SYNOPSIS
The West has spent $2.3 trillion in charitable aid over the last 50 years but has failed to significantly reduce poverty levels in Africa. In fact, many of our best intentions have actually undermined the communities they aimed to benefit.
GOOD FORTUNE explores how massive, international efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa may be undermining the very communities they aim to benefit. Through intimate portraits of two Kenyans battling to save their homes from large-scale development organizations, the film presents a unique opportunity to experience foreign aid through the people it is intended to benefit.
In the rural countryside, Jackson’s farm is being flooded by an American investor who hopes to alleviate poverty by creating a multi-million dollar rice farm. Across the country in Nairobi, Silva’s home and business in Africa’s largest squatter community are being demolished as part of a United Nations slum-upgrading project.
Interweaving meditative portraits of its characters, GOOD FORTUNE examines the real-world impact of international aid. With a broad scope and intimate style, the film portrays gripping stories of human perseverance and suggests that the answers for Africa lie in the resilience of its people.
FESTIVAL HISTORY
"Good Fortune" held its World Premiere at the AFI/Discovery Channel SilverDocs in Washington D.C. in June 2009, and was honored with the Witness Award. It went on to screen at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival of the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. This presentation at the San Joaquin Film Society's California Documentary Festival is the film's West Coast Premiere.
DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
Landon Van Soest is director/producer of the award-winning film Walking the Line, a feature documentary about “vigilantes” along the U.S.-Mexico border. The film has been lauded for excellence in production and advocating human rights, screening at film festivals around the world and receiving national broadcast in six countries. He founded Transient Pictures with Jeremy Levine in 2005 and has produced original content for clients such as the Sundance Channel, Working Films, and the Dramatists’ Guild. He was contracted by Cactus Three to produce House of Rath, an independent television documentary about architecture, design, and land rights in New York City. He is also founder of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering a vibrant filmmaking community in Brooklyn, New York. Van Soest began his career on the breakout NBC documentary Deadline and later worked in production of Election Day and Arctic Waltz. He gained experience in television documentaries for National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, and The Learning Channel at Engle Brothers Media, before going on to work as an assistant producer/editor in Original Productions at the Sundance Channel. Van Soest holds a Fine Arts degree in Non-Fiction Film Production from Ithaca College and has completed extensive research on economic development in East Africa with the School for International Training. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts to begin production of Good Fortune and has spent over a year and half living in Kenya working closely with the film’s subjects.
PRESS / MEDIA
To download press kit, visit: http://www.transientpictures.com/goodfortune/media
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SHOWTIME
SAT. 10/03 at 4:00PM
Stockton Empire Theatre
TICKETS
Film
$9.00 General
$8.00 Senior 65+, Student with ID
$7.00 Film Society Members
• order tickets online
CAST AND CREW
Production Company: Transient Pictures
Screenwriter: Landon Van Soest
Producer: Jeremy Levine, Katy Chevigny
Judith Helfand, Diana Barrett, Andrew Herwitz
Cinematography: Landon Van Soest, Alex Stikitch
Editor: Jeremy Levine, Landon Van Soest
Music: T. Griffin
SOURCES
Production
Transient Pictures
info@transientpictures.com
Sales
Andrew Herwitz
Film Sales Company
andrew.herwitz@filmsalescorp.com
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