PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT AND PREVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY SHORTCUT TO HEAVEN

SATURDAY, MAY 26th, 2012
Photo Exhibit and Reception 6 PM | Screening 8 PM
All Ages | Free

Basilica Hudson presents…
THIS IS CONGO: Photography Exhibit and a sneak peak preview of the documentary film SHORTCUT TO HEAVEN with director and photographer Daniel McCabe and crew + Special Guest Filmmaker and Field Producer Horeb Bulambo.

Photography Exhibit will feature images touching on Congo, its people, its conflict and its beauty.  Shot on location during the production of the film SHORTCUT TO HEAVEN, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by photographer filmmakers Daniel and Michael McCabe.

SHORTCUT TO HEAVEN is a feature length documentary that explores the ongoing fight for the Democratic Republic of Congo’s vast mineral wealth and natural resources. Battles are waged daily by those who will kill to plunder the country’s rare metals and other natural bounty, which ends up in the hands of western end users. Eastern Congo is an area where an estimated 1,500 people die each day as victims of war, where rape and child combatants have reached epidemic proportions. SHORTCUT TO HEAVEN will document one of the underlying stories of violent conflict in the Congo, it’s resource wars. Showing the direct link between the continued violence in eastern Congo and the consumer products that are manufactured today. From raw materials to war, it will provide a look into the human costs of an unregulated international market for Congo’s valuable natural resources. It will also testify to the need for finding a realistic and enduring solution to over a decade of violent conflict.

PREJUDICE is a short film that explores the racial tension between a white husband and his African wife. Shot on location in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, with local talent.

DANIEL McCABE, born Woodstock, NY, graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Photography and Film. He started his journalistic career as a staff news photographer at a New York daily newspaper and has also worked in the commercial and fashion industries shooting both stills and video. He began his freelance career by documenting gang and prison related issues in Honduras, moving on to projects such as Kenya’s post-election violence, resource based conflict in Eastern DRC, Haiti’s 2010 earthquake aftermath, and HIV in South Africa’s slum Khayelitsha. McCabe currently covers tribal conflict in Kenya’s lawless north on the Sudan and Somalia borders, and conflict resource issues in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2010 McCabe received AOL’s groundbreaking innovator grant, 25 for 25, for his projects in DRC. McCabe is represented by Redux Pictures and is based in Hudson, NY.

HOREB BULAMBO, born in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), attended College Mwanga majoring in Literature, Latin and Philosophy, and the Uganda School of Media majoring in Photography and Video Production. He has worked as a Communications Officer for ACPN (Community Action for the Protection of Nature) in conjunction with the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund, at World Vision organization as a Communications Officer, and for the UN’s MONUSCO as a lead reporter, traveling to remote areas of DRC to provide on camera reports of UN field operations. Bulambo currently works as a freelance communications specialist and reporter for international film and media organizations, and is an independent film producer/director, winning Best Narrative Film in 2008 at the Picha Film Festival for “Racial Prejudice”. Bulambo is currently based in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo with his  wife and three children.

Cash Bar + Food provided by Miss Lucy’s Kitchen

For More Information visit:  www.sthfilm.com