2010

Sorry I didn’t do very well over the film. As I argued at the time, the actual hours worked on a film meant that very little energy was left for blogging.

So here we are in Feb 2010 and we have plenty to keep us entertained. One of our actors towards the end of filming Love Patrol was arrested on rape charges. This has been a source of great shame and various other emotions for the rest of the group. He has pleaded not guilty and today 17 Feb, on the first day of his trial, it appears that the girl in question has married and is on East Malekula and she doesn’t want to come to the trial. The police are having one last go at persuading her to come or if she doesn’t, the case will be dismissed. Personally I would prefer it if she came and then if he is found not guilty he has at least proved it in court. Her absence will be interpreted one of two ways , either she knows it wasn’t rape and doesn’t want the shame of that coming out in court or she can’t face having to go through it again in public. The police say a lot of cases collapse becasue of no-shows by the girl.On the other hand all the police witnesses have been dismissed by the judge as not very useful. It's his story against hers

Guilty or not, the group is divided; should we have him back? Should we assist him in his legal fees ? They are tired of the public asking them about him or blaming the whole group ‘you say we shouldn’t do this and that but then look at your own actor ' as if somehow we are all responsible.

Whatever, he has a very bad drink problem and we have been warning him forever about where it will lead him. Some feel this is the shock he needs and given that he is such a good actor we must give him another chance; after all he came to us aged 15 with no future and unleashed this amazing talent on the community. Maybe we should have tried to mentor him more through his giddy rise as one of the group's stars.Would it have made any difference? 'Who cares?' says another as we debate the issue for the nth time, 'if he's a rapist I dont want anything to do with him.' Even if he is, will prison do him any good? At least if he goes to prison, the decision is made for us. If he's not guilty some still don't want him back because he's broken our own internal codes so often. Others would take him back for the revival of 40 Dei, some say they want to see evidence he can overcome his drink problem first and will only work with him on Love Patrol 4. Yes oh joy we now have funding for series 4.

For the last 3 weeks we have been working on a new project around the Family Protection Act; this became law over a year ago and is beginning to be implemented. The improvised play explores the role of the new ‘authorised person’ This person will receive training in the provisions of the act and have power to implement temporary Restraining Orders on the spot if s/he feels one partner in a relationship is in danger from violence. For the play the group has devised two story lines around a framework in which first of all we see events through the man’s eyes with a man also taking the part of his wife and then the woman acts her side of the story with a woman playing the part of her husband. Both stories also end with the authorized person being called in. S/he explains the powers and different restraining orders that the AP has and asks the audience to decide which one to use; they range from just telling them to live peacefully together to letting the complainant go and live with her family for 14 days or asking the defendant to leave the house for a similar amount of time. In both cases the defendant is not allowed to go near the complainant. When the audience has decided what measure to use, the AP goes back to the complainant and asks if she’s happy with that; when s/he is, then the AP serves the order on the defendant who sometimes objects and then we see the consequences played out in the relationship through a number of role plays. The first program was this morning and it went well. The audience seemed very keen to see how their recommendations played out. Hopefully as the actors gain confidence they could actually ask the audience to serve the orders. One thing that is lacking is a role play after the end of the order suggesting that the defendant has actually learnt something from it and refrains from violence. Not a picture of perfect bliss but perhaps a violent free one. We have much fun with his objections to the order and attempts to subvert it (ie sending messages through family members) but we need to end it positively!

The whole program is rounded off with some further discussion about whether the act is simply encouraging divorce ( a popularly held belief). There's also the issue of the permissability of 'smacking' your children as the act also covers kids...good Daily Mail territory. This was one of the reasons the president cited in initially refusing to sign the bill.

We close with a dramatization of a poem by the late Grace Molisa, one of the founders of the Vanuatu womens movement. The poem takes the list of domestic violence injuries recorded at the hospital over a 6 months period and delivers it verbatim in short lines of verse.