Hi all,

Wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year, have a splendid and prosperous 2012.

The news about the Queen's Suite is as follows. The Executive Producer Christopher Hird is following up with Sky Arts. After the film screened at the Sheffield International Documentary film festival as part of the mediateque Sky Arts knocked on our door and so we are waiting to hear from them.

Unfortunately for all of us this isn't a quick process. Now not knowing much about how Sky Arts works I'll surmise that it isn't a quick process as they have already commissioned and programmed most of their programmes for 2012.

The problem we face is if we let the film out then Sky Arts won't want it. If we do let the film out then yes the film will be seen but the audience won't be as large as the audience for Sky Arts and so Peter's story won't be seen by a really diverse group of people.

Then there is the education factor. Films that get put onto the school curriculum and normally ones that have had screenings in the cinema or on tv. 

I'll be speaking to Christopher in the New Year to find the best solution for all of us.

The film will screen this year at the Duke Ellington Conference. Peter and I will both speak.

And this year will be the premier in London. My tutor at the London Film School said I could screen the film there.

Yes I am studying at the London Film School. I was awarded a bursary to attend. It's somewhat intense. Last term we made 5 films in 6 days. We were meant to make 6 films in 6 days but on the fifth day the crew was attached on location so as I was the unit producer I called it. We re-shot the following week.

We also had practicals at the weekend and let's say I re-visted a lot of maths and physics for the lighting and camera work.

We are back next week. I will be directing a documentary on the Right to Protest. We had to pitch to an external panel and mine was one of three chosen to be made.

The problem I am facing is funding. I don't have the funds to cover my fees. Filmmaking has been a battle. It is intense when one is in the thick of it as life is film and then when one stops it slows down because then it is a matter of getting the film made. In between there is very little time for finding work especially at film school. Last term we were allocated times to edit during the weekends. Start time was 0700 end time 2300 hours.

Although I do work part-time with a group of people with learning disabilities and that helps to pay the rent.

If anyone would like to be financially involved with this new project made at the London Film School then get in touch. You would be helping me to pay my £1,200 fees. 

The documentary will focus on a group of students who took part in the student protests in London on November 29th and December 9th on the day of the vote. The documentary will use archive footage to illustrate what happened on those days and as well as talking to students I will speak to their parents who were watching the days unfold on the news. We will find out about the run up to the vote, the occupations and walk-outs across the country what happened to Fanny, Alex, Jasper and Ed and where they are now. The documentary will also shed a light on policing tactics during the protests and after and will ask is student protest sustainable in light of the amount of protest needed and the new policing tactics taken.

Let me know if you are interested. 

HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR. 

Catch up soon.

Corine

Hi all,

It's been a long time since I wrote.

What has happened thus far? The film screened at the Race and Jazz festival in December, then it screened in Canada, thanks to Jason in May and then it screened at the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival in June.

Sky Arts, several other film channels and a company at Somerset House are interested in seeing the film. 

I asked the Executive Producer to deal with this side of the procedures. And so I am waiting to hear the outcome before we take any other steps. It is better to try the tv route before anything else, because they always want to show a film that has not been seen. So DVDs and online downloads are on hold until the tv strand has been explored. I hope that's ok with everyone. 

The Duke Ellington Society will screen the film as part of their conference in 2012.

As for me I am studying full-time at the London Film school. I received a bursary to attend and film school has eaten up the life I had. 

Being a student during a recession is not an easy thing. It is the summer holidays and I'm homeless and trying to find work. All interviews have been so far unsuccessful as I'm going back to film school. People don't really want you for the short term. Friends have lied about going back to school because it's the only way one can get work. It's called student survival. 

With the threat of abject poverty looming over me, I put the footage I shot with the student occupation onto Indiegogo to try and raise my fees and also funds to finish a diary of SOAS student protest.

I salute SOAS students, spending time with them I was privy to hearing highly political debates. The short isn't so good in terms of the structure. With no funds to edit I put on the site that which was on youtube and which was shown across the UK to other students in occupation. 

