Vivian Norris de Montaigu

Vivian Norris de Montaigu

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Vivian Norris de Montaigu holds a PhD in Cinema Studies, having focused on on Globalization and Media. She has also worked creating bridges between the industry and education side of the film industry, lecturing on uses of cinema in the classroom, helping create a Film Studies program and organizing conferences linked to film festivals. She co-founded a festival which focus on cinema by women directors and has curated other festivals internationally. Dr. Norris de Montaigu works with the citizen video and photo news site demotix.com and is currently focused on alternative distribution and networking between NGOs, grassroots organizations, and others, in order to help audiences access vital content.

Her Texas and Louisiana roots, as well as her expat years in Europe and a great deal of extreme travel, have brought about an understanding of the impact media has, how it is viewed and absorbed by various cultures, who controls it, and how to begin to make both content and access more democratic. Having studied, worked and lived between the US and Europe for many years, she has observed and written about international approaches and solutions to various problems. After many years teaching, working with film, film festivals, women’s issues and non profits, she now combines her interests by producing on a feature film about the Social Business and poverty alleviation leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank.

Blog Entries by Vivian Norris de Montaigu

Bring Back Trust in Banking: Some Ideas from Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank

2 Comments | Posted September 23, 2008 | 12:24 PM (EST)


Next week, during the Clinton Global Initiative, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus, will be meeting with heads of state, CEOs of some of the world's largest corporations and many, many bankers from across the planet. While bankers in the West are presently worried about...

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An Expat's View of the Conventions: End of Summer in America and Back "Home" to Europe

1 Comments | Posted September 9, 2008 | 06:08 PM (EST)


Two weeks of bliss, sunsets that never end, farmers' markets, vineyards, children playing in the waves, the Democratic convention speeches on tv, fresh seafood, friends, conversations on the beach...and the knowledge that we will return next summer. This sums up my late August vacation on the East Coast of the...

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Gustav and Wild Turkey: New Orleans Hurricane Update by My Friend Jim Gabour

5 Comments | Posted August 30, 2008 | 06:48 PM (EST)


The first time I met Jim Gabour, it was at a party I hosted on a canal boat on the Seine in Paris... for the French Bicentennial almost twenty years ago. A bearded wild man throwing dubloons and Mardi Gras beads arrived at 1 AM from London and announced, "I...

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The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Already Here!

11 Comments | Posted August 26, 2008 | 08:09 PM (EST)


What do Snowmass, Colorado and the Cote d'Azur have in common? Just like the Texans who, when I was a child, were disliked in Colorado because they had bought up all the prime real estate for ski resorts, Russian tycoons are buying up select properties from some of the largest...

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Media Ownership for All: Citizen Journalism Grows Up

1 Comments | Posted August 21, 2008 | 08:02 AM (EST)


A few years ago I began spending more time in the U.S., after many years living and traveling abroad. I have always been a fan of the BBC and its calm, cool, and collected presenters. I trusted that the BBC was delivering to me vital information about the world. But...

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Goodbye Good Ole Boys, Hello Hollywood? How Will Obama Handle the Oil Industry?

15 Comments | Posted August 18, 2008 | 02:14 PM (EST)


Having grown up in Texas Bush oil country, and later living and working in and around entertainment and technology economies such as Seattle, Los Angeles and abroad, where a more liberal mind-set supports a future with Obama as the leader of choice, I keep trying to figure out how this...

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The Largest Onland Gas Field in the U.S.: The Haynesville Shale and My Father Was Right

5 Comments | Posted August 12, 2008 | 08:04 PM (EST)


My father can never stop talking about the small town in Northwest Louisiana, where he is from, to the point that when my parents were searching for a name for me, they named me after his hometown, Vivian, in Caddo Parish. There is a Piggly Wiggly, a Walmart, a First...

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Economic Colonization: The Rich Profiting from the Poor is Not the Way to Handle Microfinance

Posted June 30, 2008 | 11:10 AM (EST)


I have recently received requests to better explain how microfinance, specifically microcredit loans to the poor, has also become a "good" business for the more well-off humans on this planet. The point, as Nobel Peace Prize winner, Prof. Muhammad Yunus argues, is not to always look at financial profits and...

