Taste Your Freedom blog

Behind the scenes administration and shooting for Taste Your Freedom have continued during recent months keeping me more than busy.  Now we return to the streets and begin in the offices of those who help and work in the streets.

The numbers of homeless do not seem to dwindle, to the contrary, they are growing slowly and the brand of homeless people in the downtown area indicates unending hardship; they are street-hardened homeless in the winter, not the “hey it’s cool to revolt and live in the street because it’s really in my parents’ (or councillor, or parlole officer or otherwise) face” but the type of people who are struggling for survival often in the -worst- of conditions.

Atwater Metro Station Montreal - man sleeps on bench.

The subway is a constant refuge for many.  Montreal commuters and the island transit-commission are, for the most part, very tolerant about the homeless need for any shelter they can find such as the subway.  Unfortunately I have witnessed a few abusive situations created or inflamed by the subway police.  This said most of them appear to be indifferent to most situations and deal as professionals with individuals.  I take the latter to mean that they are actually behaving quite humanely - positions of authority require a certain amount of impartiality but often can and do allow for consideration of other factors above and beyond the job.  I can only hope they will continue to act “outside of the rules” and turn a blind-eye where apparently suitable.  Most people sleeping in the subway are doing just that and harming no one.  Yes, they pose a security hazard in the event of evacuation, but Montrealers being the way they are someone would stop to wake and alert them to the danger - I hope.

Some of the hashest footage will soon be shot as well as some of the most beautiful.  Spring indicates new beginnings and new frontiers.  With this in mind Taste Your Freedom moves toward completion and I will be shooting the intro to the film over the next few weeks.  Watch for our remote crew.  Identify us and be one of the first to wear a TasteYourFreedomTheFilm.com bracelet.

Happy New Year and here’s hoping 2009 - the year of the Ox - brings postive change in this ever-crazy world.  And to that end Taste Your Freedom is moving foreward with a new phase of the project = fundraising.

The past few weeks have seen me getting many things in place - organizing some call it - to carry on with more in-depth and challenging filming, and general creation of the film.  I’m still looking for yet more appropriate score (it has to be right) and am wading through all the submissions- keep them coming, folks.

Shooting and coverage of events related to the film have been keeping me up late too.  Here’s a still from the “Police Life” section of Taste Your Freedom in which a collective of rights organizations leaves a Montreal Town Hall meeting after voicing their concerns and posing questions of the town officials including the Mayor, Gérald Tremblay, and Claude Dauphin who is reponsible for public security in Montreal.

Coalition leaves town hall

I’ve also been burning a bit of midnight oil bringing the interim Taste Your Freedom site up to snuff for now at least.  Releases keep the new site from being launched, something I’m seeing to immediately.  Here’s the most recent opening page which gives you (for now) a 30 minute reportage on a single demonstration.  See the site for all the details.  PG, eh.

Taste Your Freedom interim opening page

Yet again the snow has begun to fall here in Montreal again, this will only be an overnight dusting, and tomorrow the temperature will begin to plummet spelling danger for life on the streets of this island city, damp and frosty it becomes.  “How do you stay warm?” is going to become a standard Taste Your Freedom interview question methinks.

More work on the site, shooting, and fundraising so the intro to the film can be shot all come into focus now so it’s all hands on deck.  Anyone seen a loose P.A. or three?  No doubt my hands will be full over the next few days and so a bit of sleep is in order.  ‘Night all.