Cambria Matlow is a freelance film director who has worked on several short films probing controversial world issues, and served as manager of non-theatrical programming at Film Movement, an independent and foreign film distribution company. Matlow makes her documentary directorial debut in Burning in the Sun, the story of a budding entrepreneur inspired to make a positive impact on his homeland community in Mali. To fund this ViewChange Online Film Contest-winning project, Matlow tapped into her own entrepreneur potential and co-founded Birdgirl Productions in 2005. She writes in the Huffington Post about why she chose her film’s aspiring protagonist:

"Twenty-six-year-old charmer Daniel Dembélé is equal parts West African and European, and looking to make his mark on the world. Seizing the moment at a crossroads in his life, Daniel decides to return to his homeland in Mali and start a local business building solar panels — the first of its kind in the sun-drenched nation. Daniel's goal is to electrify the households of rural communities, 99 percent of which live without power.

"For us, Daniel's work shatters notions of the need for African dependence on outside aid and embraces the view that ultimately it is Africans who will develop Africa in their own way.

"It is important to us for the film to showcase him as an African leader, not only of his country, but as a global trendsetter. So not only do viewers come away with a greater understanding of the kind of development that makes the most sense for Africa, but a sense of profound inspiration that they can take the action they have seen and apply it in their own communities."

For an inside view on Daniel's daring, charisma and intelligence, watch Burning in the Sun:

Read Cambria Matlow's full article in the Huffington Post.

Robin Blotnick has worked as a freelance editor, and as a developer at Walden Media. His current project, "Gods and Kings," is a feature documentary about media, magic and popular culture in the Mayan highlands of Guatemala. If it is anything like his award-winning entry for our ViewChange Online Film Contest — Chocolate Country — then we want to see it! Chocolate Country is a catchy story about a group of guitar-plucking cacao farmers in the Dominican Republic. In the Huffington Post, Blotnick describes the idea behind his work:

“The story I set out to tell was the story of chocolate itself. I wanted to show city people what a mazorca of cacao looks like when it's cut open to reveal its syrupy white seeds. And I wanted to reveal the faces of the men and women who grow and harvest the ingredients for our chocolate bars.”

The short film features the lush, beautiful rainforest region of Loma Guaconejo. The campesinos (farmers) of the area had decided to stop competing with each other against the harsh competition set out by the big cacao companies, and were now working together in a cooperative. They work to directly market an improved, organic product. Blotnick expresses his admiration for their enthusiasm to engage in their community:

“People always remark at how, despite their poverty, the cacao growers in Chocolate Country seem genuinely happy. I believe they're happy because they're empowered. Working together, they're taking some control over the fate of their community. My wish for the people of Loma Guaconejo is that they develop in a way that doesn't alleviate the bad by sacrificing what's good: the freedom of working without a plantation or factory boss, the music and stories they have time to create and share, their ties to the land and, most of all, their ties to one another.

"While being a "conscious consumer" no doubt does some good (or, more accurately, un-does some bad), I'm under no illusion that it's enough. If we really want to transform the conditions that maintain human suffering, we'll have to transform ourselves first, to break out of the passive role of consumer and unite with our neighbors to actively engage the forces of history. In other words, we'll have to be more like the members of the Loma Guaconejo cooperative.”

To hear the music and stories of the empowered campesinos, watch Chocolate Country below:

Read Robin Blotnick full article in the Huffington Post.

This past November, we announced the winners of our ViewChange Online Film contest - a competition to find stories of progress in tackling the UN Millennium Development Goals around the world. Our winners represented the best diversity of themes and styles we could have asked for: an animation about female empowerment, a music video about recycling, a comedy about HIV awareness, and much more. And now that the contest is complete, we've seen our winners receive some much-deserved viewership and press. Most recently, each of the six winners was invited by the Huffington Post to write about their filmmaking experience. What inspired them to pick up a camera? What issues were they trying to tackle?

Robby Bresson is a filmmaker in Kenya and the head of the production company X Media. He became very interested in the role that witch doctors play in many African cultures, and in the interplay between witchcraft and modern medicine. In East Africa, says Bresson, witch doctors can employ some bizarre and violent practices to treat illnesses like HIV. In his January 4th Huffington Post article, Bresson writes,

Bresson took these questions and created The Witch Doctor, a comedic short about a man diagnosed with HIV who turns to witchcraft for help. The witch doctor's advice, however, is not what he expects. Watch The Witch doctor below:

Read Robby Bresson's complete article in the Huffington Post.

