Tell Me a Story Mr. Cloud Project, August 28-30, 2006
“An Environmental Multi-Media Video Art Film for Children by the Children”
August 28-30, 2006
2006 Children’s Biodiversity Mini Earth Camp

The first of its kind biodiversity art film project for children initiated by Enigmata was conducted in Camiguin Island on in collaboration with Patrimoine Sans Frontieres, Paris, France as main sponsor. The participants of the 2006 mini-earth camp were thirty six students and three advisers from three local elementary schools namely; Sagay Central School, Anito Elementary School and Balbagon Elementary School.

“Tell me a story Mr. Cloud…” project is the offshoot of PSF “Culture of Remembrance” at the outbreak of Chernobyl, Belaruz accident which has caused serious problems in the lives of people. As a consequence of this environmental catastrophe, a project was launched to give voice to the affected communities and to restore solidarity with the inhabitants of the contaminated areas.

Enigmata was the counterpart organization in the Philippines among other participating countries like Belaruz and Lebanon. This is a very unique project which was the first of its kind and was limited to small group to be able to get the maximum output during workshops and outdoor shoot. The film entitled “Earth Song” and “Trash Can…” were filmed entirely in Camiguin Island with the help of expert consultants from Japan and Enigmata artists as facilitators, directors and screenplay writer.

The output of the visual workshops were collected for possible entry to The 14th Kanagawa Biennial World Children’s Art Exhibition. The output of the poetry workshop is now compiled into a “River of Words” poetry booklet which will be sent to the US secretariat to become part of the 2007 poetry contest.

The three day scheduled workshop was short of filming important parts, hence another two days spill over was maximized in filming more scenes with local children. The whole duration of the workshop was conducted in Enigmata Treehouse, while the filming where mostly done in the outdoors such as in the rivers, springs, falls, forest, white island sand bar, white sand beach, black sand beach, mangroves, ports, churches, shorelines, trees, garbage, labyrinth and treehouse.

The workshops were conducted using various creative theater and improvisational techniques. The facilitators were a team of musician, film makers, poets, visual artists and theater performers. The day’s workshop normally ends with a film or a slide showcase on biodiversity; a documentary film on “Nilasong Buhay” by The Correspondence; The Journey of Life by Moby’s Video; On Earth As It Is In Heaven by Animo Puppet Theater from Bacolod City; and the award winning Iranian movie Colours of Paradise. The highlights of the Earth Camp is Waway Saway’s concert, Pompet’s Villaraza’s writing and healing workshops, Greg Naduma and Felimon Blanco’s theater workshops, Rosalie’s Zerrudo creative group dynamics and Soni Kum’s film making with her mini-DV NTSC format..

During the outdoor workshops, special activities were conducted as a way of making nature as the most exciting classroom where children learn from hands-on experience. In the forest, several worksheet project were included such as a vegetation inventory, fantasy search, tree identification, and tree leaf bud identification. In the water areas, participants were given worksheets for river inventory and observation card for identification of species in the rivers and falls. The reading materials on forest and water including activity sheets were taken from the reference book published by Grupo Aprender con La Naturaleza (2003). A Day of Adventure in the Forest. Reading materials were researched regarding the Guimaras oil spill from the Greenpeace website. A primer on “Water for Life” served as one reference material from the “Bantay Kinaiyahan,” a publication of Interface Development Interventions, Inc., Davao City. A primer on environmental issues were downloaded from the web regarding the Chernobyl, Belaruz Accident and an article on Asian Brown Cloud Poses Global Threat as reference materials.

The two short films will be produced in DVD together with a booklet and translated in four languages; original language, French, Russian and English. The presentation of the DVD “Stories of a cloud” is scheduled to be shown in Belarus, in Braguine, in 2007. PSF will provide a copy of the booklet and DVD to each child, every participating artist and school.