At the UN I was asked ‘could I film the deaf Finnish rapper for two days and do a longer piece on him?’ I’d missed him when he’d passed through the UN in New York. The assignment was to go out to the University of Minnesota to catch the last two days of his US…

So I arrived in Moscow – miles of crumbling tower blocks before you get to the centre, horrible traffic (murderous if you want to cross as a pedestrian), huge electric cables stretching between the top of one tower block to another, huge new towers being built, shopping malls, money. It was one of the few…

Commentary on “Rokia” social psychology experiment: The participants who read exclusively about Rokia gave an average of $2.38, whereas those who read only the statistics about mass starvation gave remarkably less, averaging $1.14. Those who read about the statistics and Rokia gave only $1.43. Obviously the unadorned appeal for a single individual carried the most…

A brave woman uses a small camera to capture what is happening to her: she discovers she isn’t safe in her own home.  After a year of rumours Nuriya Khalikova was forced from her home – to make way for a new park in the centre of Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. Because of her film, activists…

Traditionally, people with disabilities have been all but invisible on Russia’s streets. But that’s beginning to change. This is a one minute trailer for a forthcoming documentary, made for UN Television. A beautiful future from francismead@airpost.net on Vimeo.

It seems to me that each filming trip is essentially an act of will. Where no thing existed before, you will something into existence – in this case short documentaries filmed in Azerbaijan and Moscow. The whole thing requires utter doggedness and persistence, in the full knowledge that unless YOU do this, no one else…