San Francisco Examiner May 21 2001
by Jeffrey M. Anderson

Fluctuating stock markets, dwindling energy sources, school shootings, dubious tax cuts - plenty of stories are out there, and all of 'em bad.

But two Bay Area documentary filmmakers recently snooped around the world and found real-life stories worth telling, and the news feels good.

This week, Tom Weidlinger's "Boys Will Be Men" and Gunnar Madsen's "Svetlana Village: The Camphill Experience in Russia" have their Bay Area premieres at special benefit events this week.

Shot on digital video, both movies were filmed in various parts of the world and completed here. Though they couldn't be more different in subject matter, they share a heartwarming humanist quality and celebrate people who go out of their way to make the world better.

Harmony in Russia

"Svetlana Village: The Camphill Experience in Russia" explores human behavior and the search for harmony, but in a different setting (from "Boy Will Be Men").

The Film is based on experiences of filmmaker Gunnar Madsen's brother Peter Madsen as well as other villager in Svetlana, a Russian town 90 miles east of St. Petersburg. Svetlana is the site of Camphill, an organization whose members are developmentally disabled people who support themselves in a farm environment. With the help of volunteer co-workers, they grow and harvest their own food, prepare it, and store it for the winter.

At the request of his family, Gunnar Madsen (whose vocals and music have appeared in HBO's "The Rat Pack" and "Sex and the City") shot the video, which describes a hectic week during the 2000 harvest at Camphill.

Though the film stands on its own as a compelling story, it's also a fund-raiser to benefit the people who appear in it. The Madsens hope to raise $1 million so that the villagers can live off the interest, about $3,000 per month, which is all they need.

One of the most important elements of Camphill life is music, because the village has no electricity for prefab entertainment. So the Madsen brothers' musical talents came in handy.

Though many of the developmentally disabled folks at Camphill were told that they would never be able to live by themselves - one person was unable to even put on a hat - everyone in the film has a job to do, from making bread to peeling potatoes, to more strenuous farmwork.

"Tasks are kept simple and handy," Peter Madsen says.

"We limit our use of technical supplies so that everything is done with their hands. If you put them in a McDonald's and expect them to work fast and under a lot of pressure, they're most likely not to succeed very well. Efficiency is not theirs to offer. But they can succeed if you put them in an environment where their pace, warmth, and intelligence is taken into account. And the other thing is that they are asked to try."

Gunnar Madsen adds, "Many people have said that the volunteers couldn't get by without the disabled people. They ground everything...in a way that's so simple that everyone stops and reconsiders where they're at."

Though many people, volunteers and visitors, are shy when first approaching the disabled folks, those fears quickly evaporate.

"Being away from them, they become something else, or something 'other'. The Russian word for them is 'invalid'. That really carries a stigma." But Peter Madsen admits that through meeting the Svetlana villagers first-hand he felt comfortable right away.

For now, Peter has moved his family back to California.

"I'm the fundraiser for the village," he says. "I recently spoke to an experienced fundraiser who just put an end to my dream to get it done before July. They said to expect three years."

He will be moving to a similar Camphill community in New York, and mentions that yet another community opened in Santa Cruz this week.

"This is just the beginning," he says.