The Bitter Jester partners Nicolas DeGrazia and Daniel Kullman depart May 19 for the first leg of an African shoot in Central Angola, shortly after producer Malachi Leopold returned from a month of filming in the Sudan.
The partners will accompany the 2009 Share Circle Delegation of educators and humanitarians, known as “A People to People Network,” who will witness the historic ground-breaking ceremonies of a university being built in Bi? Province, Central Angola.
The doc’s title, “Pools of Light,” symbolizes the project. The Share Circle delgation that had gone to Angola to discuss the university university witnessed Angolan school children studying at 5 a.m. under light cast by parking lot street lamps.
The 15-minute doc will aid the Share Circle ‘s fundraising efforts. The partners’ ultimate goal is to produce a feature-length doc after the school has been built and students are attending.
The Share Circle was founded by Angolan Civil War survivor Guerra Freitas, who lives in Chicago. DeGrazia and Kullman became “huge supporters of the mission” when they heard Freitas astounding personal story of survival.
“Guerra is someone who cherishes education as one might cherish a limb on their body,” says DeGrazia. “In an interview he said his first memory was when he was four or five and rebels abducted his father to fight against the Portuguese. He didn’t see his dad again for 15 years.
“When he was about six, Guerra realized the way to help his mother was to get an education. He ran away from home when he was nine years old, and spent the next nine years moving from place to place, seeking out schools and being educated through the high school level.”
