problema
DIALOGUE SCRIPT
© 2010 mindpirates
01.
TITLES:
one bright day in the early 21st Century
there was a gathering of human beings unlike any before
100 questions
112 participants
11,200 views
One circle
TRANSITION TO:
SEBASTIÅO SALGADO
For me, the most important question today is
how to sit together and to discuss, not one or
two persons, but to see if it’s possible for all of
us on this planet…
NASEEM SALAAM
(in translation from Hindi)
My question is…
SEBASTIÅO SALGADO (CONT., O.S.)
…to start to raise the questions about what’s
important.
HANS PETER-DÜRR (O.S.)
How do you perceive the world around you?
SEBASTIÅO SALGADO (CONT., O.S.)
For me, what’s important…
SHANTA CHATTERJI
Are you bending the truth of climate change?
MARA (O.S.)
(in translation from Spanish)
My question is…
ELLIOT CHIKOMA
…why are African states less developed than
Western states?
DARYL HANNAH (O.S.)
And what I’d like to know…
02.
ARIK W. ASHERMAN (O.S.)
What is the proper balance between Jewish
values and other values in a democracy?
ROBERT THURMAN (O.S.)
I have a few questions…
FREDERICK WEDIN
Why do they dislike Americans?
ROBBIE CONAL (O.S.)
My biggest question…
JUANA RODRIGUEZ
(in translation from Spanish)
My question is…
LAURIE ANDERSON
How does an individual relate to the group in
the 21st Century?
TRANSITION TO:
RALF SCHMERBERG (O.S.)
This place has a lot of history. In this place, as
you know, they used to burn books of people
who speak things that other people don’t like
to know. And maybe that’s why we come here
to August-Bebelplatz in the middle of Berlin,
where… books got burned. Their thoughts got
burned. Their freedom of speech got burned
here!
TITLE:
The table of free voices, Bebelplatz, Berlin
TRANSITION TO:
HAFSAT ABIOLA
It’s wonderful to see all the beautiful faces
around this table. We have a long day ahead of
us, so we’re going to go right into the program.
Today, we ask and we begin to discover
answers to 100 questions chosen from
thousands donated by people from all around
the world.
03.
WILLEM DAFOE
We will ask them all over the course of the
next nine hours…
BIANCA JAGGER
(to camera operator)
OK, so turn the camera -- a bit -- straight,
rather than that way. Thank you. Not so much.
A little bit… There! Thank you. OK.
WILLEM DAFOE
Together we come together, as one, to
celebrate our diversity and to gather a
multiplicity of viewpoints.
HAFSAT ABIOLA
Thank you for being here with us…
WILLEM DAFOE
…at the Table of Free Voices.
TRANSITION TO:
HAFSAT ABIOLA
Question One…
WILLEM DAFOE
…from Anonymous, USA.
TITLE:
What is today's most important
unreported story?
HAFSAT ABIOLA (O.S.)
What is today’s most important unreported
story?
WILLEM DAFOE
You can start with your answer…
LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG
What ought to be reported today and definitely
does not is how much life costs, the price of life
on this planet.
04.
SIMA WALI
We are going from crisis to crisis and we only
report a portion of the story. When the guns of
battle are silenced, we then forget about that
country, that region that has suffered conflict,
and we go to report a different story…
AVI PRIMOR
(in translation from German)
Well, I would begin with Darfur, the
annihilation of populations… just because they
have another religion or are of another race.
And the world is not interested in them
because they have no resources. No oil.
KAILASH SATYARTHI
For me, the most unreported story of today is
the truth behind the global terrorism. We have
no idea -- really no idea -- what is the truth
behind it. Who is alive? Who is dead? Who is
advancing it? Who is pioneering it? Who is
making use of it in his or their favor?
TEGLA LOROUPE
The children who has been slaved. Human
traffics.
DRITERO KASAPI
The millions and millions of people crossing
borders illegally in search for a better life.
JOHN GAGE
I think today’s most important unreported
story is the story of the young girl who died
ten minutes ago of malaria. She died
needlessly, because the drugs that would be
able to kill the malaria parasite exist and are
cheap. But she didn’t get those drugs. And she
died, and just now another child died, and this
story goes unreported.
BIANCA JAGGER
I don’t think there is today’s one most
important unreported story. There are many
unreported stories throughout the world.
NEELA MARIKKAR
It’s the good things that are happening in the
world. We don’t hear about the good things
05.
