BEN CROWE
BIOGRAPHY
Ben is an award-winning writer-director. His work encompasses character-driven narrative, social documentary for online and TV broadcast, and the lyricism of experimental filmmaking.
He has been nominated for the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Palme D'Or (2005) for his first short film and his experimental films have been screened in dozens of international film festivals. His debut feature VERITY'S SUMMER received critical praise and a theatrical release in Summer 2013. Film magazine Littlewhitelies said it was 'A compelling debut which executes a delicate yet powerful sense of cultural awareness'.
For the last ten years he has worked as a video journalist and a human rights video producer through ERA Films. Two recent global multimedia campaigns he has produced include the International Trade Union Confederation's 'Qatar Exposed' and 'Samsung Exposed' .
Ben is a long-time collaborator with Jan-Joseph. They have worked together on different projects in East Africa and DRC over the last few years. CHE IN CONGO is the next stage in their creative collaboration.
Filmmaker / Writer
PERSONAL STATEMENT
Despite the passing of 50 years since Che’s mission to Congo to 'liberate' the people from poverty and repression, the conditions that people live under have possibly got worse. Thirty years of rule by the West’s friend in central Africa – the brutal dictator Joseph Mobutu – propped up by Euro-American finance, ruined generations of lives. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda and Kabila’s ‘revolution’ against Mobutu created multiple dynamics for an ongoing civil war in the east of the country where Che originally went to fight: cross-border forced migrations; power distribution at the local-national-regional levels; control of natural resource wealth; weapons proliferation; land ownership disputes; government corruption…All lines of connection between Che Guevara’s mission to support the young Kabila against Mobutu, Kabila’s eventual success and the state of eastern Congo today under the Presidency of Kabila junior.
CHE IN CONGO is a moment of integration: to explore the past, present and future of this troubled region and the long shadow of colonialism.
@janjosephstok
@erafilms
Graphic Designer / Curator / Bookmaker
