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New producer joins Leone Stars filmmaking team

Katarina Soukup has joined the Leone Stars filmmaking team to help directors Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh produce.  Mattru Media, founded by Ngardy, is producing Leone Stars.  Katarina runs a thriving documentary production company out of Montreal, Catbird Productions, and pitched at last year's Hot Docs Forum.  She brings with her years of experience in documentary producing and much-needed business prowess.  Learn more about Katarina at http://leonestars.blogspot.ca/p/filmmakers.html

Donate to the LEONE STARS documentary

Donations are welcome to the Leone Stars documentary.
Five percent of funds will literally go into the hands of the amputee soccer players of Sierra Leone when the filmmakers meet them on their periodic shoots.

We're making this film with grants, fundraising like Kickstarter, and our own money.
To date, nobody on the crew has been paid.

As a thank-you, anybody in Canada who donates C$50 or more will receive this t-shirt:

Americans who donate C$60 or more will receive a shirt.
Those living outside North America: C$70 to cover postage costs.

To order: please email leonestarsdoc [at] gmail.com
and state your name, address and shirt size. We have S, M, L, XL.
Expect 4-5 weeks to process your order, since we order shirts in batches.
God bless.

December 2011 shoot in Freetown & Bo

Leone Stars directors Allan Tong and Ngardy Conteh with cinematographer Colin Akoon returned to Toronto on Christmas Eve following a two-week shoot in Sierra Leone. Their ever-reliable "fixer" Hash Magona was the fourth member of the crew. The trip to the capital of Freetown plus additional days in the inland city of Bo marks the second voyage by the Leone Stars crew. Other shoots will follow, but for now here are some images of this exciting trip:

Ngardy, Colin & Hash preparing to film from the back of a moving car
winding through downtown streets in Freetown

Colin capturing kids playing the national pastime on Aberdeen Beach,
Freetown at sundown

Allan with Omaru (left) and his teammates in the eastern city of Bo after practice

Shooting B-roll of a pile of garbage burning off the side of the road in downtown Freetown. Sierra Leoneans don't enjoy garbage pick-up, so they burn it, including a TV set in this blaze.

Drumcultures online interview with directors Ngardy & Allan

Toronto's Drumcultures online magazine recently spoke to Leone Stars directors Allan & Ngardy in downtown Toronto. Click volume 3-23 at Drumcultures.

Leone Stars wins TIFF’s Pitch This! as first documentary ever

Leone Stars directors Ngardy Conteh (left) and Allan Tong (right) during their presentation at Pitch This!
(photo: TIFF)

TORONTO (September 13, 2011) - Today the documentary Leone Stars beat five dramatic films at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Pitch This! competition. Co-directors Ngardy Conteh and Allan Tong presented their film to 15 judges and packed Bell Lightbox theatre. They walked away with the $10,000 development prize as the first documentary to win in the 12-year history of Pitch This! and only the second to ever compete.

Leone Stars was chosen the winner after Tong and Conteh's five-minute live pitch followed by two minutes of questions and answers from the jury of film and TV professionals. Tong and Conteh showed brief footage shot by DP Colin Akoon in March this year and, accompanied by Ghanian-Canadian musician Kobèna Aquaa-Harrison playing thumb piano, delivered a quasi-poem as a slideshow of images taken by photographers Fiona Aboud and Johnny Vong, played on the giant movie screen above. Their central motif was: "Do you believe a one-legged man can fly?"

TIFF's Christoph Straub (Manager of Industry Programming, Canadian Initiatives, TIFF) (far left) and Telefilm Canada's Anne Frank (far right) present Ngardy and Allan with their $10,000 prize (photo: TIFF)

“We worked on our pitch for weeks leading up to the event,” says Ngardy Conteh, “and it paid off. We are happiest for the subjects of the film, who deserve to have their story told.” 2005's Pitch This! winner, Richie Mehta (director, Amal) coached Conteh and Tong (as well as another team), and they also received useful feedback from friend and Montreal filmmaker David Eng. Tong wrote the pitch script while Ngardy edited the slideshow together and enlisted Aquaa-Harrison to play an African drum over the 28-second video footage and the thumb piano.

