Posts tagged documentary

The History of Cuss Words Salon’s featured excerpt of Melissa Mohr’s Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing, provides an in depth look at commonly used swear words of the 18th and 19th centuries. According to Mohr, a cuss word is defined by its impact: Along with grammatical flexibility, this figurativeness is the hallmark of a fully obscene word, a word used not as a literal descriptor but to shock, offend, or otherwise carry emotion — a swearword. Some of the popular curse words and phrases from Mohr’s excerpt include the following:  “Arse-opener,” “arse-wedge,” “beard-splitter,” ”chinkstopper,” and ”plugtail” were used to describe the act of ”splitting the woman’s anatomy” or “plugging a hole.” “Bloody” was one of the most popular swear words of the time, but it’s hard to pinpoint its exact origins. It’s assumed that it’s derived from “the adjective bloody as in ‘covered in blood’ or, as the OED proposes, it referred to the habits of aristocratic rabble-rousers at the end of the 17th century, who styled themselves ‘bloods.’” “Breasts,” “bubbies,” and ”diddeys,” were common words for boobs;  ”bushelbubby” specifically referred to a woman with large breasts. “Tit” didn’t catch on until the early 20th century as a variation of ”teat” which was used in the Middle Ages. “Bugger” referred to a person giving anal penetration. “Burning shame” was a term that meant “a lighted candle stuck into the parts of a woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick.”  “Burnt-Arsed whore” was used during the Renaissance and literally meant “infected with venereal disease.” “Fartleberry” is the early version of the modern “dingleberry,” which refers to the fecal matter that hangs from hairs around the butt-hole.  “Gamahuche” meant “mouth on genitals” for both cunnilingus and fellatio.  “Godemiche” was a word imported from France meaning “dildo.”  “Larking” could have meant blow job or the act of “having sex with the man’s penis between the woman’s breasts.” “Lobcock” referred to a large, “dull, inanimate” penis and “pego” was a popular word for dick.  “Monosyllable,” “quim,” “pussy,” “madge,” and “a woman’s commodity” were all names for vagina.  “Nackle-ass” was an adjective that meant “poor, mean, inferior, paltry: applied as a term of contempt to both persons and things indifferently.”  “Rantallion” referred to a scrotum that sags lower than the shaft of a man’s penis. Slang for sexual intercourse included: “roger,” “screw,” and “have your greens.” “Tip the velvet” originally meant “french kiss,” but after a hundred years passed, it also referred to the act of preforming cunnilingus.  “To bagpipe” meant to give a blow job.  FJP: More bloody fun: Nine Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Swear Words. You should also check out, FUCK — the documentary about “fuck’s” origins and uses. If you don’t — it will surely be a “burning shame.” Figuratively, of course. (Let’s hope.) — Krissy Image: Screenshot from The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The History of Cuss Words

Salon’s featured excerpt of Melissa Mohr’s Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing, provides an in depth look at commonly used swear words of the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to Mohr, a cuss word is defined by its impact:

Along with grammatical flexibility, this figurativeness is the hallmark of a fully obscene word, a word used not as a literal descriptor but to shock, offend, or otherwise carry emotion — a swearword.

Some of the popular curse words and phrases from Mohr’s excerpt include the following: 

