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Video gives voice to victims of austerity
KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) - “This budget I find is discriminatory against people with disabilities. They only see me as a $600 cheque, and they wait for me not to be that.” John Cox, disability activist.
John Cox is one of the fifteen people who appear in this short video about this year's provincial budget.
Apart from Cox, the video features people living in poverty, students, people from the labour movement, film workers, and environmental activists.
The people who are interviewed talk about how how budget cuts negatively affect their lives, and the lives of the people they advocate for.
The video is made by professional film makers, and it shows. It's fast-paced and informative.
The notion of a video like this was first raised about two weeks ago when activists of various backgrounds met to discuss how to fight a Liberal budget that hurt so many Nova Scotians.
Quite a few film workers affected by the changes to the film tax credits attended, and they were eager to help out.
Interviews were shot in a day, and Daniel Boos spend a couple of days editing the raw footage into the final product.
Boos is a freelance camera assistant who was directly impacted by the provincial budget when the FILM 5 program was put on hold because of funding uncertainties. FILM 5 is a training program for emerging film makers put on by the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative.
“As somebody who works in a story telling industry I feel a responsibility to engage with people who are marginalized by these cuts and spread awareness,” Boos tells the Halifax Media Co-op.
“We wanted to use film making as a tool to communicate the ways in which a budget is part of broader austerity agenda. It is important that we spread awareness of austerity and what it does to our lives,” says Boos.
Director of Photography - Christopher Ball
Producer & Assistant Director - Kristie Sills
Editor - Daniel Boos
Andrew Rillie - Sound Recordist
Andrew Stretch - Production Assistant
Tom Servaes - Production Assistant
Follow Robert Devet on Twitter @DevetRobert
Topics: Arts
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