Let’s face it, most of the Western made films about educating girls as a means of combating poverty (even when inspiring) are pretty predictable. They’re mostly promotional pieces like what we set out to make. Shanta’s death has compelled us to move this conversation to the next level.

We tackle that level by going inside Shanta’s family’s day to day life. This UN video below makes it look like a simple decision to send a girl off to school– like it is a matter of just the family making up their mind that it is the best thing to do. It does not mention the weight of hunger, financial stress and deep discrimination.

The costs of opportunity.

Hmmm…

As I was waiting in line at customs tonight I was thinking, this is exactly what I want to be doing right now. I am arriving in a new country I know very little about. I am going to show a film I have worked so hard on and has barely seen the light of day. I get to talk to people for entire weekend about the subject I care about most– girls’ education. And specifically, Shanta and her family. I get to share her story with people I am pretty sure are really going to listen–who really care.

For those of you who don’t know, Shanta was one of the main subjects of Three: Impressions from the Struggle for Girls’ Education. Shanta, who was a powerful force–determined to become a doctor in order to return to her village to teach the girls and women about family planning, committed suicide just over a year ago.

This shocked everyone. Her family, friends, teachers…us.

Suicide is the leading cause of death for women in Nepal ages 14-49. True story. In the last few years, suicide has eclipsed death during childbirth as the #1 cause of death.

Scott and I returned to Nepal this last winter to try to figure out why and to see how her family is doing. It was the biggest experience (and I am fairly certain I can speak for Scott here as well) of our lives. I thought I knew a fair bit about poverty. I would go as far to say I felt I understood it in some intellectual way, at least. Well, staying with Shanta’s family threw me for a loop. But more on that later….

Now I am here in Singapore. I’m here to share our new footage and to begin telling the story of Shanta. Before I left, I had a friend and fellow editor, Dina, look at our latest footage, which is still very new and raw. Her remark afterward as she wiped tears from her eyes was, “Shanta is as powerful dead as she was alive.”

I don’t know if this is what Shanta would have wanted–to have her story told to UNIFEM. But my best guess is, she wouldn’t mind.

I want to thank Debby Ng who is the one who turned UNIFEM on to our work with girls’ education. She is an amazing Singaporean photographer. I met her in Nepal last winter and we pretty much hit it off BIG TIME. She can’t make it to the festival because she is photographing migrating birds. How cools is that?

Oh, here is a picture of my mom seeing me off at the airport–the Voice of Reason!!! (She is currently the mascot for Sound Transit.) I love to see my mom’s size finally match her BIG personality.

This is what I have done in one week and two days:

I have filmed over 10 hours (not including little asides on my Flip and  Canon G9 cameras). I am pretty much filming EVERYTTHING. Filming it like it might be a personal documentary —Nina Davenport style. I watched Operation Filmmaker before I came to Nepal and it inspired to keep the camera rolling. I don’t know what the story is. At this point, it is ALL IMPORTANT. Even the drinking tea part.

I have been drinking a lot of really yummy tea.

(That said, having me be part of the documentary still kind of makes me queasy.)

(That said, I kind of like filming my own reaction to things. It makes it like it really happened. This place is so OUT OF THIS WORLD to me, I question its existence even when I am existing in it.)

I have been working with the raddest fixer, translator, scooter taxi, filmmaker ever, Ramyata Limbu. She is seriously rad. She has made two documentaries: Daughters of Everest about the first Sherpa women to summit Everest and Sari Soldiers about 6 women in the Maoist conflict. She also runs the Kathmandu Mountain Film Festival. She is really good at her job and I am so thankful to have her.

I have found a translator/ transcriber named Era. She has worked for Al Jazeera and other news organization out of Kathmandu. She has the most lovely smile. She speaks Nepali, English and French and has a six year old son. I am excited to get my first tape transcript back. There is something so solid about having a tape both logged and on paper.

I have talked about my project A LOT with A LOT of different people and everyone is interested.

I have thought a lot. I am constantly thinking about what I am doing and what it means and what the story is and what will help the world.

Here is me thinking TOO HARD while enjoying a salty lassi.

I also prayed about it after lighting one of these candles in a Buddhist Monastery.

Things I have NOT done:

slept (very little anyway)

go to the Bryan Adams concert (First western concert EVER in Nepal. It was a HUGE deal. HUGE! But I didn’t go. My host and good friend here works for the embassy and handles logistics of all American deaths in Nepal. The concert came with a stampede warning. Luckily there wasn’t one.)

relaxed (Oh, well there was that one hour and a half massage where they massaged everything including my eyelids and it cost $20).

You’ve got the cards–there are three different ones…

We wrap them up with little raffia ties so they’re giftier.

And inside there are these little cards, so that you can tell your loved ones how much you donated in their name…

And on the back side of that card is a little menu giving a few examples of what we might spend donations on…

We invite you to email us to get some cards. No pressure to use them only to give Girlworld donations as gifts–they’re nice notecards too.

If you’d like to share it around, we can also send you a DVD of the current 20 minute work in progress cut.

Due tomorrow, yo.