  • “Arse-opener,” “arse-wedge,” “beard-splitter,” ”chinkstopper,” and ”plugtail” were used to describe the act of ”splitting the woman’s anatomy” or “plugging a hole.”
  • “Bloody” was one of the most popular swear words of the time, but it’s hard to pinpoint its exact origins. It’s assumed that it’s derived from “the adjective bloody as in ‘covered in blood’ or, as the OED proposes, it referred to the habits of aristocratic rabble-rousers at the end of the 17th century, who styled themselves ‘bloods.’”
  • “Breasts,” “bubbies,” and ”diddeys,” were common words for boobs;  ”bushelbubby” specifically referred to a woman with large breasts. “Tit” didn’t catch on until the early 20th century as a variation of ”teat” which was used in the Middle Ages.
  • “Bugger” referred to a person giving anal penetration.
  • “Burning shame” was a term that meant “a lighted candle stuck into the parts of a woman, certainly not intended by nature for a candlestick.” 
  • “Burnt-Arsed whore” was used during the Renaissance and literally meant “infected with venereal disease.”
  • “Fartleberry” is the early version of the modern “dingleberry,” which refers to the fecal matter that hangs from hairs around the butt-hole. 
  • “Gamahuche” meant “mouth on genitals” for both cunnilingus and fellatio. 
  • “Godemiche” was a word imported from France meaning “dildo.” 
  • “Larking” could have meant blow job or the act of “having sex with the man’s penis between the woman’s breasts.”
  • “Lobcock” referred to a large, “dull, inanimate” penis and “pego” was a popular word for dick. 
  • “Monosyllable,” “quim,” “pussy,” “madge,” and “a woman’s commodity” were all names for vagina. 
  • “Nackle-ass” was an adjective that meant “poor, mean, inferior, paltry: applied as a term of contempt to both persons and things indifferently.” 
  • “Rantallion” referred to a scrotum that sags lower than the shaft of a man’s penis.
  • Slang for sexual intercourse included: “roger,” “screw,” and “have your greens.”
  • “Tip the velvet” originally meant “french kiss,” but after a hundred years passed, it also referred to the act of preforming cunnilingus. 
  • “To bagpipe” meant to give a blow job. 

FJP: More bloody fun: Nine Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Swear Words. You should also check out, FUCK — the documentary about “fuck’s” origins and uses. If you don’t — it will surely be a “burning shame.” Figuratively, of course. (Let’s hope.) — Krissy

Image: Screenshot from The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Univisión takes home an IRE award

fjp-latinamerica:

Univisión, the US Spanish-speaking broadcasting company, recently won an IRE award in the Broadcast Video category for their in-depth investigation on the Fast and Furious scandal, carried out by journalists Gerardo Reyes, Tomás Ocaña, Mariana Atencio, María Antonieta Collins, Tifani Roberts, Vytenis Didziulis, Margarita Rabin. 

After giving the award, the IRE judges had this to say:

In a yearlong investigation, hundreds of classified Mexican documents were obtained with great difficulty under the Mexican public access law. A database of 60,000 entries was combined with US government documents to find 57 previously unreported lost weapons under the “Fast and Furious” program and to show the depth in human cost.

Univision detailed previously unknown crimes committed with those weapons - including the shooting of 14 teens at a birthday party – and uncovered similar U.S. programs in Colombia, Honduras and Puerto Rico that also went awry.

As a result of Univision’s diligence, the Mexican Congress asked for economic compensation for the victims of massacres in which guns from the “Fast and Furious” operation were used.

A public debate erupted in Mexico on how much the Mexican government knew. Congress pressed the U.S. Justice Department for more information, and one U..S Congressman called “Rápido y Furioso” the “Holy Grail” that broke the case.

And this is a fragment of Univisión’s original submission:

Although the hundreds of classified us and Mexican government documents weren’t obtained through a FOI request, we believe our process of gathering and comparing comprehensive information from two different governments, resulted in a story that did “open records and open government” in a unique and revealing way that could not be achieved by simply filing a FOI request.

Bonus: The eight-country collaborative investigative effort Plunder in the Pacific was a runner-up in the Multiplatform category, after revealing how Asian, European and Latin American fleets have devastated what was once one of the world’s great fish stocks (jack mackerel). The project was led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, in synergy with Latin American journalists from IDL-Reporteros (Perú) and CIPER (Chile).

Video: Courtesy of Univisión’s news show Aquí y Ahora. 