NEELA MARIKKAR (CONT.)
that are happening. There are such wonderful
things happening out there. All we ever hear
about it is the bad news: the death, the
destruction, wars, killing, murders, rapes…
RODRIGO BAGGIO
(in translation from Portuguese)
Problems. If you squeeze a newspaper, it
seems like it bleeds.
WILLEM DAFOE
Thank you.
TRANSITION TO:
WILLEM DAFOE
Question Twelve from Judy Twedt, twenty-
four, Denver, USA…
TITLE:
Should we have the right
to choose where we live?
HAFSAT ABIOLA
Should we have the right to choose where we
live?
WILLEM DAFOE
(to Hafsat Abiola)
Now, that’s an interesting question.
HAFSAT ABIOLA
(to Willem Dafoe)
I like it!
ELIANE POTIGUARA
(in translation from Portuguese)
We are just born. We're just born somewhere
on planet Earth and if we don’t want to stay
there we go somewhere else. But then, when
we go somewhere else, we're discriminated
against.
ALVARO RESTREPO
(in translation from Spanish)
I arrived two days ago and on the 11th I must
leave again because my visa lasts for only four
06.
ALVARO RESTREPO (CONT.)
(in translation from Spanish)
days. As a Colombian, as a citizen of the world,
I have no right to enter this paradise, the
paradise of the First World, except for four
days.
ANURADHA MITTAL
Well, I believe, of course, we should have the
right to choose where they live. I mean, we live
in a world where capital can move, where
goods can move, and I don’t understand why
there is so much hysteria about people
moving.
CHINA KEITETSI
For example, one time I wanted to go to Dubai
but, because I have a nineteen-fifty-one
Geneva Convention passport, I was not
allowed. And the reason for this I asked, they
told me because I didn’t belong anywhere.
LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG
Everybody wishes to live in a place that is free
of war. Everybody wishes to live a harmonious
existence but some people can buy that and
others cannot. Some people can lay claim to
that right and others are just not in a position
to do so. Yes, we all of us should have the right
to live wherever we want, but all of us should
be able to afford to do so.
THENMOZHI SOUNDARARAJAN
Sometimes, you have to move to be able to
support your family. Now, if you’re crossing
borders and you are not recognized by their
state, does that mean you’re illegal? By
definitions of the state. But I don’t think that,
as humans, we can really say another human
is illegal.
SUSAN GEORGE
And the people who are moving are mostly
doing so because they are desperate. They’re
taking enormous risks. Look at the people who
are arriving in the Canary Islands every week
in makeshift boats, and they’re arriving on the
beach by the hundreds. These people are
absolutely desperate. Otherwise they would
07.
SUSAN GEORGE (CONT.)
not have left. That’s not a fair choice. That’s
not saying I’m going to choose where I’m going
to live. You’re not going to choose to risk nine
chances out of ten of drowning or being killed
before you actually arrive. That’s not a choice!
GEERT LOVINK
You could also ask the question, should we
have… shouldn’t we have the right to remain
where we are? This is a very urgent question
for many, many people on this Earth.
YUNGCHEN LHAMO
Like Tibetan people and like myself as a
Tibetan, we don’t have this right. Yes, we can
live in our country but not necessarily we can
do what we want to.
MOHAMMED ARKOUN
(in translation from French)
The day the law has effectively realized the
possibility of granting this right without
restriction to all people, on that day humanity
will have done more than pass over a
boundary. It will have attained a degree of
evolution fully to be desired by all cultures and
nations.
YUNGCHEN LHAMO
It’s important we can live where we want to.
And everyone, I think, it’s important their
nests. Even the birds need their nest. The
human being need their homes.
TRANSITION TO:
WILLEM DAFOE
Question Nineteen from Claire Mackintosh,
twenty-five, Brisbane, Australia…
TITLE:
What are the basic dignities
that each human being deserves
and why do we let so many people
go without them?
08.
HAFSAT ABIOLA
What are the basic dignities that each human
being deserves and why do we let so many
people go without them?
BIBI RUSSELL
The basic dignity is human dignity, their pride,
so they can have their head up, not head down.
They don’t have to be scared of anything!
Maybe they are living in a remote village in
some part of a developing country. So what?
They should be standing straight. They should
be…
MAHSA SHEKARLOO
We let so many people go without them so we
can let other people do what they do. Take
lands. Drop bombs. Take water. Control mines.
SUSAN GEORGE
‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people
seems to have been, in every age of the world,
the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.’ All
for ourselves and nothing for other people. It’s
Adam Smith who said that. Adam Smith, the
father of capitalism. He knew that that was the
tendency. All for ourselves and nothing for
other people!