But the footage is good and there is lots including the final student protest on the day of the vote, political lectures etc... If you want to know more just type in SOAS Students into Indiegogo. 

Although sadly I'm not focused as focused on the project as I ought to be as I'm tired and strung out due to the riots, recession, austerity cuts and trying to survive it all!

But because it is on Indiegogo I have been sending out info. The good thing about sending info out is people do have jobs they are just not advertising them. So I have a freelance job starting next week for two days. Then I have been asked to photograph a wedding and I have a job working with people with learning disabilities waiting to start. (I already had that one just waiting for my references to go through!)

Speaking to a friend the other day I was dumbfounded to find there are a lot of people I know in the same position, they are looking for squats or as myself are staying at a friends whilst they are away. Others are couch surfing and some have returned to their parents happy for the respite it gives, (and they have an income!) London can be damn expensive. 

To change the subject I have had a number of people contacting me from abroad to ask if I was ok whilst the riots raged. So I am writing an email regarding the riots also. I have written some thoughts, it isn't comprehensive as there is too much to write about the riots which are steeped in the shadow of history as well as the now but I have written something.

Watching the news as I did with friends, one could be forgiven if one thought the whole of London was burning down. We have 33 boroughs of which 10 of those were affected, although it would be better to say 10 high streets were affected. So for example in an area where 500,000 people live the high street was affected. 

A riot started in Tottenham, several days after Mark Duggan was shot by police. The statements given to press by the police were later proven to be false. But the question that concerned Mark Duggan's family and friends was why did the police pass information to the press when they themselves did not receive information first from the police. 

Where Mark Duggan was shot, word got around quickly that he had been executed. This is an area with what has been called 'illegitimate policing', high levels of stop and search. To date over 100,000 stop and searches have been carried out in the UK under the terrorism act without one arrest being made. Young black men are disproportionately stopped and searched. To add to this, the community was living under a cloud of the last riots, which again occurred after a man was killed in police custody. 

Before he was killed a woman was killed and before her another. Men, who are now community workers, and who remember being young when Cynthia Jarrett died expressed the sentiment, that could have been my mum. The riots after her death saw a police officer killed. 

Six people (three juveniles and three adults) were charged with the murder of Blakelock. The juveniles all had their cases dismissed after the judge ruled the conditions in which they had been held were so inappropriate that their interrogation was inadmissible - conditions included being questioned naked except for a blanket, and being questioned without a guardian.

Three adults, Winston Silcott, Engin Raghip and Mark Braithwaite, were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment despite no witnesses and limited forensic evidence. The Tottenham Three are Innocent Campaign and the Broadwater Farm Defence Campaign pressed for a retrial. On 25 November 1991, all three defendants were cleared by the Court of Appeal when an ESDA test demonstrated police notes of interrogations (the only evidence) had been tampered with. Braithwaite and Raghip were released after four years in prison. 

To date not one police officer has served a prison sentence for a death in custody and there are over 3000 deaths in custody.

After several days of not hearing from the police, the family and friends, led by women and girls went to the police station and demanded to speak to the senior officer. This did not happen and after 3 hours the women and girls left and that is when it became ugly. This is not the full story, women and girls did stay, and it became ugly when a police officer punched a teenage girl in the face that is when the riot in Tottenham began.

The riots then spread to different parts of London and later the UK. The question is why? Noted writers such as John Pilger has not called the riots that but instead an insurrection, meaning an act of instant open revolt against civil authority. Since the student protests acts of protest have occurred most frequently in London, which have then spread to other parts of the country. The TUC march on the 26th March saw a large number of protesters arrested, and our pages were full of images of anarchists, masked up and smashing bank windows with large bats.

In the post-riot comments what has been lacking is the perspective of young people. Although there have been notable moments, such as when PM David Cameron went to a youth club in his home town, Oxfordshire, to speak to young people he was booed and heckled and when he left early the young people made chicken noises. When asked what they thought caused the riots, they said the budget cuts. 

