A web documentary that portrays five citizens who work towards a better future for Vietnam’s Mekong delta.
In 2009, I quit my architecture career in the Netherlands and moved to Vietnam to study water and climate challenges in the Mekong delta. A few years later, I published my book Living with the Mekong. Vietnamese readers were enthusiastic and told me there was so much more to explore. They asked me to make a documentary about their lives, challenges and resilience.
I decided to do it and Me and Mekong was born: an interactive documentary to raise awareness and support for change by showing everyday climate and water challenges through the eyes of local people. My ultimate goal is to give hope and offer a new future to children and their families who live with water. They are the first and hardest hit by climate change. Though, during my journeys through the Mekong delta I also discovered that it is not all doom and gloom. I got impressed by the local resilience and innovation power of farmers, fisher(wo)men and young entrepreneurs. In Me and Mekong I want to show both: the hardships and local answers to climate change.
I asked Vietnamese researcher Long Hoang from Wageningen University to join hands. He is dedicated to work towards positive change for local communities in the Mekong delta. My Nextblue colleagues were enthusiastic and documentary photographer Thomas van den Berg completed our team.
We shared our film plan with Henk Ovink, Dutch Envoy for International Water Affairs. He immediately agreed that now is the right time and that he is 100% committed to support our project. He endorses our fundraising campaign. Will you join us?
Please pledge any amount you can and give local communities a voice in tackling climate change. Every contribution or share helps.
Joep Janssen
Director of Me and Mekong
We need your help to put a human face on climate and water challenges in one of the world’s most vulnerable regions: the Mekong delta in Vietnam.
Each year, increasingly intense weather events and floods cause fatalities and damage to infrastructure. The livelihoods of poor communities are especially affected by these natural disasters. Their schools get flooded, bamboo houses are washed away, and agricultural land becomes infertile. We want to make an interactive, web documentary to show living with water in a changing delta through the eyes of these people.
Me and Mekong is a solution-driven film made with and for local people in the Mekong delta. It portrays five citizens who act now to strengthen their resilience to climate change. They take you on a virtual journey through their delta while showing you a wide range of issues, from salinisation and subsidence to flooded streets and mangrove restoration. You’ll discover unique local perspectives on climate change adaptation.
Join us. Together we’ll increase the pressure on politicians and companies to act now.
Together we can build a better future for Vietnam’s Mekong delta!
*****
We are looking for €10,000 to cover production costs. Me and Mekong is a locally-driven film. The budget includes reservations to actively involve local partners in the script development and film shooting. Furthermore, we don’t want this to be a one-off initiative. Therefore, we will facilitate a workshop and train young people with a smartphone to make their own videos. By doing so, we will build a community of local climate and water journalists with whom we will continue working beyond completion of the documentary.
Joep Janssen – Director of Me and Mekong
Joep Janssen is an architect, researcher and publicist. He became fascinated by delta cities after having lived in Vietnam for four years. His book Living with the Mekong (2015) was published by the publishing company Blauwdruk and is about climate change and urban development in Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta. Joep founded Nextblue.
Long Hoang Phi – Researcher & local manager
Long Hoàng is Postdoc Researcher at Wageningen University & Research. He has been active as a researcher in the Mekong delta since 2012, and recently finished the PhD thesis The Mekong’s Future Flows (2017). Long also contributed to the Dutch-Vietnamese collaborative project to develop the strategic Mekong Delta Plan.
Thomas van den Berg – Director of Photography
Thomas van den Berg is landscape architect at the Municipality of Rotterdam. He studied at Wageningen University & Research and gained experience in China and Indonesia. During his travels through Asia in 2017 he focused on documentary photography and film, and published in Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.
Your journey begins in Chau Doc, which is located in the northern part of the Mekong delta, a couple of hours west from Ho Chi Minh City. You travel from there down the Mekong river and visit five different locations and people who show their daily life, including footage from their activities, in house and outside.
Narrations and voice-overs are used to guide the story. The documentary will be available in Vietnamese, English and Dutch. Dialogues are in Vietnamese, taking the viewer deeper into the world of the Mekong delta and its people.
We go for an authentic documentary style. This means we will use natural lighting as much as possible to achieve a genuine look and feel. In addition to the main film, which will be in digital HD format, we will invite local people to submit their own home-video style footage. We will also train local people on making good quality videos with their smartphones.
The documentary will be launched in the Netherlands and Vietnam. After the launch, Me and Mekong will be freely available online. As a crowdfunder you will get access to exclusive imagery of the making off.
Spread the word on social media! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Share our campaign using #MeAndMekong.
We think the time for this web documentary is now, and we are committed to make the most impactful film we can, as quickly as possible. And with the generous time and support of international experts and local citizens who have already agreed to appear on camera, I have no doubt that we will be able to tell stories about the vulnerable Mekong delta.
However, there could be some bumps along the way. If production obstacles cause delays, that could mean that we get the film out to you, our backers, later than anticipated. But, based on our experience and the strong team we have put together, we are confident that we can make a great film by the end of 2019.
Our fundraising goal is ambitious. But we think that through your support, we can accomplish it in the time allotted — but now IT’S UP TO YOU!