Lets get going: Join us!

Launching the Festival

Triple D and Documedia are two complementary sites belong to this Festival programme. Our concept papers have been circulated to various interested parties.

We will also be inviting collaborators from a number of countries to join us and support the development of common interests. The first invitations have been sent to our contacts and friends in the following countries:

• South Korea,
• Russia,
• China and
• India

You are welcome to recommend collaborators to Triple D Festival at any time.

Write to Kalwant Ajimal, the Festival Director and Founder by using the email address provided below:

Kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com

Calling Graduates and Students

CALLING GRADUATES AND SENIOR STUDENTS

Didacticmedia aims to be largely student-led and invites graduates and senior students of film, multimedia, documentary, journalism and communications to join our volunteer engagement programme.

The focus of graduate involvement is to seek early participation as graduates and senior students begin to take part in critical debate, policy and production. Their involvement will be proactive and aimed at giving 10-15 new graduates each year to become voluntary members of the Management Board and new focus groups under supervision. Other graduates and students can get involved in a range of voluntary activities which will give them practical work experience and ample opportunities to stimulate the future development of Triple D by confirming long-term roles in research and development, creating markets, international collaboration, developing networks, writing new and dedicated columns and sections of this interactive site and also join the Didactic Media blog which is managed by Kalwant Ajimal.

As voluntary members of the Management Board, graduates and students will have opportunities to become involved in programme development and dedicated roles from one of the areas identified above. Terms and conditions will apply.

Graduates and students are also invited to visit http://documedia.ning.com  If you wish to join, you have to apply for an invitation.   

Graduates and senior students who wish to join us in any of these capacities should contact me by email. The contacts are

Kalwant Ajimal FRSA

Founder, Didactic Media

The Triple D Festival of Documentary

Email: kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com

Invitation to join Triple D interactive websites

Triple D Festival provides two websites to maintain contacts with producers, audiences, collaborators and partners. The essence of the Festival is dialogue between creative producers, script writers, producers and us, the organisers of Documedia which has been summarised on the site listed below as:

Documentary + Docudrama + Dialogue = Documedia

You are invited to join Documedia as an active member. You will be able to so when an invitation will be sent to you by Kalwant Ajimal the founder and festival director and the creator of the term ‘documedia’. Didacticmedia is an online “festival”- you, us and the producers -three people make a festival!

Join Documedia today and become an active member of The Triple D Festival. Why not take part in the critical debate? Also send in information on a documentary that you may have seen.

Visit our interactive site at http://documedia.ning.com

If you iwsh to become a member, please contact me by clicking the Contacts page above!

MANAGEMENT

FESTIVAL MANAGEMENT

I am delighted to announce that AMRIT BAINS joined Didactica, the Triple D Festival a few months ago as a network partner and has been working with me in developing a comprehensive programme of research and development.  Amrit is a screenwriter and has spent a considerable part of 2009 developing her projects with production companies based in Los Angeles, USA.  Her work is diverse and distinctive with stories that embrace multi-cultural themes. Amrit will be working on programming and festival development.

Amrit has recently launched Anteros Entertainment – a production company with a number of docudramas in development  Further details are provided under ‘Management’ above above or click http://tripledfestival.wordpress.com/management/ to access the information.

I am also pleased to introduce HEMA VORA who is supporting the festival on research and operational work programmes. Hema is a media studies graduate and will support Didactica in multiple roles in research, promotion and organisation.

INVITATION TO GRADUATES IN FILM, DOCUMENTARY AND ‘DOCUMEDIA’:

I welcome enquiries from graduates in media and social sciences to work with us in wide-ranging roles, initially as volunteers and later, subject to funding to join the Triple D Festival team. Regrettably, owing to anticipated wishes of funders and sponsors, employment opportunities are open to UK-based collaborators only.

Please write to me in the first instance, showing Didactica in the subject line. Communication is by email only. Any abuse of facilities will be notified to appropriate parties. Any other approaches may result in deletion of your enquiry or take a longer time. We are committed to responding to every valid enquiry.

Kalwant Ajimal, Founder

email: kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com

 

Inviting Documentary Producers, Festival Directors and Promoters

Docudrama is an ‘enticing’ medium. The views and experiences of successful makers need to reach a wider audience. Documentary appears to have been relegated to television and education. Many people who started out with a sense of mission in using the film and moving image for critical debate have been forced to produce low budget films in order to reach audiences but documentary offers much more, sometimes at an even lower cost. Docudrama can benefit from the very essence of internet enabled communication and more needs to be done to encourage new producers to adopt documentary and docudrama as a medium of choice.

Didactica aims to offer insight, education and festival. Just like the medium that it encourages for adoption, the programme is initially low-budget and self-funded but its ambition is phenomenal both in its scope and its potential benefits. We know from experience that good money does not chase bad projects!