Loud Silence

Loud Silence in an innovative approach to video journalism made by local people for Africans and an international community. The days of boring news talk shows and static documentaries are over, as we take stories directly from the streets. — Kevin Taylor, Co-Founder, Loud Silence Media.

Loud Silence, a group of Ghanian documentarians, has begun a Kickstarter campaign to help continue telling stories throughout Ghana. 

Here’s some of what they’ve done:

Recently, we have produced pieces on illegal gold mining; discrimination (and murders) against the disabled; amputee football; homes that flood during any rain; waste management and kids who pick through trash for a living; affects of the new oil industry in Ghana; turning garbage into energy; cyber-scammers, and controversial elections and political stories.

Take a look at their Kickstarter and the trailer they’ve created. It’s a good demonstration of the quality and subject matter of their work, and what they’re trying to accomplish within the Ghanian media environment.

FJP: Getting behind local, independent media is important and it would be fantastic to push them well beyond their $12,000 goal.

You can also learn more about them and view their work on their Web site.

Images: Selected stills from the Loud Silence Web site.

Blowing up the Death Star: An Inside Job

An examination of some questionable events and circumstances leading up to the destruction of the Death Star, through the eyes of an amateur investigative journalist within the Star Wars galaxy. The focus is mainly on the connections between the people who created and operated the Death Star and those responsible for destroying it. — Graham Putnum

Child Marriage: South Sudan

humanrightswatch:

This visually stunning short film tells the story of child marriage in South Sudan. According to government statistics, close to half (48 percent) of South Sudanese girls between 15 and 19 are married, with some marrying as young as age 12.

Read more after the jump.

FJP: Chilling. “This girl is the property of the family… If she still refuses [to get married], we will beat her and force her to get married.

Now Showing: Reportero

Last summer we interviewed Bernardo Ruiz, the director of Reportero, a documentary that follows the crime and drug war reporting of a Tijuana-based newsweekly called Zeta.

The hour-long film gets its PBS premiere on POV this Monday January 7.

Via POV:

In Mexico, more than 50 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime. As the drug war intensifies and the risks to journalists become greater, will the free press be silenced?

For our interviews with Bernardo, see here.

More important, tune in to POV Monday. A full description of the film is here and includes a background on Mexican press freedom over the last 25 years.

horaciogaray:

CLOUDS Interactive Documentary – Exploring creativity through code.

FJP: We’re sold, “People across the planet are dreaming together… it’s like experiencing a documentary in a video game environment.”

Witness: Juárez. In praise of war photographers fjp-latinamerica: HBO Docs is releasing a 4-part series on war photojournalism around the world, two of them located in Latin America (Ciudad Juárez, México and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).  Journalist Mike Hale introduces the Juárez episode, via The New York Times: “Witness: Juarez,” the first in a series of four HBO documentaries about contemporary war photographers, is the visual equivalent of a fast-paced duet, like Mozart for still camera and video camera rather than violin and viola. The photographer Eros Hoagland and the cinematographer Jared Moossy travel the deadly streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in tandem, and our view jumps between their lenses; their photographs and moving images echo and amplify one another. The half-hour “Juarez,” on Monday night, is a bracing, at times mesmerizing introduction to the “Witness” series, a project of the filmmaker Michael Mann and the documentarian David Frankham, who directed three of the films. (Mr. Frankham’s contributions are “Juarez” and “Rio,” about Mr. Hoagland, and “South Sudan,” with the French photojournalist Véronique de Viguerie; Abdallah Omeish directed “Witness: Libya,” next week’s installment, which features Michael Christopher Brown.) Mr. Hoagland, a freelancer who works frequently for The New York Times, tracks down the scenes of drug-related murders in Ciudad Juárez with the help of a Mexican photographer, Guillermo Arias, and also embeds with the Mexican police, a practice he defends as “a free ride to a place we couldn’t go alone because we’d be killed.” He offers practical tips — “You don’t want to arrive too soon, because the gunmen are still going to be there” — as well as philosophical guidelines. After he and Mr. Moossy (who photographed all four documentaries) race to the scene of a shooting and film the victim as he staggers out of his car, calling for help and dying on the street as soldiers and police officers stand by, Mr. Hoagland says: “I wasn’t there to mourn for him. I wasn’t there to console his family. I wasn’t there to — I was there to document it. It’s a piece of history.” FJP: A few weeks ago, we asked this question: ‘Can photojournalism erase Ciudad Juarez’s bad reputation?’ Image: Juárez, via HBO Docs.

