“Artisan” Mini-Documentary Series

I’m excited to be working on a new and admittedly somewhat ambitious project:  a series of short documentaries examining some jobs in Madagascar’s informal sector.  I plan to describe the work itself, but also spend some time thinking about why these jobs exist in Madagascar (and probably other developing countries), but not elsewhere.

I’ve played around a bit with short documentaries over the years – just for fun – but I’ve always thought it would be fun (if I had a lot of time) to do some more serious work on the untold stories that are all around us – the street kids, the cart-pullers, the people we see every day on the streets.  I decided to take it on when we spoke to a turkey-seller on the street back in June – he was doing everything he could to stop the turkeys from wandering out onto a busy four-lane road, and when he told me he and two friends walked the turkeys from a mile away every day I was hooked.

Unfortunately by the time we went back to him to make the arrangements, he had nearly sold all his turkeys and we realized they were especially for Madagascar’s independence day (June 26).  But we’ve arranged to see him again in November, when he plans to repeat the process for Christmas turkeys.

In the meantime, here are the other episodes I’ve done so far:

Episode 1:  Blacksmith (Mpanefy)

Episode 2:  Brickmaker (mpanao briky)

Episode 3:  Metalsmith (mpanefy firavaka)

Episode 4: Valiha Maker (mpanamboatra valiha)