Rain in a Dry Land at VIFF (www.viff.org) |
by Jason Whyte
“Rain in a Dry Land is a riveting portrait of families in transition. After thirteen years in refugee camps, two Somali Bantu families arrive in twenty-first century America, a world as strange to them as the moon. Their poetry, humor, and amazing resilience shows us our own world through new eyes.” Anne Makepeace, director of “Rain in a Dry Land” which screens at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival (Sep. 28 – Oct. 13)
Is this your first film in the VIFF? Do you have any other festival experience? If you’re a festival veteran, let us know your favourite and least-favourite parts of the festival experience.
My film Baby It’s You played at the 1998 Vancouver Film Festival. Can’t remember if my film on Edward Curtis was in the festival – it is called Coming to Light and would have been shown in 2000. As well, possibly Robert Capa in Love and War in 2003.
Growing up, you were no doubt asked the eternal question “When I grow up I want to be a …” Finish this sentence, please!
A fireman. Or actually I guess, a firewoman.
While you were making the movie, were you thinking about the future release of the film, be it film festivals, paying customers, critical response, and so forth?
Not much. Making a film is so demanding that one can only think about the task at hand, trying to keep in mind how scenes will work in the editing whenever possible. In films like Rain, one is thinking constantly about where the heat in the scene is, where the camera should be pointing, which locations to go to (which of the kids’ schools when, home, Aden’s work, etc, which area I’m going on in real life simultaneously of course). Also worrying about overstepping bounds while filming extremely personal scenes, about keeping the relationship with the ‘subjects’ human and real, and all the other myriad realities of verite filmmaking. I really don’t think in terms of reviews or festivals. I just try to make the film as great as I can; one that I can love and be proud of.
How did this project come to fruition? If you could, please provide me with a rundown, start to finish, from your involvement.
A front page New York Times article on March 12, 2003 inspired me with a passionate commitment to make this documentary. I immediately began working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, the State Department, and the Joint Voluntary Agencies to make this project happen. After eight months, I was finally able to convince IOM to schedule families slated for Atlanta and Springfield in the same Cultural Orientation class in Kenya so that there would be a pool of people to choose from during the first shoot. With a grant from the Ceil and Michael Pulitzer Foundation, I took a crew of three people to Kenya in January 2004. The crew consisted of Joan Churchill on camera, her husband Alan Barker on sound, and Dina Hossain as associate producer. Joan’s son Barney Broomfield volunteered on the production and shot second unit footage.
After a somewhat rocky beginning at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, the Somali Bantu community welcomed us and gave us complete access to everything in the camp. We were fortunate to find the families mentioned above, one bound for Atlanta and the other for Springfield, who were eager to participate and who were very much at ease in front of the camera. We filmed them for two weeks in their homes, in adult literacy classes, in soccer games, healing dances, and in their Cultural Orientation class. We also filmed them telling harrowing stories of murder and rape in Somalia and talking about their hopes for America. These people are heartbreakingly beautiful, completely open to the filming process, surprisingly natural in front of the camera, and eager to participate.
In late February I received the news that the families were about to come to America. This was a difficult moment. Reaching into savings and calling in favors, I flew to Nairobi on March 6 and met up with Barney Broomfield, who had shot second camera in January. We filmed the refugees’ last three days in Kakuma, including Adan and Madina’s wild nighttime departure party lit by Coleman lanterns and the headlights of a security-patrol jeep, Arbai’s more stately departure dance, and poignant good-byes to relatives and friends they may never see again.
We flew with Adan and Madina’s family to Nairobi, filming their flight and first experience of a modern city in a disjointed way to reflect the refugees’ amazement and disorientation. On March 17 we boarded a charter of three-hundred Somali Bantu refugees and filmed the family’s flight to America. They weathered the trip amazingly well, and were very excited when they saw the frozen mainland of North America.
Joan Churchill met us at Newark airport to take over the shooting for the next two weeks. We filmed the five-hour limousine ride to Hartford, where the refugees were met by Somali staff members from Jewish Family Services and taken to temporary housing in Springfield provided by a Catholic church – a wonderfully diverse scene of Muslims sponsored by a Jewish organization staying in a former nunnery. The refugees were happy to be in America, despite freezing temperatures, strange food, inexplicable canned goods and kitchen apparatus, and confusing interactions with neighbors.
In early April, Joan and I flew to Atlanta to meet Arbai’s family as they landed from Nairobi. They spent their first week at the home of evangelical Presbyterians, another unique experience. In addition to the scenes mentioned in the treatment (arrival at the airport, watching The Lion King, etc.) we filmed Arbai, her daughters, and the Somali translator in an intense discussion of female genital mutilation, an unfortunate cultural practice of the Somali Bantu, which is illegal here.