Witness: Juárez. In praise of war photographers

fjp-latinamerica:

HBO Docs is releasing a 4-part series on war photojournalism around the world, two of them located in Latin America (Ciudad Juárez, México and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). 

Journalist Mike Hale introduces the Juárez episode, via The New York Times:

“Witness: Juarez,” the first in a series of four HBO documentaries about contemporary war photographers, is the visual equivalent of a fast-paced duet, like Mozart for still camera and video camera rather than violin and viola. The photographer Eros Hoagland and the cinematographer Jared Moossy travel the deadly streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in tandem, and our view jumps between their lenses; their photographs and moving images echo and amplify one another.

The half-hour “Juarez,” on Monday night, is a bracing, at times mesmerizing introduction to the “Witness” series, a project of the filmmaker Michael Mann and the documentarian David Frankham, who directed three of the films. (Mr. Frankham’s contributions are “Juarez” and “Rio,” about Mr. Hoagland, and “South Sudan,” with the French photojournalist Véronique de Viguerie; Abdallah Omeish directed “Witness: Libya,” next week’s installment, which features Michael Christopher Brown.)

Mr. Hoagland, a freelancer who works frequently for The New York Times, tracks down the scenes of drug-related murders in Ciudad Juárez with the help of a Mexican photographer, Guillermo Arias, and also embeds with the Mexican police, a practice he defends as “a free ride to a place we couldn’t go alone because we’d be killed.”

He offers practical tips — “You don’t want to arrive too soon, because the gunmen are still going to be there” — as well as philosophical guidelines. After he and Mr. Moossy (who photographed all four documentaries) race to the scene of a shooting and film the victim as he staggers out of his car, calling for help and dying on the street as soldiers and police officers stand by, Mr. Hoagland says: “I wasn’t there to mourn for him. I wasn’t there to console his family. I wasn’t there to — I was there to document it. It’s a piece of history.”

FJP: A few weeks ago, we asked this question: ‘Can photojournalism erase Ciudad Juarez’s bad reputation?’

Image: Juárez, via HBO Docs.

Photographing the Invisible Marcellus Shale Documentary Project is a collaborative effort by photographers to document the effects of fracking throughout Pennsylvania. Its director considers it a modern-day equivalent to the 1935-1944 Farm Security Administration mission that sent photographers across the United States to document the challenges of rural poverty. A profile by the New York Times though gets to a singular difficulty: “The problem facing [the] photographers… is that what they wish to describe cannot be seen — an invisible gas buried deep underground.”  Solution? Focus on people, places and processes. Via the Times: The group’s photographs depict a heavy industrial process scattered across a rural landscape: amid miles of lush green forest or farmland, suddenly there is a shaved patch. Atop the clearing is a battery of drilling equipment: a tall derrick, bright klieg lights and lined troughs full of chemical wastewater. In some photographs, a long, steel pipeline snakes through the frame. In others, the flare from a drill rig lights the night sky. There are pictures of people, too: farmers who leased their land for drilling, homeowners with enough methane in their groundwater to light a tap on fire; and here and there, an industry employee. Image: A natural gas pipeline under construction in Franklin Township, by Noah Addis, via the New York Times.

Photographing the Invisible

Marcellus Shale Documentary Project is a collaborative effort by photographers to document the effects of fracking throughout Pennsylvania. Its director considers it a modern-day equivalent to the 1935-1944 Farm Security Administration mission that sent photographers across the United States to document the challenges of rural poverty.