BIANCA JAGGER
Indeed, I think that the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights is what should be available
for people throughout the world. We should
not accept that anyone is denied those basic
human rights, the basic human right to live a
decent life, to have access to food, shelter and
education. It is unacceptable that in today’s
world there are children who are dying of
hunger. It is unacceptable that in today’s
world there are children who have no shelter…
WIM WENDERS
To prepare myself for this question, I went into
the Internet -- wikipedia -- and I re-read the
United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and it made me cry. I just wept.
It is so beautiful. Let’s put it in every passport.
09.
RAYMOND FEDERMAN
My father was exterminated at the age of
thirty-seven, my mother at the same age. My
sisters were exterminated at the age of twelve
and sixteen. I survived, and life has become
very precious for me and I assume that it is
also precious for every human being on this
planet. And yet, and yet, it is often taken away,
for wrong reasons…
STEVE EARLE
We teach our children that our lives are worth
more than other people’s lives -- outsiders --
people with a different color skin than ours,
people that have less than we do, people that
don’t speak the language that we do. The
other. The other people.
STEPHANIE ROBINSON
What happens oftentimes is that those people
are really seen as them and not us, and there’s
not much attention paid to or much concern
for the basic rights and dignities of those
people.
ELIOT WEINBERGER
But I think you have to think about what ‘we’
means in this question. Who are ‘we’ and who
are ‘they’?
GIORA FEIDMAN
A baby, when they cry, you cannot distinguish
if it’s a boy, a girl, what nationality, what
religion is the religion of the mother. It’s only
one voice. Don’t forget this! It’s only one
sound. We must remember that.
JONATHAN STACK
I guess if people really saw each other as their
brother and really could imagine that each
person out there was their child or their
relative, it would be really different, like, if we
could really open our hearts that wide.
BORA ĆOSIĆ
(in translation from Serbo-Croatian)
Everyone can gain human dignity for
themselves. Before this, though, one must
010.
BORA ĆOSIĆ (CONT.)
(in translation from Serbo-Croatian)
leave behind the self-imposed oppression of
politics, ideology, religion and nationalistic
narrow-mindedness.
SYDNEY POSSUELO
(in translation from Portuguese)
I come… I come from the jungle where I lived
for the most part of my life with tribes, and
where the question of freedom is much more
meaningful than it is here. I have never known
more free beings than them, the indigenous
people… no, I never have.
WIM WENDERS
(in translation from German,
to offscreen presence)
I knew it from the moment that this murmur
first began, and this babble. It sent a shiver
down my spine and I realized that something
will come of this, that it's helping. I was
reminded a little of 'Wings of Desire'. There are
these angels hearing all these voices. There's
this similar kind of murmur the whole time.
And then this murmur was here, only it was
real. All these people really were thinking
aloud.
MICHAEL TIGAR
(to his wife)
Oh, hey! Did you see Bianca? I think she’s over
there. There she is! I think she showed up late.
BIANCA JAGGER
(to camera operator)
If you can do me a big favor? Don’t move it
when I’m talking because that immediately…
CAMERA OPERATOR (O.S.)
OK. When you’re talking, I won’t…
BIANCA JAGGER
You know, if you can do it before or after or
when I stop talking, because if you do it when I
do, then my concentration, which is very hard
to have any…
CAMERA OPERATOR (O.S.)
I do it when I get the notes from the others…
011.
BIANCA JAGGER (O.S.)
Sure… Right. Sure…
TRANSITION TO:
WILLEM DAFOE
Question Twenty-Eight from Andrew, twenty-
two, Frankfurt, Germany…
TITLE:
What if all Chinese
people want a car?
HAFSAT ABIOLA
What if all Chinese people want a car?
ANTOSCHKA
(in translation from German)
This question is a bit racist.
TEGLA LOROUPE
Why not? Everybody needs a car. Why do you
talk only about Chinese and, when you go to
America, there every family has more than
three cars?
OLIVIERO TOSCANI
Why Chinese? Everybody want a car.
Everybody. I mean, there are a lot of Italian,
French and German people who don’t have a
car and they want a car.
ESTHER MWAURA-MUIRU
What if all Indians want a car? What if all
Africans want a car?
ROLAND BERGER
(in translation from German)
If all Chinese people want to have a car,
assuming that they would want to drive the
most powerful, the biggest and the fastest cars,
then the skies above us would darken.
SONG KOSAL
Not enough roads, many accidents, not enough
car parking space, too much pollutions.
012.
YANG SHAOBIN
(in translation from Chinese)
What if all Chinese people want a car? Then all
German people must be turned into automobile
workers to produce cars for the Chinese until
all the Germans are exhausted. It's an
impossible story.
