The idea for this website came to fruition. while in preproduction for the integrated media and video project, "2015."

Originally a blog which documented the pre-production, production and post-production of this project, it has since grown into a venue for the people of the world to view the final version of the film as well as a venue to both learn and share more about the Millennium Development Goals.

Dearest friends,

I've arrived back to an disclosed location in the island of many hills. Safely home. Thanks for the opportunity to think of you when I needed some strength to get through the hard parts and arrive safely home in the same physical body + a microbe or two I met along the way.

Sorry connection in Magraib was via bluetooth and couldn't handle the data.

Morocco was fantastic though more in the next few days!

I got home and the cockroaches were already at the door,

c M c M

Wish I could write more....so much to say and yet my plane of course leaves in a few hours.

At any rate, Mo7 is here with me and feel that I have to correct his last name from last time. The LITERAL translation of his last name is Father of Sheep, but of course Mo7 is not a father yet (Inshala one day) nor does he even know how to raise sheep.

To my dedicated readers,

I am so sorry to have been unable to update as much as I would have liked. You see in Yemen, as the saying goes, one has to be a magician, and pulling the ball through the ring has not been my forte, FILMMAKING HAS! And boy, what a production here!

Working with the dedicated Akram al-Hindi, the Yemen Assistant Director, a most superb collection of footage has been collected.

It was a hectic departure from Cairo. In most countries of the world, you are limited to 20 kg (approximately 40 pounds) of luggae. Unlike the US, you aren't limited to number of bags, but this total weight. Of course, I have more than 60 kgs of equipment with me, and I was quite obliged to pay the additional 1220 Egyptian Pounds to bring this along with me.

In a few short hours a la 1AM, we will be embarking to Sana'a Yemen!

It is hard to believe that a week has gone by here in Cairo. I will miss the city and the friends I have made. Though the permission to shoot in the streets was never granted by the government, we re-worked the script so that the entire scene would take place at Giza.

Day 2.5 - Cairo, what can be said about this absolutely enormous city! The streets are absolutely insane. I have been on a large tour of the city seeing much of it...and let me tell you it is HUGE geographically. In all of the kilometers driven, I think I have seen a total of two traffic lights. There are two traffic lights and yet millions of people (at least 16 million if not more) and probably at least a million cars, and yet two traffic lights? Is this efficient or not?

Tomorrow is the big day. After six months of writing, producing, and pre-production, the very exciting and quasi-scary movie day has come.

JUNE 17-JUNE 26 - CAIRO

19 BIG HOURS after take off I will be landing in Cairo meeting up with my production associate, Hamid, who's flying in from Germany, Ayman who is the Egyptian filmmaker, and many other people from Cairo who will be helping on the shoot.

JUNE 26-JULY 4 - YEMEN

Of course, I've been learning about the MDGs for many months, but in the small samples I've done, very very few people have in turn heard of them. The whole raison d'etre of "2015" the film is to alert the 400 million people living in the UN "Arab States" of the MDGs. This short video will be shown in the 22 countries, but what about everyone else?

MDGs

Millennium Campaign - oh yes, this has some famous people . . .

Millennium Goals