"I had in mind Richie's Amal pitch which revolved around the motif of an envelope," explains Tong. "I remember how simple, poetic and direct it was, and aimed for the same effect. By pure chance Richie was assigned our coach."

2011 has been touted as the Year of the Doc ever since TIFF announced David Guggenheim's rock doc about superstars U2, From The Sky Down, as the opening night film. Says Tong, “This is a victory for documentarians across Canada who have faced fewer and fewer sources of funding in Canada in recent years. And thanks to Telefilm and TIFF we can now go back to Africa to film the team as they compete at the All-African cup in Ghana.”

Leone Stars follows members of Sierra Leone's Single Leg Amputee Sports Club who are chosen for the national amputee soccer team. They were young boys when rebel soldiers hacked off their arms and legs during Sierra Leone’s ruthless civil war. Surviving poverty, war, and prejudice, the Sierra Leone amputee soccer team dreams of victory at the 2012 world championships. Leone Stars asks: Can victims become champions?


Leone Stars was the first documentary in English Canada to successfully raise over $20,000 in funding on the popular crowdfunding site, Kickstarter.com. The funds allowed the production team to travel to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, and the southern province of Bo earlier this year. Additional funding is needed to follow the team to the world championships in 2012.

Leone Stars is being written and co-directed by Allan Tong and co-directed and edited by Ngardy Conteh. The film is produced by Walter Forsyth of Gorgeous Mistake Productions and executive produced by Jerry McIntosh.

For more information or interviews:
leonestarsdoc@gmail.com,
leonestars.blogspot.com
902.489.4897 (Walter Forsyth, producer)
647.200.9146 (Allan Tong, co-director)
416.897.5575 (Ngardy Conteh, co-director)

- 30 -

Pics from the CBC Soccer Day in Canada Interview

Here's a few pics I snapped with my phone as Allan and I got ready to be interviewed on CBC for Soccer Day in Canada. Thanks to everyone who tuned in!

To get one of our stylish t-shirts click here.

-ngardy

Ngardy getting make up

 Allan getting beautified!

 Floor director Bob and host Scott getting ready for the interview

 Allan in deep thought...Ngardy, getting one more pic before the cameras roll

 Much better Allan, ready for the camera now!

All smiles, all done!

We will hopefully post the interview online within the next week when we get a copy.

Trailer (May 2011)

January 26, 2012 update: A new trailer, absorbing footage from our December 2011 shoot, will be uploaded shortly. This trailer here was cut with footage shot in March 2011. Enjoy.

Leone Stars Trailer from LeoneStarsDoc on Vimeo.

Ngardy's Journey Begins

I started traveling to Sierra Leone yesterday, I'm going a few days ahead of the team to save airfare. I flew out of Barbuda yesterday morning and spent the day in Antigua waiting to board my next flight. The butterflies are still dancing in my belly, a mixture the anticipation of finally going to Sierra Leone after all these years coupled with the pressure of shooting this documentary....

6 Questions with Johnny Vong

1) You're volunteering to help as a production assistant on this shoot. How come?

Strange, lovely, impeccable timing. I was in Barbuda for Ngardy's wedding in January when she told me that this project was all ready to go... crew, money, everything was coming together. I was very happy and excited for her. When I returned to Toronto, I got the unfortunate news that I've been laid off from my full time job....After telling her my story, I simply asked if I could come along with her to Sierra Leone. I agreed to pay for everything including my plane ticket with whatever money I had saved up. We both agreed: I was crazy.

2) In two sentences tell us about yourself.

I am a filmmaker, photographer, devoted cinephile. I'm adventure-seeking, energetic and passionate.

3) How do you know Ngardy?

We met while working together at a small production company many years ago.

4) How are you preparing?

I am reading a lot about the people and history of Sierra Leone right now. There's a lot of emotional territory for me to explore, and I know this research will greatly inform the thematic ideas around the images I capture.

5) Any expectations of what you'll see and experience?
Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the quality of life there is very low. I'm not expecting a holiday retreat. I'm expecting to experience first-hand what life in a country so recently ravaged by war, corruption and violence really feels like.

