How Studio Birthplace took on corporate greed and human indifference - Shots
Earth Defender directors Sil van der Woerd and Jorik Dozy have been interviewed by Shots, featuring co-director Kynan Tegar.
"Shot entirely on location in Indonesia, co-directed by an Indigenous filmmaker, and starring members of the Iban community, Studio Birthplace directing duo, Jorik Dozy and Sil Van der Woerd, explain how their new project is at once a music promo, a labour of love and a crucial weapon in the fight against environmental destruction."
Some excerpts from the interview below:
Shots: The film is both shocking and educating, but also beautiful; is it hard to find the balance between those elements?
Sil van der Woerd: That’s kind of the bread and butter of what we do at Studio Birthplace. It’s always to try and find ways - original, innovative ways - to combine crafted filmmaking and visual effects, which are things we really love, with important storytelling and messaging. We also realise that this doesn’t happen so much, especially in the NGO or the green space.
Shots: Can you tell us about your co-director, Kynan Tegar; what was his involvement, and what was the process of getting him onboard?
Jorik Dozy: Like we said, we did a lot of research on how to tell this story, and we started looking at Indigenous and local communities who have either fought the fight for their land rights, or are currently fighting it. We stumbled on the Iban community, which is where Kynan is from, and as Sil said, they are a success story because they’ve managed to gain the land rights and they really understand the values of what they hold, so they take care of the land. Kynan is from this community and he is a filmmaker on top of that, so he was telling stories about his community.
The full article can be read here.
Learn More:
Watch 'Earth Defender' here.