Oxfordshire is fortunate to have facilities for young people, in poorer areas such as Tottenham and surrounding areas, youth services have been cut, youth workers have disappeared, whilst in addition EMA which enabled young people to study in the UK has also been cut. 

Recently a young woman was found on a Tottenham estate selling crack, when the youth worker asked her what she was doing, she replied I had to borrow £40 to go to college and now I have to pay it back. In Tottenham unemployment levels for young people are high. David Cameron said something surreal, the young people burnt down the places that would give them internships and hire them. Pound Land, Vodafone, etc... are not giving internships nor are they hiring.

Our PM, who alongside our Mayor also smashed up restaurants and burnt public property when they were young is as far removed from the people as the people are to him. But unlike those who are imprisoned now, one youth over one year in prison for stealing a bottle of water, David Cameron and Boris Johnson were forgiven, never served time and are now leading the country into the biggest mess since the last great recession. And of course Nick Clegg committed arson when he was young, burning down a green house of a professor that had his life's work in it. Nick Clegg says this is not the same, so I can imagine does David Cameron and Boris Johnson but it is the same. 

Did the police know the riots would happen? In 2010 the head of the Met spoke to Theresa May and told her there would be riots. This is pre the student protests. Before that Nick Clegg warned that austerity measures would lead to riots. Community workers called to an emergency meeting the morning of the day of the riots warned police there would be trouble. In light of all the information known to the government and the police it is fair to say as Pilger wrote it was an insurrection.

To deal with the number of arrests there was 24 hour court cases and the police wrote out a document on how to treat people, there would be no bail and the maximum sentence would be given. When I went to court and sat in the public gallery I saw a young man who had severe learning disabilities, his solicitor did not say anything, nor did the judge intervene. I later spoke to his mum and found out he had autism. Thankfully his mum had decided to get her son a different solicitor as the one he had was incompetent.

Now the prisons are full, to the point people are sleeping on mattresses on the floor, their heads next to a toilet. Furthermore the police are trying to protect those who have never been arrested before from those inside. Attacks have already happened. And what about those who have learning disabilities such as the young man I saw can they survive such a system?

After the riots the EDL had planned to protest. The EDL, the English Defence League, a fascist/racist organisation wanted to march in London through one of the most poorest boroughs Tower Hamlets. It is where a large Muslim community lives. They were banned from marching but allowed to have a static demo. There was far less coverage about the EDL but the NUJ today reported that journalists were violently assaulted by EDL members, one was sexually assaulted, another was set on fire. Kings X station was closed down, apparently people were being attacked by EDL there. The Guardian reported 1,500 EDL protesters at Moorgate station, nearly as many arrested during the riots. Further reports of the EDL in Covent Garden, and then being marched over Tower Bridge.

To end I'd like to tell you about something extraordinary that happened in Tottenham. It was not reported. The press has been great reporting the riots and have forgotten what happens after.

Several days after the riots 1,500 young people had a meeting on Broadwater Farm estate to discuss responses to the riots. 

Whilst the head of police in Birmingham stated, 'what is needed now is compassion'. The police know the history's of communities, a man in his position who has worked with young people for years does not ask for compassion based on a lack of knowledge. He asks for compassion because he knows the communities, he works with youth and adults, but those in central government are not listening.

London is still London, tomorrow although banned people will march to save the NHS from being privatised. The markets are still lively, folks go around their daily business and yes it STILL rains! As I write I can hear the rain pouring, great drops pelting down. Soon we will have a Monsoon season in the UK. If you do visit pack an umbrella, wellies, and add twitter to your phone that way one can navigate any form of protest going on.

Peace out Corine

Greetings Queen Suiter's!

Finally the stomababy dot com ball is beginning to roll.
Happy Days.

Web space has been acquired, a designer found and a domain purchased.

Small steps but important and vital foundation steps.