How does technology and the Internet express Oneness? I was watching clips from the upcoming ONENESS: The Big Picture (premiering on May 9th) and Deepak said "The Internet is the emergence of something so powerful but we have not realized it's impact."

This feels very true and I think the proper respect is due. If I write an email or a blog from my heart, it seems to have much more of an impact...people respond in kind. It is like the actual energy of my intention comes through my writing, or more like it, this web of light that connects us. This is Oneness, is it not?

I recently went to a conference called Wisdom 2.0 Summit where they were exploring how we use technology to connect in ways that are beneficial to our well-being and useful to the world. I have to say that having lived and worked in both fields -- technology and spirituality (is this a field?...not sure what to call it, but I do work here...) I was prepared not to be impressed with the level of consciousness there, but I am happy to report that I was wrong. There are people at Google, Twitter, Facebook, Mashable and Zappos that seem to have a deep connection to their responsibility to the whole. I almost cried I was so relieved. I mean if you look at the Huffington Post, they have added a religion section and are dedicating themselves to supplying the world with great wisdom teachers and this is a mainstream political publication!  They recently posted a story called "The Internet as a Living Symbol of Global Oneness" by Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. In this article he said, "I believe that the Internet is a gift we have been given. It provides an image of how the energy of life can flow freely in a way that defies the barriers of nationality and geography. Yet sadly because we are so immersed in the surface activity of this technology, in its tools of commerce and communication, we do not realize its deeper, symbolic dimension. A symbol is a connection to the sacred ground of our being which alone gives real meaning to our daily life."

I would love to hear Deepak comment on this.... I would love to hear how he honors this connectedness in his communications with life and community. I hope to ask this question on Mother's Day, May 9th when we host a live chat with him. I am certain mothers care about this issue because it is part of a larger issue. How do we live a life that honors life....

It’s been over a month since the Goldstone Report was published on September 15, 2009. I’ve written about this topic in the Huffington Post, and since then a myriad of reactions and repercussions to the release of the report have occurred. We’ve learned for example that there was a conspiracy by the Palestinian Authority to prevent the report from being submitted to the UN, and that the Israeli government was preparing itself to fight war crimes trials. Just today, an article in Haaretz addressed this very thing:

“The prospect that Israeli officials could face war crimes trials abroad led the political-security cabinet on Tuesday to form a committee to deal with the international legal consequences of the Goldstone Commission's report on the Gaza war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised a lengthy battle to "delegitimize" the findings of the United Nations commission, also instructed government officials to draft proposals for changing international laws of war.”

The coverage of the story has been all over the place – starting in Israel, where the lead investigator Richard Goldstone has been accused of anti-Semitism and of being out to get Israel, even though Mr. Goldstone is a South African Jew. Arab media has been celebrating the report and neglecting to mention that Hamas was also held accountable.

Last Friday, Al Jazeera’s Listening Post aired a report exploring the 575-page hot potato-  causing controversy with the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and the global media. I was invited to contribute my two cents…the saga continues.

Link's Mosaic and the Mosaic Intelligence Report are on vacation this week, but intrepid Mosaic Producer Jamal Dajani has not been slacking. Dajani has been reporting from Paris on the burqa controversy, where French president Nicolas Sarkozy inflamed his country's Muslim population with recent comments stating that the burqa would "not be welcome" in France.

It wasn't easy, but Dajani was able to interview a French woman dressed in burqa for his latest article in the Huffington Post, and it sounds like Sarkozy isn't winning any friends in France's Muslim communities. You can follow Dajani's interesting updates on this story on Twitter.

For more background, this Al Jazeera English piece gives the "inside story" on the call for a burqa ban in France:

Is this anti-burqa campaign really a question of women's rights? (This, of course, coming from the same man caught opening oogling the female form in these photos. Don't you worry -- Obama's wandering eye has apparently been exonerated, according to this ABC News video analysis.) Can France reconcile its values as a secular nation with its growing Muslim immigrant population? We know what Dajani and Sarkozy think -- what about you?