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| Egypt's generation now 2011, South Africa's generation 1994 |
What links them is the desire by each group to take control of their futures, defined by greater political participation in their country's rooted political process.
South Africa 1994 is a world away from Egypt 2011, but there are overlapping themes: racial equality, class equality and ways for all to better themselves rather than just the ruling elites.
What links these two stories also is me. I was there in 1994 in South Africa - contract BBC documentary maker and in 2011 in Egypt could claim to have some knowledge to produce the story: Tahrir Memento.
Phenomenology is about the self and experiencing and interpreting different ontologies (knowledge that has become our paradigm).
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| Cairo: Coaching journalists in from of Nile TV. |
For me it didn't start with 1994. BBC Reportage - the Networks ground breaking youth programme played its role.
However the difference with Successor Generation ( South Africa) a videojournalism film for Channel 4 News and Tahrir Memento previewed at the Sheffield Documentary Festival is its a timeline for videojournalism and self expressionism.
At Sheffield I met briefly with the group 18 Days in Egypt who are using documentary film as a social tool to register and acknowledge the huge changes Egypt enveloped in the 18 days of its metamorphosis.
This is one of the hidden powers of video - or for that matter any visual tool that facilitates research methodologies.
Film shows the period and what people think. It also allows for its authors to reflect on the making of the film and their heuristic studies. The combination of these paint a vivid picture which allows generations beyond to understand moments and places.
In part that's what my PhD posits - a rich compositional narrative of different periods and how they can be contextualised. I'll post more on this soon.
More films can be found on viewmagazine.tv
Read: how television was a dominant medium for change in Egypt's revolution