More good news. Last Thursday the little man was officially checked off of
Great Ormond Street patient list. The consultants were pleased with his progress and thought no further reason to see him. He did it!!

I will continue to remain a member of the hospital, so important to boost our NHS in any way we
are each able to.

My sense of relief as a parent is incredible.

To top it all off the Sun came out today

Happy Days everyone, Happy Monday.

Much love Charlotte W-Stubbs

P.S Isn't Corine Dhondee just the best??

Hi all,

Greetings for the New year.

Well it's been a while since I wrote.

The files have been given to a post-production company and they are now in the process of doing the post-production.

When I gave them the hard-drives it was similar to giving them a baby.

Perhaps an odd thing to say.

I had written specific instructions.

Then when I got home I wanted to phone them straight away to ask if everything was ok.

But instead I paced up and down for an hour whilst stopping myself from phoning.

I guess after over 20 odd months this is quite normal behaviour. Well I hope it is.

Unfortunately the film was not accepted into the London Film Festival, but it was accepted into the Chicago film festival and the Executive Producer has asked me to submit it to the Sheffield documentary film festival. Yeah.

He phoned whilst on his way to Sundance. The Flaw a documentary he exec produced is screening there. So that is very exciting for the Flaw's team. I've watched the film at the Sheffield Documentary film festival and it is quite magnificent.

On a different note, I have been accepted into the London Film School. It is one of the most prestigious film schools in the world.

Even though I have only been there for 2 weeks, my scripts have developed, i understand a lot more technically, and I am in a place of excellence.

This week my script was chosen to film by my group of four and we will be photographing the shots tomorrow. It is a full-time course Mon - Fri 10.00-5.00 and also evenings and weekends.

But unfortunately I didn't get a bursary and am having real problems raising the final fees.

I have written to companies, women's organisations etc... but they have not been able to help.

I have so far raised £5,000. I got an overdraft on my student account and also borrowed some money.

I have to pay a further £2,000 and I must do it this week or the administrator may just kill me with her looks or worse.

It is also a small school so everyone knows what is going on and I get dark looks and sympathetic looks although that could just be my dramatic tendency, not aided by my anxiety.

I want to stay on the course and so I am writing to ask if any of the group can help me to raise the £2,000 by this week. If you can it will be paid directly to the London Film School. I don't know what I can offer in return for funding. Please write to me and I'm sure I can figure something out even if it is to repay the funds later down the line.

My email is cor.and.friends.productions@googlemail.com

The photo is of me and my film school group. It was taken on a set at the school. I'm the only British woman on the course. People come from the Europe, US and the Middle-East. A really nice group of people. It's the first time I have been amongst a film community and it is really wonderful.

Thanks for reading.

Corine

WE DID IT.

Yes we had our thank you party.

The Peter Edwards trio played some swinging jazz, we screened the film and Charlotte spoke about Stoma Baby.

Considering it was a Monday night we did in fact pack the pub out.

It was a fun night had by all and it was wonderful to finally meet some of our backers.

After that successful night we are planning the premier to take place in London in 2011.

The orchestra will play The Queen's Suite and we will screen the film.

So I hope to see more of you then.

The film will screen in Chicago in May (I think), I will have to check dates.

So if anyone is based in Chicago please let me know as it would be great to meet you.

For now, as we are all winding down for Christmas, here's wishing you all a wonderful Christmas and a successful New Year.

Health and happiness to all.

This song sums up The Queen's Suite for 2010, although the words would have to change a little because, 'we did it our way.'

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

BIG HUGS and ELECTRONIC SMILES coming your way.

Corine

PS and a special note for Charlie as he couldn't make it to the party as he had exams, although I did meet his lovely parents, Charlie, hope you're exams went well and see you at the next party.

PPS the photograph is taken at the party. From left Gary Crosby OBE, Margaret Busby OBE, me and Peter Edwards the musical director.

Margaret has taken a copy of the film to Antigua with her and is spreading the word as we speak.

Sunshine, Kickstarter friends and jazz. A beautiful combination.