6) What do you intend to shoot?
We'll be shuttling back and forth between a quiet village and the busy city mayhem of Freetown. It's been ten years since the end of civil war, so it's an incredible opportunity to be able to capture the mood and atmosphere of a country rebuilding, with all its optimism as well as heartbreak. I will be using the images I capture from this project for a personal project...a kind of Chris Marker style film, a hybrid of narrative fiction and documentary, something kind of poetic, essayist or travelogue in form and genre.

7 Things You Should Know about Sierra Leone

Chances are you don't know anything about Sierra Leone except that it's somewhere in Africa. This post is to teach you the basics of this nation, where our film crew is heading from
March 15 to 30. Some here are some tidbits you should know:

1) Sierra Leone is roughly the size and population of the Golden Horseshoe
of southern Ontario.

2) The country was once a British colony and the hub of the transatlantic slave trade.

3) The hills surrounding what is now Freetown Harbour were called Serra de Leão by early Portuguese explorers, meaning "Lion Mountains." That's how the country got its name.


4) Like many African countries, Sierra Leone is divided into a rainy season (from May to November) and a dry season (December to April). That's why our crew has chosen to
film in March.

5) Based on per-capita GDP (the wealth of a nation divided by population), Sierra Leone is often ranked the poorest or second-poorest country on Earth.

6) Ironically, Sierra Leone is one of the top 10 diamond-producing nations in the world.

7) Diamonds played a key role in the bloody civil war of 1991-2002. The amputee soccer team lost their limbs during those dark years, and that era is the focus of the film, LEONE STARS.

Filming in Freetown in March

Director Ngardy Conteh cinematographer Colin Akoon will journey to Freetown and neighbouring villages from March 15 to 30 to capture the life stories of the Leone Stars amputee soccer team. Ngardy and Colin will also visit some of the villages from where the players hailed -- and escaped during the civil war.

Joining them on this trip will be Toronto photographer, Johnny Vong, who is generously donating his time to take pictures and help Ngardy and Colin.

During that war, the players were boys and young adolescents when rebel soldiers hacked off their arms and legs. This film will tell those stories and the hope that their team gives them in surviving in post-war Sierra Leone.

Ngardy will be blogging while she is there. Subscribe to this blog to receive regular updates.

This shoot is funded by generous donors through a recent Kickstarter campaign and a grant from the Toronto Arts Council.

Despite that, the production team is on a tight budget (nobody is making a dime off this film) and we're looking for a deal on P2 cards for our videocamera and a boom mic kit. If anyone in the Toronto area can offer us a reasonable rate on either or both items, please contact co-producer & writer Allan Tong. Thank you!

Next post:
Meet the film crew of the LEONE STARS documentary.

Cheers,
Allan Tong
Co-producer/writer

Donate to the LEONE STARS documentary

If you wish to donate to the LEONE STARS documentary, please click on the PayPal link to begin the process. A portion of all moneys raised will go directly to the amputee soccer players of Sierra Leone:

Leone Stars gearing up for World Amputee Football Championships

Sierra Leone's Single Leg Amputee Sports Club (SLASC) is fundraising so they can return to the World Amputee Football Championships taking place in Crespo, Argentina from October 14– 26.

If they raise the needed funds for flights and accomodations, the Leone Stars will send 16 amputee players and four staff, including coaches. To help The SLASC please contact team spokesman Albert Mustapha.

Some 18 teams, including three first-time competitors, will compete for top honors in the world tournament. The Leone Stars, who are drawn from the SLASC are placed in Group D alongside Russia, England and Angola.

World Cup 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the sport of amputee football (soccer), started in 1980 by Don Bennett of Seattle, Washington, USA. The tournament is organized by the World Amputee Football Federation (WAFF) and Federation of Amputees in Argentina which has invited SLASC to participate. This will be the fourth world amputee football championship that SLASC will compete in.

The players have been feverishly practicing on the beaches of Freetown as seen in these photos.

Part of the proceeds of the online fundraiser to support a documentary about the team will go to the team. To donate, please visit Kickstarter.com.