Mark is a filmmaker and photographer. He got his start by creating super-eight art films to screen behind punk bands. He’s unaffiliated with any media outlet. He has no credit cards and travels the SF Bay Area mostly by bicycle.
Mark Brecke (left). Cory McAbee (right). Brooklyn NY
On the evening the above photo was taken Mark had just returned from the Darfur region of Sudan, where he lived for five weeks with the roving rebels of the Sudanese Liberation Army.
Photo by Brecke.
The photographs that Mark took in Darfur were meant to be a part of an ongoing project concerning worldwide violence, but the experience took Mark into a different direction. Mark used these photos to created a film called THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE. It’s a documentary that he made while traveling across the US by train on his way to Washington DC where he arranged a presentation of his work in Darfur. Mark showed his pictures to fellow train passengers and explained very simply to them what was happening when the photos were taken. Their responses were captured on video and audio-taped for National Public Radio. When Mark arrived in DC he handed out handmade flyers to invite people to a presentation that he had arranged. As a result his photos were hung in the Senate rotunda on Capital Hill.
The handmade copy machine flyers that were handed out in DC were in keeping with his usual tactics. In most cases Mark created his own fake press passes to get into war zones and Senate chambers. He used to carry Xeroxes of American $20 bills to bribe drunken border guards.
THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE has recently won the International Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 31st São Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil, and the Best Feature, International Human Rights award at the Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles, CA.
The money from his film is being donated to Doctors Without Borders.
Mark sells photographs to help finance his work, but he doesn't consider himself a freelancer, because that suggests he gets paid for his pictures.
That's Mark Brecke.
http://www.desertintofire.com.
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The Smallest Star
AMERICAN ASTRONAUT