A profile by the New York Times though gets to a singular difficulty: “The problem facing [the] photographers… is that what they wish to describe cannot be seen — an invisible gas buried deep underground.” 

Solution? Focus on people, places and processes. Via the Times:

The group’s photographs depict a heavy industrial process scattered across a rural landscape: amid miles of lush green forest or farmland, suddenly there is a shaved patch. Atop the clearing is a battery of drilling equipment: a tall derrick, bright klieg lights and lined troughs full of chemical wastewater. In some photographs, a long, steel pipeline snakes through the frame. In others, the flare from a drill rig lights the night sky. There are pictures of people, too: farmers who leased their land for drilling, homeowners with enough methane in their groundwater to light a tap on fire; and here and there, an industry employee.

Image: A natural gas pipeline under construction in Franklin Township, by Noah Addis, via the New York Times.

Google’s Online Culture Museum The Google Cultural Institute has gone live with 42 online exhibitions that span the 20th century. Via the Daily Mail: Google have teamed up with the world’s museums for a massive update to their online ‘cultural institute’ that offers users the chance to learn about some of the major figures and events of the past century. The latest additions to the Google Cultural Institute archives, available to view from today, are intended as an online educational resource to preserve history in a place that is accessible to people when they need it. Major world events like D-Day, the Holocaust and the fight against Apartheid are described with a mixture of photos, historical account and contemporary quotes. Image: Screenshot, Nelson Mandela Prison Years, 1962-1990, via Google Cultural Institute.

Google’s Online Culture Museum

The Google Cultural Institute has gone live with 42 online exhibitions that span the 20th century.

Via the Daily Mail:

Google have teamed up with the world’s museums for a massive update to their online ‘cultural institute’ that offers users the chance to learn about some of the major figures and events of the past century.

The latest additions to the Google Cultural Institute archives, available to view from today, are intended as an online educational resource to preserve history in a place that is accessible to people when they need it.

Major world events like D-Day, the Holocaust and the fight against Apartheid are described with a mixture of photos, historical account and contemporary quotes.

Image: Screenshot, Nelson Mandela Prison Years, 1962-1990, via Google Cultural Institute.

Syrian Documentarian Missing

Via Screen Daily:

Syrian film producer and founder of the pan-Arab DOX BOX Film Festival Orwa Nyrabia is believed to have been arrested by Syrian authorities.

Nyrabia, 34, disappeared on Thursday evening (Aug 23) at Damascus airport where he was due to have boarded a flight for Cairo.

“According to Egyptian Airlines, he did not board the plane, which indicates that he was arrested by the Syrian authorities at the airport,” his family said in a statement.

Nyrabia, who studied film production in France, is the co-founder of Damascus-based production company Proaction Film and the documentary-focused DOX BOX Film Festival alongside Diana El-Jeiroudi.

Here are some of Lawrence Wright’s comments on the disappearance, via the New Yorker:

I had the good fortune at the time to meet Orwa Nyrabia (also transcribed Nairabiya). He is a big, ironic, bold spirit, whose jolly nature seemed perversely at odds with the grimly repressive atmosphere inside that country…

…Orwa was one man who quietly stood against the Syrian police state. He was not a revolutionary but he was an independent filmmaker, which inevitably placed him in jeopardy. In this brutalized society, he was also a person who still held onto joy and hope, qualities that are hunted down in Syria by forces dedicated to suffocating the best in human nature…

…So many have died in Syria already—more than thirty thousand, according to U.N. figures. More than two hundred thousand refugees have fled into neighboring countries. I wish that Orwa were among them. Instead, he is likely one of the tens of thousands who have been detained by the regime—including four hundred children who were tortured, according to UNICEF.

In the video above, Lebanese filmmaker Mahmoud Kaabour calls out the Syrian government, saying, “We will not sit down for the loss of a person like Orwa.”

