Wow, but tell me how you really feel! At least we are taking a chance to tell their stories (which they are fighting to be told) instead of arm chair critiquing something you most likely know nothing about.

@mojo43...that's making a big leap. I lived in guat for 2 years...lived full time in latin america since '85. Visited the lake many times. Left friends in the ground there...murdered by cia goons. Not even a poor guatemalteco would cross Atitlan in that canoe, bro ! Even when they're escaping death squads trained at Georgia School of the Americas !

Ok fair enough everyone. I have read your comments and clearly you have lived there so you must know more than me about the place. My apologies kurth.

That being said, no one has even seen the fictional film and already you are slamming what we have done. The comments say that I can benefit from the comments, but I am not sure what to gain except that I find you are all being harsh about work you have not seen yet. We are telling a story of a mother and child who are going on a journey.

In your Guatemala bts you start it telling plainly that you're not well informed about the subject of your very work.

I understand that I didn't explain much, but it's a bts. I wasn't going to explain the brutal past of a whole country in under 20 seconds. The point of that video is to show how the team sets up a shoot like that and not about the CIA.

Maybe tell stories about someone and something close that you can get real insight about. This is your opinion so fair enough, but you know nothing about me or what I know.

This comes off pretty rude to me telling me what I should do. I will tell stories about whatever I want and yes you are entitled to criticize as well. I will listen.

Anyhow, not sure what else to say... You don't like my GO vids, you don't like this video and no more bouncy ass shots. I got the point.

@mojo43

It's harsh because there's no other way to put it, there are lots of harsh things behind you, your subject and the world as it is. It's natural to documentary work of this being a challenge. The link Ninetto provided is very fair on that.

And what you make with all that conflicting background is being received by people immersed in that same conflicting background that is part of your subject. Maybe you don't like when someone bluntly point out something like "rich gringo", but this will be present when you shoot, even if people don't tell it that way. You can manage it in your device, it could be a lever to social or political insight, it could be mitigated whatever, but it exists. Cuba have that heavy "rich gringo" thing impressed in it by the way. Don't matter it's not the way you feel, it's something to manage, it gets into the work, that's the criticism.

I will sinthetize my point, I only have acess to your published work and it don't give deeper insight about people you frame, I can't understand their lives or persons by your work, I can't understand their drama, or epic or joy, I can't understand what you learned from them, how their worldview impact you, because objectivelly the aproach does not favour it.

You could develop it with more rigorous device and being more clear about what, who and for who is the film. The sugestion to work with something closer is not about what you should do with you life, is objective advice on the construction of your narrative device so you can manage to get into that "other" that is your subject. If I understand, you will center in only two characters that time? If so it could improve the storytelling. Being more dialogic can also benefit your work as it can make the people you frame more protagonizing (if that word exists).

Something to compare, little miss sunshine work his way into geting some deep insight from a little girls journey, I don't like the movie, it's not to my taste, but it's there. Beasts of no nation is a film I like but, even if masterfully produced, it have lots of problems associated with the same things we are discussing here (of foreign view). Also can't remind of anything close to the way you making it but Era o Hotel Cambridge was a very important film recently.

I don't think I have to like your videos to you to make them. It's actually a very revealing phrase, keep in mind you don't see a lot of people going from latin america to USA or Europe to shoot films like yours, your people don't get to be framed that way by foreigners, there's a political meaning in what you doing and the capacity to do it. Contradictions are to be expected (and hopefully developed).