Documentary makers denounce ethical Xmas gifts

UK. (SANEPR.com) November 27, 2007 -- The films which premiere on December 16th were shot in Ghana and form the final works in Chew on it’s Pricking the Missionary Position series. These films challenge Western assumptions and suggest many NGO campaigns are about making us feel good rather than helping our peers.

Director Ceri Dingle said today: “These documentaries provide salutary lessons in the run up to Xmas and suggest we should ditch the ethical items in our shopping trolley. If we want to help our peers, we need to think big and hand over the money. Everyone is getting in on the ethical shopping spree idea and the list of items has hit an all time low. Oxfam’s a share in a boar hole, build a shack for a bog or a pile of dung are a disgrace and Tesco’s modernise a mud hut are totally degrading and assume our peers want to continue to scrape by on the land and cannot be trusted to do their own Christmas shopping.”

Keeping Africa Small examines Western NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) practices in Ghana, West Africa. However well meaning NGOs and aid agencies may be, the film draws out Ghanaian’s dissatisfaction and disgust. As David Ampofo says in the film “It is a sad reflection for mankind that when there are rockets going to the moon, they are busy preparing a rope pump for people to fetch water.”

I'm a subsistence farmer... get me out of here! reveals the reality of rural subsistence life for people in Ghana –its mud huts and mind-numbing toil, growing just enough to feed your family. A starkly different view to western romantic notions of simple, tranquil, close to-nature existence it suggests subsistence farming is a prison sentence not a life style choice.

Producer Viv Regan adds “Who decided that Ghanaians needs are so basic. This year’s Xmas gift catalogues are shocking and show we still think our peers in the poorest parts of the world are oh so different from us. They are not.”

The premieres and launch event for these two films will be held at:
7pm on Sunday 16th December
at the Rich Mix Cinema
35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1

Full details of these films, press kits and trailers are available at http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/keepingafricasmall/ and http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/subsistencefarmer/
For interviews, further details and press passes phone Ceri or Viv on 020 8985 5435 or email world.write@btconnect.com
Tickets include wine reception, screenings and celebration with Ghanaian drummers and DJ and the public may purchase tickets from http://www.justgiving.com/ghanafilmpremieres