Edwin Pagan, Series Director / Curator

6:00PM DOCUMENTARIES

THE GUARANI MBYA NOMADS OF THE ATLANTIC RAINFOREST
Marcia/Norbert Gomes deOliveira Suchanek, Writer, Directors

MEXICO: CHASING THE AMERICAN DREAM
Isabelle Carbonell, Director, Producer

SHIKASHIKA
Stephen Hyde, Director

7:00PM SHORT FILMS

RED PRINCESS BLUES: THE ANIMATED PREQUEL
Alex Ferrari, Creator, Writer, Director / Dean Cregan, Director, Producer

COOKIE
Francisco Ordonez, Writer, Director

OUTLOOK
Derek Velez Partridge, Writer - Director

8:00PM FIRST FEATURE

BUSCANDO A MIGUEL
Juan Fisher, Writer, Director
Miguel is a young Colombian politician blinded by his own privilege. Victim of a violent attack, he loses his memory and finds himself living in a very different world, a world inhabited precisely by the kind of people he had once.

9:45PM SECOND FEATURE

SALSA LESSONS
Antonio de la Cruz, Director
Two people meet by chance in New York City. Pedro is a salsa instructor and Rosa wants to learn how to dance.