Meet The Team: Mickey
MICKEY GRANT
Mickey Grant's background covers over 30 years of directing and shooting both film and video. He's every bit a Texan; he exagerates and is at times loud (he says "he's hard of hearing!"). Most of all he loves film making and loves the cultures of the world. He got his start in documentary doing work for the British journalist/presenter, Bernard Falk of the Britain's tonight show. He's produced everything from Westerns to Stan Cottrell's run across China which he made into a film which got theatrical distribution and a HBO and BBC2 sale called CHINA RUN.
He's been campaigning for the past 4 years to help free the Bulgarian nurses held prison in Libya and completed a film about his efforts called INJECTION.
Another film, GENTLEMAN'S CHOICE, is about a friend of his, Englishman Chris Adams who was murdered in 2001. Chris was a British judo champion turned professional wrestler who became very popular in the UK and the US. Like so many of the other wrestlers in America, Chris became addicted to drugs and alcohol. This just completed story tells a similar story to what is happening in the news with so many of the many deaths of wrestlers.
Mickey's films are personal and intense. He has known Robin and Louela for many years and believes that this film can be very exciting and interesting. "Very few geographers have as much sensitivity as Robin and also the love of the different cultures that he exhults", said Mickey in a recent interview. "Albania is a beautiful country and is composed of a population which is outstanding in so many fields. Albanians have a diverse culture which also helped them to realize it was their obligation to protect the Jews of their country in World War 2. This is amazing and please remember that Islam is the dominant religion in Albania.
To learn more about Mickey Grant please visit his website at www.creativehat.com
His wife Cindy operates a travel agency which specializes in family and honeymoon travel to such beautiful destinations as Tahiti, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Western Europe. www.experthoneymoon.com
During the war in Vietnam, thousands of people in the Vietnamese province of Cu Chi lived in an elaborate system of underground tunnels. Originally built in the time of the French colonial occupation, the tunnels were enlarged during the American presence. When Americans began bombing Cu Chi, the survivors went underground and based their operations against the Americans, often underneath American camps. Hidden beneath destroyed villages were hospitals where children were born and surgery was performed on casualties of war; underground were schools and public places where lovers met. There were even theaters with song and dance and traditional stories.
The Cu Chi Tunnels is a disquieting film to watch if you were a direct enemy of these people. For you, it might not be easy to watch old guerillas bragging about the number of Americans they killed. But when these same guerillas talk of their fear of "the deep eyed people" with their magic weapons, and about the girls they loved, and how the darkness of the tunnels was like an endless night - then these people might become very human to you. The film becomes a film not about killing and darkness, but about light and love and the power of the human spirit. Vietnamese with English subtitles.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5182317638126553942&hl=en
This film deals with HIV in Africa and the situation with the Bulgarian nurses who got the death penalty in Libya for supposedly infecting over 400 Libyan children with HIV. In Libya in 1999, five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were arrested and convicted of infecting over four hundred Libyan children with HIV in a Benghazi hospital. Libyan dictator Moammar Khadaffi proclaimed before the trial that the nurses conspired with the American CIA and the Israeli Mossad to maliciously infect the children.
Widespread reuse of disposable syringes is responsible for as many as seven million cases of AIDS in Africa. Public health officials are reluctant to discuss this problem, perhaps in fear that Africans will avoid critical medical care, such as inoculations for malaria and other virulent diseases. The thrust of public AIDS prevention campaigns is on safe sex, and healthcare risks are critically overlooked.
In this investigative documentary, Mickey Grant travels to Kenya, Bangkok, Sofia, Benghazi, Tripoli, Rome and London in an attempt to discover the truth. He follows the trail of syringes from hospital to garbage dump, and then back into Africa’s health care system.
You'll hear moving testimony from leaders of the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, African government officials, the Khadaffi opposition, journalists, medical scientists, doctors, and health care workers. You'll also hear from one of the accused, the son of Moammar Kaddafi, a spokesman for the infected children, and other participants.
Could these healthcare workers have committed this horrific crime? Or, are they scapegoats to divert attention from institutional shortcomings? Is Moammar Khadaffi responsible for this tragedy? Is re-use of contaminated syringes a common practice in Libya and the rest of Africa? Are safer syringes available, and if so, why aren't they in common use?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=59525788234266861&hl=en
GENTLEMAN'S CHOICE is the story of a truly nice guy who became a total jerk when he was drinking. When the STEROID GHB was added to the mix ... all » he became truly dangerous.
A trained architect and judo competition winner from England, and a man with strong will and ambition, Chris Adams sought fame and fortune in America. He achieved it as a professional wrestler in the mid-1980’s as “Gentleman” Chris Adams. At the peak of his career, he was performing in front of tens of thousands in stadiums and arenas with wrestling legends including Kerry and Kevin Von Erich.
Adams submitted to the temptations that accompany fame and fortune. As soon as things were starting to go really well, other things started to go seriously wrong. He got involved with the wrong crowd, accidentally killed a girlfriend, assaulted men and women, spent time in prison, and ultimately perished at the hands of his best friend. Along with entertaining archival wrestling footage featuring Adams and his co-stars of the day, this documentary includes revealing interviews with the people who were there, who knew Adams personally ... friends, family, wrestlers, promoters, managers, wives, strippers, drug dealers, enablers, and the man who killed Adams.
There are many similarities to the current Chris Benoit tragedy in this film. In fact, Chris Benoit and Chris Adams wrestled together in Atlanta at the WCW. They also shared a common interest in many of the same drugs which includes the drug called alcohol. It is planned that GENTLEMAN'S CHOICE will be released theatrically in several US and UK cities. Visit this site in the future to find the release schedule. Also, you may call 214-282-2671 for PRESS INFO. Copyright, 2007 Mickey Grant Productions
DESTINATION DANANG http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7105047256444974154
The remarkable trek of Georgia ultra marathon runner, Stan Cottrell, who ran down the coastal highway from Hanoi through Hue to Danang in ... all » an effort to foster harmony between the peoples of the US and Vietnam. Though there is a great deal of talk in the film (and a narration that often approaches poetry), the best of it is the pictures of Cottrell jogging determinedly through hamlets full of the curious and landscapes full of the litter of war. And yet there is something so good-natured about this epic wind-mill-tilt that DESTINATION DANANG takes on a dizzy life of its own--you roll with it. "He was very loud and he said foolish things," says Annie Huynh, and she is surely right. But he means so well. Of course, Americans have always meant so well in Vietnam. But perhaps this time, the film says, will be different.
Stan Cottrell's earlier run in China was also made in to a film by director Mickey Grant and is appearing on Google Video and is titled CHINA RUN. Stan Cottell is an American possessed with understanding the true meaning of friendship. A very simple yet possessed fellow from Kentucky. A man with the guts to meet our former enemy. Not as a peace promoter. But just as a simple man wanting to understand friendship.
Produced by Ed Steeds, Pensilva, Cornwall, United Kingdom