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A $200 Dollar Barrel of Oil Probably Won't Affect Me That Much -- Why? I Live in Europe

Posted June 29, 2008 | 06:40 PM (EST)


Let's see, I walk about an half hour to work, then jump in the metro for the last fifteen minutes. A yearly metro pass costs approximately $400 per year and my employer pays for it. If I feel like it, I can take a "Velib", a "free" bicycle, the yearly...

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Money: What Do Rich People Do When They No Longer Have It?

Posted June 16, 2008 | 07:01 PM (EST)


Having grown up in Houston, surrounded by the oil business, and the kinds of personalities which create both wildcatters and Baptist ministers, I guess I feel I know a thing or two about hyperbole. But what happens when those who struck gold, be it black gold, or fees on deals...

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Obama is an Expat's Dream Come True: The Son of a Global Citizen

Posted June 6, 2008 | 11:49 AM (EST)


In this globalizing world, there are those who operate in the spotlight, and those who work diligently to make it a better place, receiving next to no recognition. I work for a man, who for over thirty years, was known mostly to the poorest of the poor, and those who...

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Cannes 2008: Globalization and Cinema: Who Wins and Who Loses in the Entertainment War?

Posted May 29, 2008 | 02:15 PM (EST)


"There is only one thing in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Creations of the spirit are not just commodities; the elements of culture are not pure business. What is at...

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Cannes 2008: Indigenous Co-Productions, the Studios and the Future of International Cinema

Posted May 15, 2008 | 10:15 AM (EST)


Sitting at the American Pavillon in Cannes, I realize that very few of the people here are speaking English. The same goes for the beach terrace at the Majestic, the lobby of the Martinez and inside the Palais itself. The Opening Night statement, made by French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann --...

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$200 a Barrel Oil: It Could Go Much Higher!

Posted May 7, 2008 | 05:09 AM (EST)


I am recently back from a trip back to my home state of Texas, where former President George Sr. and Barb attend the Astros games and no one thinks twice about the adverts for Halliburton on the walls of the Minute Maid stadium (formerly known as the Enron stadium), unless...

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The Upside Down Banker: Banks Like Goldman Sachs in the US Are Listening to Muhammad Yunus

Posted April 19, 2008 | 02:52 PM (EST)


Recently I wrote about the French banks and companies which have been supporting Muhammad Yunus' microcredit and Social Business ideas with concrete projects and real investments...now a few words about some of the US financial institutions which have taking steps towards including these new models, and thus becoming more visionary...

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The Two Most Productive Hours I Have Ever Spent: Learning from Muhammad Yunus

9 Comments | Posted March 31, 2008 | 12:03 PM (EST)


Today was eye-opening to say the least. Muhammad Yunus is in Paris for the French release of his book entitled, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism...and spending two hours listening and exchanging with this visionary human being gives me more hope than anything...

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The Difference Between Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Credit Card Borrowers and Microcredit: "The Poor Always Pay Back"

Posted March 19, 2008 | 06:58 PM (EST)


Just look at the following article in the Wall Street Journal today entitled, "For Bankers, Trust Becomes a rare Commodity."

This is why trust needs to be brought back into the equation. The thing is, some banks still operate with large prfots and high payback rates...they...

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Grassroots Banking with Microcredit: Grameen and Credit Agricole

Posted February 20, 2008 | 09:19 PM (EST)


The front page of Saturday, February 16th's Financial Times announced that a Bangladeshi microcredit bank, Grameen, was coming to the aid of impoverished people in the United States. One of the poorest countries in the world has set up shop in Queens, New York to help extremely disadvantaged women and...

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Democrats Abroad: From the Global Primary in Paris

Posted February 6, 2008 | 12:21 PM (EST)


This crowd was much younger than those I used to see voting at the embassy twenty years ago. The generational change in the Democrats Abroad in Paris was actually very uplifting and the few older faces in the crowd were smiling because of it. Being an American in Paris with...

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Global Primary: Expats Get Out and Vote!

Posted February 3, 2008 | 08:47 PM (EST)


Last time around, many thousands of Americans living abroad, or simply out of the country at that time, filed for and did NOT receive their absentee ballots for the U.S. presidential elections. I myself filed several months in advance, stating and signing that I would be out of the country,...

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