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* The ''[[ferroses]]''
* The ''[[ferroses]]''
* [[Gianna Calderara]] and [[Giovanna Calderara]], spouse and sister-in-law of ex-[[Prime Minister of Gylias|Prime Minister]] [[Darnan Cyras]]
* [[Gianna Calderara]] and [[Giovanna Calderara]], spouse and sister-in-law of ex-[[Prime Minister of Gylias|Prime Minister]] [[Darnan Cyras]]
* [[Eiín Dairyn]], inaugural [[President of Gylias]]
* [[Tomoko Tōsaka]], inaugural Chair of the [[Gylian administrative agencies#Ministry of Culture|Arts Council]]  
* [[Tomoko Tōsaka]], inaugural Chair of the [[Gylian administrative agencies#Ministry of Culture|Arts Council]]  
* [[Audrey Epstein]], the "queen of Gylias' {{wpl|entertainment industry}}"
* [[Audrey Epstein]], the "queen of Gylias' {{wpl|entertainment industry}}"

Revision as of 10:33, 5 July 2022

Nation Building
GenreDocumentary
Directed byRasa Ḑeşéy
Country of originGylias
Original language(s)
No. of episodes8
Release
Original networkGTV3
Original release1 September –
8 September 1999

Nation Building is a Gylian documentary which aired on GTV3 in 1999. Directed by Rasa Ḑeşéy, it explores the Golden Revolution, including extensive interviews with participants.

Production

GTV3 looked to commission a documentary series about the Golden Revolution for 1998, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Liberation War's end. The producers were impressed by Rasa Ḑeşéy's showreel and intrigued by her background working on Popworld, and she was hired to direct. She decided on a direct cinema approach for the film, and stated in an interview: "I'd been aware of A New Kingdom, the DBS thing, but it was still a bit traditionalist for my taste. I used it to make a list of things I didn't want to have: no narration, no soundtrack, avoid rostrum camera as much as possible…"

Rasa worked on the series with a smaller crew than would later become her norm. She did a great deal of research herself, retrieving materials from the National Archives. She credited the ongoing digital preservation works of the National Archives with speeding up production, particularly the existence of transcripts with precise timings for archived footage.

Most of the production was taken up by filming interviews, both of people directly involved in the Golden Revolution and those who had experienced it. She often filmed interviews at participants' homes to ensure they were relaxed and comfortable. Interviews were used both in themselves and as voiceover audio over other footage. Several further interviews were added as participants became available, and post-production and editing further pushed back the release date. Rasa informed GTV3 the series wouldn't be ready for 1998, and it eventually aired in 1999.

Eight episodes were completed, covering a wide range of topics from the antecedents of the Golden Revolution, its varied impacts on Gylian society and especially popular culture, the ways it fell short of some participants' expectations (mainly anarchists), and why its legacy endures. Rasa acknowledged that "we couldn't cover everything in just a few episodes", reflected in the series' editing "loose ends" and cutaways. She felt happy with the series when it was completed, as it achieved its intended goals: "it was cheeky and it threw enough material at viewers to give them all kinds of possible topics to explore by themselves."

Notable interviewees

Those interviewed for the series included:

Many others who were either unavailable for interviews or dead were included in the film using clips from older interviews and home movies donated by family members. Makiko Nishida, then a minister in the Mathilde Vieira government, also appeared in place of her dead father, former transport minister Kōichi Nishida. Máiréad Ní Conmara declined to be interviewed entirely so as to allow audiences to remember her as she was in her prime, a decision Rasa respected.

Highlights included:

Violeta Andyriaḑe's interview yielded so much material that Rasa compiled an additional documentary, Flaming Redhead, for Proton.

Reception

Nation Building was a critical success upon airing, and became one of GTV3's highest-viewed programmes. It was praised for its cinéma vérité style and its heavyweight cast of interviewees.

The series began to be uploaded to Proton TV during its run, and was released on DVD shortly after it finished airing.

Gylias Review wrote that "In her quest to battle stodgy documentary formula, Rasa's cheeky and lively Nation Building inadvertently became one of the definitive accounts of the Golden Revolution, and perhaps one of the most appropriate to the task."