When we created the notion of Conversations these are some
comments which inspired us to design and produce the series:
Academy-Award winning actor, Sidney Poitier writes in his wonderful biography LIFE BEYOND MEASURE:
"I want Ayele to know me in my own words, from stories not just passed down, but told from my lips ..... stories from my mind and imagination, from my philosophies and experiences - my life, as told to her, in my voice, intended expressly for her and her generation.
I hope you may be encouraged to ask a few more questions of your folks...to discover an inheritance to expand your vision of who you are and where you came from - and one you can pass on to your kids...a journey of discovery is there just for the asking."
Quotes used with kind permission of Sidney Poitier / Publishers Simon and Schuster.
Other inspiring comments...
- I don't want to be remembered through a funeral eulogy...I want people to see me just as I am now!
- My children ask questions about my parents, but I can't answer because I never took the time to find out.
- I would dearly love to have had Mum on film...to hear her voice and watch her laugh.
- We want to have our grandchildren and their kids to see us filmed in the prime of life and not as tired old fogeys.
- We have traced our family history, but old fading photos and documents don't reveal who our ancestors really were...we want our family to be seen, recorded and remembered.
- Dad could spin a yarn with the best of them, always the life of the party, but now he's gone and it's getting harder to recall that wicked grin and devilish sense of humour...it's lost forever.
Many people have interesting lives...but they come, they go and they are forgotten. This is a great pity, especially when a narrative from each generation would make a fascinating story.
Rex Ferguson (1983)
