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Danish Teens Looking for Sponsors, Stories for Documentary

March 12, 2007 — The Danes are coming with video cameras, and they need your help.
"A little more than 90 years ago, St. Croix was a Danish colony, and the former Danish West Indian Islands have never ceased to interest the Danes," said a news release from Per Helmer Hansen of Oerestad High School in Denmark. "On March 21, a group of Danish media students will arrive to make a documentary video about St. Croix and they hope that they can get a lot of help and cooperation from what they feel are their former compatriots. They will stay for a week and go back on March 29."
Oerestad is Denmark’s media high school, Hansen said, and the students have paid for their own airfare to come to the territory and make a 25-minute documentary "about discovering St. Croix" as part of their studies.
"The idea is to let three, maybe four students be explorers of culture, history and nature, and try to have a look at all the details that make St. Croix worth a visit to Europeans and to Danes in particular," Hansen said. "They want to make a portrait of the island, both the official one with the sights and cultural and historical landmarks, and with some small and unexpected stories which illuminate the special character of the island."
That's where residents come in.
"Some of it could be in the form of sponsorships of experiences," Hansen said. "One idea is to go below the surface of the ocean and film the fantastic submarine life. So if a dive center would sponsor one or two dives, where one of the 'explorers' has a test dive, it would of great help, as the students have no money for any kind of expenses.
"In the same fashion, any kind of adventure (kayak sailing, rain forest trekking, bicycling, any kind of sightseeing, any kind of transportation to any site), would be very welcome. Of course we will credit the sponsor, which is all we can do."
The students want more than just the obvious tourist spots, though.
"Another kind of help could be in the shape of personal stories, small businesses who have grown out of St. Croix culture, people who would open their homes or farms or factories or workshops to one of the film crews. It would be of great interest to see how sugar canes are grown and harvested and used in production, to see small restaurants who would demonstrate local cooking, workshops who would demonstrate a local specialty or craft, etc.
"The only condition is that one or perhaps two of the young Danish explorers is allowed to participate actively in the process."
The documentary will be shown on dk4, Denmark’s cultural television channel, in September. The making of the documentary is part of the high school’s media profile, where the media students go on a "media camp" to a foreign country to produce a documentary. The teens are second-year students and around 18 years of age.
If you would like to help, you can contact the students by email, by phone at +45 2078 2500 or by leaving a message at the Danish Manor (340-773-1913), where the students will stay.
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