Nigeria and Oil: The Book and the Movie

Helon Habila wrote an acclaimed novel on the effects of oil-drilling in Nigeria. For Dutch tv Thomas Blom made a high-profile documentary on the same subject. A conversation, with film and reading, on the choices the writer and documentary filmmaker had to make. In English.

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Information

Date and time Friday 20 January 2012 21:30 tot 22:20 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 6

Journalist and writer Helon Habila wrote an acclaimed novel on the effects of oil-drilling in Nigeria. For Dutch tv Thomas Blom made a high-profile documentary on the same subject: Shell in Nigeria. This led to the company being brought to book in a Dutch parliamentary hearing. A conversation, with footage from the documentary, on the artistic and journalistic choices the writer and documentary filmmaker had to make. On facts, form and fiction. In English.

Helon Habila

was born in Nigeria. He worked as a lecturer and journalist in Nigeria before he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. In 2002 he published his first novel, Waiting for an Angel. His writing has won many prizes including the Caine Prize, 2001, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005/2006 he became the Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College, New York.
In 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, New Writing 14. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in 2007, it won the Virginia Library Foundation Fiction Award, 2008. His third novel, Oil on Water, was published in the US in 2011. His anthology, The Granta Book of the African Short Story came out in September, 2011. Habila teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and three children.
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Bert Jansma

(Sassenheim, NL, 1942) initially wanted to be an actor but left theatre school after only one year. He then dedicated himself to studying Dutch and founded the literary youth magazine Fase. At the same time, he published his poetry in various other literary magazines and translated drama. He eventually ended up in arts journalism via various odd jobs that paid the bills. He worked (among others) for the newspapers AD, De Haagsche Courant and Het Binnenhof. He also created radio commentaries for Radio West. Although initially hired to cover film and theatre, another great passion became his specialty: jazz. Jansma retired in 2005 but remains active as a journalist for the websites jazzmasters, denhaagjazz and jazzpodium, among others.
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Thomas Blom

(1970) is a film maker and writer. For Zembla he made among others documentaries on Shell's dirty oil and the hunt for Mladic. His documentary about Shell in Nigeria led to a hearing in the Dutch Parliament early 2011 on the dubious practices of the oil giant. Blom, who had spoken to the local population, was heard as a witness. Sports is a cherished topic of Blom's. He wrote two books about football (among others on Marco van Basten) and made various sports documentaries. In 2004 Blom together with a colleague founded his own production company, Stanzafilm, which not only makes documentaries for tv and the Internet but also company films. Two years later he became documentary film maker with VARA/NPS. He made among others the documentaries Weg met de Centrumpartij (Away with the Centrumpartij), Hijacking in Almelo and The mystery of Foekje Dillema.
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