JOHN GAGE
The car of today in the wealthy world utilizes
two to three percent of the energy in the gas
tank to actually move the driver. The rest is
lost in moving the weight of the frame and the
weight of the engine, lost in heat and friction.
We’ve devised an enormously sophisticated set
of very badly designed vehicles just to move
one person from one place to another.
MICHAEL TIGAR
Petroleum prices will continue their sharp
upward movement and economic chaos in the
West at the most or, at the very least, the grim,
inevitable realization that something has to be
done about the excess consumption of these
fossil fuels in the United States of America and
other Western countries is going to be
impressed upon people’s consciousness.
TU WEIMING
China, for a long time, was a nation of bicycles.
BILL JOY
I’m encouraged that Chinese automakers are
looking at the ecological impacts of the cars
and working very hard and thinking about
electric cars.
BEVERLY SCHWARTZ
China has a huge opportunity and a huge
responsibility to industrialize in a way that
works for its people and for its environment
and for the world.
ASHOK GANGADEAN
It’s clear that what is behind the question is
not so much the Chinese people but a
metaphor for a situation in which it’s
unsustainable clearly.
013.
BIANCA JAGGER
We cannot ask of them what we’re not
prepared to do ourselves! And what we need to
do is we should learn from our mistakes, from
the way we have lived, from the irrational and
the irresponsible way in which we have lived
our life.
FANG LIJUN
(in translation from Chinese)
The problem is not how many people want a
car but that the door to human desires has
been opened interminably. How can we close
the door again after opening it to our infinite,
possessive desires?
MRS. POSSUELO
(to her husband)
Everything OK?
SYDNEY POSSUELO
(to his wife)
It’s OK. It’s OK…
BENJAMIN FAHRER
(approaching Benson Venegas)
How you doing?
BENSON VENEGAS
Ah good. A little bit exhausted.
(Benjamin Fahrer massages his shoulders)
Hey. Wow! Ow! Ow!
BENJAMIN FAHRER
That’s too much?
BENSON VENEGAS
Yeah!
JONATHAN GRANOFF
This is just so cool to be here doing this.
SOHRAB MAHDAVI
(to Jonathan Granoff)
Is it?
JONATHAN GRANOFF
(to Sohrab Mahdavi)
Yeah, this is where the Nazis burned the
books.
014.
SOHRAB MAHDAVI
Oh, now I get it…
He gestures to the north end of Bebelplatz, to a giant sculpture of
seventeen books built to commemorate those burned in 1933.
SOHRAB MAHDAVI (CONT., O.S.)
Those stack of books are there because of that.
JONATHAN GRANOFF
Yeah.
SOHRAB MAHDAVI
Jesus, I didn’t realize that…
HOMERO ARIDJIS
(approaching Willem Dafoe)
Willem…
WILLEM DAFOE
(to Homero Aridjis)
Hey!
HOMERO ARIDJIS
Hey, how many questions do you have now?
After all these!
WILLEM DAFOE
You want to know…?
HOMERO ARIDJIS
So many questions…
ELIANE POTIGUARA
(to Viviana Figueroa,
in translation from Portuguese)
I’m speaking… I'm speaking so much about all
the problems. I'm setting it all on fire!
ANGAANGAQ LYBERTH
(to camera operator)
Am I doing OK?
HAFSAT ABIOLA
Question Thirty-Three is from the New York-
based novelist, Siri Hustvedt, who asks…
015.
SIRI HUSTVEDT
(to camera)
I’m very curious to know, to find out how
consumer culture actually influences the
personalities, the ways people live, the way
they think, inside themselves, in a given
culture… how it becomes part of us, and what
it means to be able to resist that visual and
verbal culture that, it seems to me, is always…
WILLEM DAFOE
(underneath Siri Hustvedt)
…that seems to me is always reducing and
simplifying reality into something that can be
easily bought and sold?
SIMON RETALLACK
Uh… I think…
JESPER GREEN
Consumer cult… consumer… consumer
culture…
GOVINDASWAMY HARIRAMAMURTHI
It functions to keep creating a desire in the
society, in the community, that here is
something new, here is something better, here
is something more…
ANTOSCHKA
The people… The man need nothing. He need
only himself. He need love.
KIGGE HVID
(in translation from Danish)
There are enough coffee pots in the world.
There are enough gadgets surrounding us.
There are enough chairs! Use one of the many
hundreds that there already are and then put
your extra energy into developing those things
that really matter.
FERNANDO SOLANAS
(in translation from Spanish)
A