Join us, submit your synopsis for promotion and publication

Didacticmedia – a corruption

Didacticmedia hopes to generate greater interest in not only the Triple D approach to documentary, docudrama and dialogue but also to open the entire programme of development to new graduates from media, film and communications backgrounds and to place all aspects of development on a shared platform of digital inclusion. Mirador has published various papers in this area and its proposals have been well supported by various interest groups including the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.[i]

The rich content of African, Asian and other diverse film sources has also been of interest to the major broadcasters. In the UK Channel 4 has been outstanding in its portrayal of Asian and African film and in featuring the cinema of the five continents.

During the last few years I have wanted to create a platform which would bring together new and emerging forces in film from all over the world but which would also offer opportunities to young people to enter a rich environment for critical debate and to make their presence felt not by offering the money spinning opportunities created by film but by the power of their ideas and their convictions relating to community development and social change. Didactica is a corruption of ‘didactic’ and its focus will be constant – promoting and learning about ‘change’ as perceived and presented by the emergence of powerful docudrama and documentary in the widest meaning of diversity in the classroom, at places of work, in the streets and in the communities of the world. It will aim to educate and inform as much as to entertain.

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[i] Tessa Jowell, the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and currently the Minister for Olympics appointed Kalwant Ajimal to the post of Chair of Culture South East, the cultural consortium for the largest of the English regions. Kalwant was Chair from March 2003 to March 2009 and during the six years initiated major changes in regional approaches to investment in culture and spearheaded the drive to make culture one of the major cornerstones of the economy, an aspect which was well supported by South East Economic Development Agency. A copy of his final report which highlights the achievements of the organisation during his term of office is available on request.

Once upon a Fillum!

Didactica is being launched at a time when there is no known festival or development programme in existence to support diverse documentary, docudrama and dialogue- the Triple Ds, in the United Kingdom. Various communities and arts organisations have been engaged in offering narrowly based festivals, especially to celebrate the South Asian ‘Bollywood’ or the output of Indian film industry as well as the offering of a rich programme of cinema from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. There is immense talent on offer and successful production of a wide range of contributions suit all tastes from these sources of film and moving image for television. However, it is widely acknowledged that Bollywood also imposes a restrictive and short-term dependency culture which does not benefit the development of local aspirations in the United Kingdom.

Working for diverse media interests is not new to us. Indeed, ‘Fillum’ was one of our own festivals and from 1996 to 2001 we were able to make our own contribution to South Asian film and critical debate by promoting it in London and the regions, with a considerable impact in the Eastern Region, supported by substantial funding by the BFI and Screen East. Fillum was a success in developing audiences and in creating pathways for establishing a joint programme involving UK based stakeholders. Festivals which celebrate the Bollywood culture and its phenomenal output cannot be solely accepted as the real vehicles for generating home-grown agenda for audience development, critical debate and engaging local talent in the UK.

Didactic Documedia: Diverse documentary and docudrama

Welcome to a new programme for celebrating the power of didactic ‘documedia’ – docudrama and documentary. Much neglected or taken for granted, these media are central vehicles for the communication; exploiting the moving image for education, entertainment, dialogue and facilitating change – the essence of  didactic action but with a new emphasis on social change.

This is a new journey. It is planned to become very long in its exploration and open in its search for talent and success- of every communicator who uses docudrama and documentary to express powerful ideas for continually inspiring change . It is not for everybody!  However, whenever people argue passionately about issues and challenges, the bottom-line is always ‘the change’ that affects them, inspires them or their target audience. To try to define change is to limit the search for even more new journeys….

The purpose of didactic documedia is to faciliate exchange via online interaction. If we are successful in winning funding in the present climate, we will proceed to run a site based festival in the South East and then in other parts of the country. However, this site will continue to work in its own right.

A key feature of the work is to engage students and to create opportunities for ‘work experience’ – practical project management, joint action in team work, attract new ideas and talent and to create a larger operational base. Graduates and students will be the ambassadors for Triple D festival. Please come on board!

Welcome to ‘Documedia’, a new force for didactic dialogues

Didactica is the name of a new diverse festival of documentary and docudrama. I have also invented the term, DOCUMEDIA, as the total encapsulation of all media that is deployed in the form of documentary and docudrama to facilitate change. Documedia is aimed at empowering producers and audiences and encouraging funders and sponsors to percieve it a powerful media for realising joined-up missions. You will not find it in the dictionary! You are free to use it but just the usual credit would be very nice- Kalwant Ajimal

Triple D Festival refers to the forthcoming events which will celebrate the use of dialogue, documentary and docudrama to achieve social change.

Kalwant Ajimal, Founder               Amrit Bains, Festival Development       Hema Vora, Research and Administration