Later that month, I returned to Springfield to film the children’s first school days. The younger ones immediately found American friends, while the older boys stayed close to their two Somali Bantu classmates, unsure of how to connect to the other students. Their ESL class was especially lively, with refugees and immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Bosnia. These classmates are potentially a rich source of friendships for the boys, and of stories for the documentary.
With grants from the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and ITVS, we continued to film with the families in Springfield and Atlanta through September 2005, capturing moments of struggle and difficulty as well as humor and poignancy as they navigated their way in this strange new land. Aden, a farmer in Somalia, finally got a job as a landscaper and carpenter; and Arbai, through a Goodwill Industries training program, is now working as a janitor at the Georgia State Archives. The younger children are doing well in school, as is Sahara, Arbai’s wild daughter, while the Springfield schools have failed Aden and Madina’s teenage boys, dashing their hopes for an education.
Our last shoot in Springfield was the naming ceremony of Aden and Madina’s first-born American child, Jahora Aden Kabir, a joyful moment of celebration. In September, the beautiful wedding that Arbai gave her daughter Khadija , a wildly colorful affirmation of family bonds and culture.
Since its completion, Rain in a Dry Land has been screened at many festivals, including the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, NC, where the film won the prestigious 2006 Full Frame Film Festival's Working Films Award; Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, the Atlanta International Film Festival, the United Nations Documentary Film Festival, the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and the Fire Island Golden Wagon Film Festival where it won Best of the Festival Golden Wagon Award. Upcoming screenings in September, October, and November include the Maragret Mead Film Festival, the Tri Continental Film Festival in Cape Town, South Africa, Denver International Film Festival, Denver, St Louis Film Festival, and the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
What was the biggest challenge in the production of the movie, be it principal photography or post-production?
Everything.
Please tell me about the technical side of the film; your relation to the film’s cinematographer, what the film was shot on and why it was decided to be photographed this way.
Rain in a Dry Land is a classic cinema verité film, and Joan Churchill is one of the best verité shooter in the world. Her son Barney Broomfield also shot a lot of the film. We shot on digital video with a PD 150 – light, portable, unobtrusive, and looks great.
Talk a bit about the festival experiences, if any, that you have had with this particular film. Have you had any interesting audience stories or questions that have arisen at screenings?
Full Frame was wonderful, especially with the great surprise of winning the Working Films Award for the film most likely to affect social change. Human Rights Watch Film Festival was another terrific experience; great venue, five screenings with mostly full houses at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. To describe them all would take a book.
Who would you say your biggest inspirations are in the film world (directors, actors, cinematographers, etc)? Did you have any direct inspirations from filmmakers for this film in particular?
Satyajit Ray, Kurosawa, Pennebaker, Wiseman.
How far do you think you would want to go in this industry? Do you see yourself directing larger stories for a larger budget under the studio system, or do you feel that you would like to continue down the independent film path?
I am very happy making documentaries large and small.
If you weren’t in this profession, what other career do you think you would be interested in?
None.
Do you think that you have “made it” in this profession yet? If you don’t believe so, what do you think would happen for that moment to occur?
It has occurred many times.
How important do you think the critical/media response is to film these days, be it a large production, independent film or festival title?
Very helpful in getting the word out.
If your film could play in any movie theatre in the world, which one would you choose?
It already played at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade during the Human Righs Watch Festival, so I’d say that is one of my favourites. Other than that, there are too many to mention.
Do you have an opinion on the issue of “A Film by (Insert Director Here)” ? Is this something you use? Many people collaborate to make a film yet simultaneously, the director is the final word on the production.
It’s always collaborative but in documentary, it’s the writer/producer/director who is with the film from beginning to end and “a fim by” is usually well-earned.
No doubt there are a lot of aspiring filmmakers at film festivals who are out there curious about making a film of their own. Do you have any advice that you could provide for those looking to get a start?
If there’s anything else in the world you’d be happy doing…do it. Filmmaking is enormously stressful and income insecure. However, if you have the bug and nothing else matters, you are in for a joyful, crazy, difficult ride so hold on. And the best advice is, however you can do it, just go out and make a film.
And finally…what is your all time favourite motion picture, and why?
Dersu Uzala by Kurosawa. It’s a beautiful film.
Besides playing at the VIFF, Rain in a Dry Land will have its broadcast premiere on PBS on the great independent documentary series, P.O.V., in 2007 and shortly thereafter in Canada on CBC News World.
The 25th Vancouver International Film Festival runs from September 28th to October 13th, 2006. To see when this film is playing, and for more information on other screenings, happenings and what is going on at this year’s VIFF, point your browser to viff.org. – Jason Whyte, jasonwhyte@efilmcritic.com
link directly to this feature at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=1967
originally posted: 10/06/06 05:29:51
last updated: 10/06/06 05:31:11
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