Linotype: The Film

If you’re in Hartford, CT this evening…

Youth Journalism International:

Exciting news! In a special collaboration this month, Youth Journalism International and the Mark Twain House & Museum will be showing Linotype: The Film, as a fundraiser for YJI and the museum on Thursday, July 26. 

Linotype: The Film, is a fascinating feature-length documentary filmed in part at the Twain House. It centers on the linotype machine used by printers for generations. It was an early rival of Mark Twain’s Paige Compositor, the machine that Twain believed would make him rich, but instead led him to financial ruin. Admission is by donation, with proceeds going to YJI and the Mark Twain House & Museum.

FJP: This does look pretty neat. Unfortunately we missed the NY screenings earlier this year, but there are some others coming up in Florida, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Oregon, so check them out if you’re in the area!

The Newspaper That Doesn’t Hold Back

Above is an FJP interview with Bernardo Ruiz, director of the documentary Reportero, on the making of the film. Last week we posted an interview with him about violence against journalists in Mexico:

Since 2006, 48 journalists in Mexico have been killed, but even this is a conservative estimate, Ruiz says. Over the past 3 years, Mexico has reached number 8 on CPJ’s impunity index, which records the number of unsolved murders of journalists around the world. 

The film, both chilling and riveting, follows Seminario Zeta, a hard-hitting investigative weekly newspaper based in Tijuana. Ruiz takes us through the history of the paper’s founding in 1980, during the PRI era when Mexico’s authoritarian and repressive government was intolerant of any criticism. Despite this, Jesús Blancornelas, a journalist fired from five papers for his gutsy editorial stance, decided the only way to practice honest, investigative journalism was to create a paper run by journalists, free of any governmental or corporate interests.

The paper was published in the United States, where Blancornelas had been exiled, and his wife would take pages across the border to edit two or three times a day. To this day, it is still printed in California and then imported into Mexico—an expensive way to ensure freedom of expression.

The film follows the staff of Zeta through its history and over the last few years in Mexico, building a nuanced, shocking portrait of what life for Mexican journalists is like. Ruiz takes us through process of reporting each narco story, the steps taken to armor cars, security measures taken against threats faced by reporters, and the murders of colleagues. The film is filled with photographs from Zeta’s early days, to present day murders and attacks.

FJP takeaway: Freedom of expression is a practice you choose. Taking what precaution against danger they can—and threats in stride—the staff of Zeta prove that the only way to guarantee freedom of expression is to reach for it with all your might, take risks, and never give up.

“You could see our writers crying as they typed,” says Zeta co-director Adel Navarro of a murder attempt on Blancornelas. “Because our leader was fighting for his life.”

More: See the trailer here. Follow the Reportero Project here.

humanrightswatch:

REPORTERO is one of the many amazing films being shown at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival this year.

The film follows veteran reporter Sergio Haro and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana, Mexico-based weekly, as they dauntingly ply their trade in what has become one of the most deadly places in the world to be a journalist.

Since the paper’s founding in 1980, two of the paper’s editors have been murdered and the founder viciously attacked. Despite the attacks, the paper has continued its singular brand of aggressive investigative reporting, frequently tackling dangerous subjects that other publications avoid, such as cartels’ infiltration of political circles and security forces.

Human Rights Watch has documented an alarming rise in attacks and threats against journalists and human rights defenders in the context of Mexico’s “war on drugs,” virtually none of which are adequately investigated. Human Rights Watch’s most recent report on Mexico—Neither Rights Nor Security—documents killings, disappearances, and torture committed by security forces in five of the Mexican states most-affected by drug-related violence, including Baja California, where Zeta is published. Several of the cases of torture documented by Human Rights Watch in Tijuana were covered in the pages of Zeta.

FJP: If you’re in New York, the Human Rights Watch film festival runs from June 14 to June 28. Information about this and other films is here.