The Mathare Project

by Randy Bell

Expected Completion January 2013

A seven-year film that follows the lives of a group of orphaned children living at the Good Samaritan Children’s Home in Nairobi, Kenya’s Mathare slum, one of the largest slums in Africa. The footage is drawn from 21 trips to Kenya between 2001 and 2008.  Ultimately, the project will show the reality of growing up without parents amidst poverty, violence, and AIDS.

Danger's Hour

by Randy Bell and Max Kennedy

Expected Completion June 2012

On the morning of May 11, 1945, days after the Nazi surrender, the USS Bunker Hill was 70 miles off the coast of Okinawa. At precisely 9:58 a.m., Kiyoshi Ogawa radioed in to his base at Kanoya, 350 miles from the Bunker Hill, "I found the enemy vessels." At 10:02 a.m., as he hovered above the Bunker Hill, hidden in a mass of clouds, Kiyoshi spoke his last words: "Now, I am nose-diving into the ship."

Glimpses of Southern Sudan

by Randy Bell

Expected Completion August 2012

Initially shot in 2006 in Yirol, Southern Sudan, the first half of the film provides a portrait of a society emerging from decades of conflict.  The second half of the film will document Yirol 5 years later, during the referendum in January 2011 that will decide the future status of Southern Sudan and may plunge the country back into violence.