The Australian - REEL TIME, by Sandy George - April 11, 2007
Today Media Man Australia met and interviewed star of The Third Wave, Donny Patterson
Donny and the film have received significant press. Please find a small sample below.
NEWCASTLE man Donny Patterson spent six months in 2005 helping Sri Lankans from the village of Peraliya, which was swept away in the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Next week the former army engineer will go to New York's Tribeca Film Festival to see The Third Wave, a 90-minute documentary following four volunteers including Patterson. He flew to Sri Lanka without a plan but met the film's New York-based Australian director Alison Thompson, then a stranger, at a baggage carousel at Colombo's airport. They and two others pooled resources, filled a hire van with food and medical supplies, and drove down the coast. They helped 1000 people daily and were still collecting bodies five months later. Thompson didn't have time to do much filming, but she handed her camera around for others to use, including local kids. Fellow New York University film graduate Morgan Spurlock, who made fast-food film Super Size Me, subsequently gave her the money to edit the 250 hours, which resulted in a film. "The message of this film is that whether you are a stripper, an accountant or a lawyer, you can make a difference," says Thompson, who set up an early warning tsunami warning centre while in the country. She started out as a teacher in Sydney and became an investment banker when she moved to New York. She volunteered to help in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, in which she lost friends. She resolved then only to make films with a humanitarian purpose. In October, with Spurlock's backing, she will go to Darfur in Sudan with a camera operator and a bodyguard.
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