La Séance des Jeunes Réalisateurs

A voir sur la MBC3 tous les vendredis: La Séance des Jeunes Réalisateurs.
Les courts métrages de réalisateurs mauriciens sont enfin diffusés sur la télévision nationale.
Une occasion de voir en quoi consiste notre production filmique locale; de consommer de la fiction et du documentaire purement mauricien.

Nul doute que ces films pionniers comportent des faiblesses (techniques, scénaristiques ou de performance des acteurs); c’est l’apanage de tout pionnier. Il faudra surtout voir quels sont les thèmes qui préoccupent nos créatifs locaux, en quoi consiste notre imaginaire…

Le calendrier: (publié dans Le Mauricien d’hier)
13 octobre : Nani de Jay Bhunjun
20 octobre : Au rythme du séga de Benoît Fleurot
27 octobre : Eros de Wassim Sookia
3 novembre : Au clair de lune de Leslie Athanas
10 novembre : Le jardin des Pamplemousses de Stéphane Bellerose et Lipstick killer de Catherine Canabady
17 novembre : Un nuage de Dominique Merven
24 novembre : Les Piqueuses d’ourite de Laval Plaiche
1er décembre : 8 aprems de Patrice Canabady et The Wims de Frédéric Antoinette
8 décembre : Sabordages salutaires de Denis Vitry
15 décembre : Trahison de Leslie Athanas et A Fleur de peau d’Axelle Tennant
22 décembre : Sudba de Krishna Luchoomun
29 décembre : Tanga de Wassim Sookia

My sado-maso evening

I made it a point to watch two things yesterday on our local television station (must have been in a sado-maso mood!):
(1) the MBC 7.30 news bulletin
(2) the nomad no limit challenge show

It turned out to be quite disastrous for the following reasons:
(1) I was highly unsatisfied with both
(2) Avi scowled at me for imposing the nomad show viewing
(3) Anya & Kyan were in a ‘rioting’ mood and almost broke each other’s neck with their reckless acts

Remarks on the 7.30 news ‘boulletine’ (comme dirait l’autre):

- I missed the very beginning but I did see the end of the first report featuring a philatelist + the Yvan Martial interview by Faycal Caunhye. Yvan Martial is a seasoned journalist who is apparently also a historian. I don’t want to criticise him but the title is a bit overdone; I’d rather use the expression ‘témoin de l’histoire’. Being able to delve into archives and recall some old stories for the masses doesn’t make you a historian…

- There was a ‘défilé’ of ministers; Min Valayden is at the top of the hit parade (appeared at least 4 times in the very same bulletin – must have been very hectic for him yesterday dealing with all those cameramen and reporters!). Seebun came second with two appearances (can someone advise her to be a bit more sober in her dresscode like for instance Sonia Ghandi? She looks a bit too much like she has just popped in back form a Chowthari).

- There was also a ‘défilé’ of pujas, prayers, and preaches. Grandiloquent words like ’sacrifice de soi, cheminement de la vie, code du devoir, valuers familiales’ were poured into our ears accompanied by sad and grim images of utterly bored people attending those ceremonies.

- Old people seem to be forever equated with free meals + official speeches + sega dancers. The cocktail did not seem to inject any more life in them… Anyone ever thought of asking them to actually do the speaking and the dancing themselves. Might have revived them.

About the nomad thing:
- Though the visual look and filming is much better than the MBC productions, there is definitely a big LACK in this show: there is no serious stuff going on!
Viewers did not get any information on the Internet challenges (that’s what it was supposed to be all about, isn’t it?) and so, the whole process was completely obscure and the announcement of the results by Ben Javed totally artificial.
At least in StarAc, the participants get to sing and be evaluated on their performance. Same goes for A la Recherche du nouveau machin-chouette (whose codes were copied by Circus). I was not expecting much from the show but this level of vacuum is particularly astounding.

Is no news good news?

Apart from La Sentinelle naming its ‘mediateurs’ last week, there is not much news about the activities of our local media and their endeavours to set up associations, write codes of ethics and track down initiatives to stifle freedom of the press.

This can be mainly attributed of course to the fact that our local political figures in govt have paused their threats, presumably either because they have ‘d’autres chats a fouetter’ or are too busy touring the world to put Mauritius on the international map.

A note on the setting up of ‘La Sentinelle Complaints Committee’:
Readers have not really been empowered so far as it is unclear how they are supposed to proceed in order to get their complaints registered. I guess we need to give them some more time to figure out how to communicate about this particular part of the process…

Also, given the good implementation of the website for L’express, I would suggest that a corner be set up to receive and accommodate readers’ complaints, as well as give free access to one and all and enable online viewing and follow up of discussions.
Another suggestion could also be the inclusion of forums on the paper’s website to open up space for sensible and free discussion of the articles that have been published, like on Le Monde’s website.

Participative democracy

Heard on France Inter this morning a report about how Segolene Royal (candidate for next year’s presidential elections in France) is trying to promote and use the concept of participatory democracy in her region Poitou-Charentes, and will most probably lay the foundations for it to occur at a national level.

Now, what is participatory democracy? Yet another nice hype-laden expression? A rhetorical find? Maybe or maybe not. In fact, it all depends on how it is really implemented, as for all nice concepts that hold wonderful promises.

Wikipedia provides the following definition:
“Participatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad involvement of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. While etymological roots imply that all governments deserving the name “democracy” would rely on the participation of their citizens (the Greek demos and kratos combine to suggest that “the people rule”), traditional representative democracies tend to limit citizen participation to voting, leaving the main work of governance to a professional political elite. Participatory democracy strives to create opportunities for all members of a political group to make meaningful contributions to decisionmaking, and seeks to broaden the range of people who have access to such opportunities.”

How does Segolene Royal do that? Well, she has set up a programme in her region called ‘budget participatif des lycées’, whereby students, parents, teachers, school administrators and region officials meet and discuss on a regular basis the various ways of using the budget allocated to schools and arrive at forms of consensus. These meetings are complemented by online forums for continuous dialogues.

The underlying principle of the programme is that end-users are the true experts (in a collective way of course) and that each euro must be used in an efficient manner.

It will be interesting to follow how the experiment unfolds as there are definitely some interesting ideas in it.

Alack! When will our local decision-makers ever try similar experiments instead of carrying on with their stupid antics?